Who's Harry Krishna?

Ahhh thanks guys it's nice to come back to some comments. You'll be sad to hear that straw hat bit the dust.

I have got SO much to tell you I don't know where to start. Not many pictures unfortunately but the reasons for that will become evident. So, basically, Australia is having it's worst weather in 40 years (the time period varies depending who you ask). Or so we are being told. We are beginning to wonder if the whole sunny Australia thing is a clever tourism myth, some sort of global joke. Apart from a few days in sydney and Melbourne it has rained perpetually since we got here. Queensland (where we are now) has been hit by cyclones, widespread floods and all the roads are closed. It's all quite funny. Keep that in your head as a backdrop to the following...

We stayed in Byron bay for a few days to chill out. Byron bay is a cool hippy town so it was definitely a good place to recharge. There was a shop offering to paint you as a fairy but we never got round to it. We had a bit of a laugh taking the piss out of some capoera dancers, I'm sorry, I have come round slightly to Yoga now I've discovered one of my best friends is a yoga teacher, but capoera is taking things too far (if you haven't come across it before it's a "martial art" that blends fighting and breakdancing; sounds cool; isn't). During the 5 days we were in Byron there was a brief few hours of sun so I went surfing and I Think zoe walked to the lighthouse. We had a giant dinosaur living in our garden, who we named Cooper. We also watched Fool's Gold which has very few redeeming features but is possibly worth seeing for Ray Winstone's Deep South (America) accent.

From Byron we moved north to Hervey bay which was the base for our Fraser Island Adventure. And it was quite an adventure, let me tell you. It's a big (100mile long) island made entirely of sand and rainforest and the idea is you hire a 4x4, buy some food, get the ferry, and spend 3 days bombing up and down the beaches and through the forests. The problem is you have to cook, drive, camp and co-operate with a group of complete strangers which would normally be fine, but we got stuck with some totally ineffectual 19 year old Germans & Belgians who were just far too young to look after themselves. And they were all too young to drive, so between 11 of us there were only two of us driving, me and a girl called emma from Southampton who was LOVELY and made it all worthwhile. Anyway, we (I) managed to burst a tyre 15 minutes into the journey, on some sort of jungle root, which was quite funny. Despite this we managed to get to the other side of the island and set up camp. We made sure we camped with the other vans so we had some nice people to talk to.
At this point the weather totally collapsed, and all our carefully erected tents along the beach (this was the view - it was very remote) started to leak. We managed to get 3 of the vans together and strapped up a ground sheet between them. In time honoured tradition, to ignore the fact we were wet and cold, we all got drunk. This proved to be a mistake because we forgot to put the rubbish in the van so our camp was invaded by dingoes at4/5am which was about the same time all the tents fell apart and flooded. Waking up in a howling gale surrounded by flat tents and dingoes was a really cool experience.
It all got better from here, despite a second burst tyre. The weather didn't improve and the tents were so f*cked we checked into a lodge for the second night. This meant we got to have a shower and a proper feed. Unfortunately by this point my camera was beyond repair but hopefully I can steal some other people's off facebook at a later date. What I can show you is the nice lake , the main road at its busiest, and a parrot. Oh and the two drivers, me and Emma, and of course Zoe Driver.

So we made it back to the mainland in one piece and were confronted with loads of horror stories about the floods and some tourists being winched off a boat etc. We were booked on a bus going North (right into the middle of it all) to get on a boat to the whitsunday islands. Not wise, but we decided to go anyway. We were really lucky - there was a cyclone and some of the buses just before and after ours got stuck along the way, or flooded, but ours made it through by some miracle although it took 24 hours instead of 14. And when we got there we discovered all the boats had been cancelled, (alot were all smashed up) except one; a racing yacht called "Spank Me" (groan) which was the only one capable of sailing in such bad weather. Being the intrepid people we are we transferred onto it, leaving our nice comfortable catamaran with a lounge and bar safely in the harbour. I'm SO glad we did it, it was amazing and we met such an ace group of people. Basically we spent 3 days reliving "The Perfect Storm", drinking cheap wine out of a bag, and not being dry once. I went scuba diving for the first time ever, at the Great Barrier Reef, which was a very proud moment, I have a certificate to prove it.

I didn't take many photos because my (new) camera was getting soaking wet and all the pictures I did take are generally of us all getting pissed and drawing on ourselves with luminous zinc sticks. But here are the photos anyway. Here's the boat. Here's Driver driving. These are our new friends Theresa and Philippa and here we are with our sunblock on. This is our captain biting his nails which is never a good sign and here he is trying to fix the generator, a key moment in all our memories. This is the boat that the tourists were winched off (see above). this is Tara modelling the bedroom that 12 of us had to fit in (You can actually see all 12 beds in that photo). This is everyone winding up the sails and here we all are drunk.

I think I've just run out of time on the internet so I had better go, but just to finish off - we are stranded in Airlie beach and all the buses are cancelled and the airport closed. There is 3 METRES of rain predicted tonight, and somehow we have to get to Cairns in 2 days, wish us luck...