House

Our first full payslip arrived on Thursday and it was a decent enough amount to justify us being here, so we will be stopping for another couple of weeks. That should give us a good chunk of cash to take us through the next month or two.

In other exciting developments, we've moved out of the campsite and into a house with a couple that we met at work. They've only just moved in themselves so there isn't much furniture, but it's still like luxury to us and they do have an enormous telly. It's colour too!

A group of us are off to one of the lookouts today for a bbq and a few beers, and then tomorrow it's back to work.

Quick update

Still in Gayndah, still working. We did more than 70 hours this week but there is an end in sight. Thursday is payday and we've decided that if it's not enough to justify working our arses (and spines) off then we'll bugger off. If it's not too bad then we'll do another week and that should give us a good wedge to take up north.

It's Charlotte's birthday today! We were looking forward to sleeping beyond the 5.45am alarm clock this morning and so were quite shocked to hear the phone going off at exactly that time with Charlotte's first birthday message of the day. We went back to sleep for another 5 hours though so it wasn't too bad...

We've had a fairly quiet day as there isn't much to do here in glorious Gayndah. We had a nice fry up with some of our campervan neighbours and then went up to one of the lookouts that overlook the town, trying not to run over the dozen or so kangaroos up there.

The rest of the day will probably be spent relaxing and enjoying our day off, and Charlotte will be eating her birthday treat - a big bar of chocolate. And it is a treat as chocolate bars are more than twice the price of the UK, so we rarely get them.

Sadly there is not much else to report. Bugger. Hope everyone is lovely!

Back Packers

Don't worry, we're still alive and well. We got ourselves some work in a fruit packing shed starting last Saturday, and we're working from 7am until 5pm, 6 days a week. We literally go to work as the sun comes up and then arrive home as it goes down.

It's tremendously exciting work as I'm sure you can all imagine. The good thing is that the campsite is full of people doing exactly the same as us so there's a nice community atmosphere (and plenty of beer being drunk on everybody's one day off).

Gayndah itself is a real country town and we met some of the locals in the pub last night. They're terrifying. Especially on karaoke night. There's not much to do here although there are three pubs. It's pretty remote here as well, illustrated by the fact that today we needed to go and do a bit of shopping and it was a two hour drive to the nearest place with a decent number of shops.

Finally, thanks for the happy birthday messages from everyone. We began the day with a trip to Mt. Debatable - a big hill which overlooks the area (they often call big hills Mt. something here) - for a bowl of cereal and then spent most of the rest of the day drinking beer and meeting our neighbours. It seems I am the oldest person here.

We bought ourselves a tiny b/w camping telly today to try and catch some of the footy and the GP, but since we'll be working again tomorrow it's unlikely we'll see much unfortunately. Still, come on England!

Work!

...almost.

We're in the gloriously named Gayndah now. It's a little town in the middle of nowhere with about an hours drive to the nearest big place. We're here because we were told there is work here and we were told right. The campsite we're staying at find work picking the citrus round here (it's the citrus capital of Queensland) for their residents so we've signed up and are just waiting for the farmers now.

We're in between orange picking times at the moment but within a week or two we should be out there, getting sunburnt and exhausted for a pittance.

In the meantime, we've had a cracking time since the last update. Despite Kev's mother worrying about the Dingoes we had to do Fraser Island, and we had a night there on a guided trip with the Fraser Explorer company. It was absolutely superb, and one of the best things we've done in Australia.

We'll have to be super brief here as the internet in this little place is rather expensive, so this will be a summary of the trip.

We drove up to Hervey Bay after Gympie. Rather than sit around and wait for the work we decided to do Fraser Island and then earn the money afterwards, and we're glad we did. We found ourselves a great little caravan park at Pt. Vernon in Hervey Bay with a TV room (the Monaco GP was on). Unfortunately it turned out that the TV room shut at 9.30, and the Grand Prix wasn't on until 10.30 so we had a chat with the owner Rob, and he found us a portable telly. So we sat in the van and Kev stayed up watching the Grand Prix. Excellent stuff.

Rob also helped us pick the best trip for Fraser Island. There are backpacker ones where they basically cram 11 people into a Toyota Landcruiser and one of them drives. You sleep 3 to a tent on the beach. It was the cheapest option but the risk of getting in a group with arseholes in it was high, so we went for the more civilised guided choice.

We got the ferry across to the island on Tuesday morning and went straight to Central Station, the former hub of the old logging industry on the island. We walked along a freshwater creek (mmm... nice water) to Pile Valley which is a rainforest area. The island has huge diversity which is one of the things that makes it so special.

We got back in our big 4WD bus and went to the resort we would be spending the night at for some lunch, then it was across to the east side of the island for a drive up 75 mile beach. We were offered the option of a short joy flight over the island and the price was too good to miss. We took off from the beach and flew over all the major sights. It was a great experience.

After landing on the beach and getting back on the bus we were heading up to a rocky point called Indian Head when we saw some humpback whales off the coast. This was the first day they'd been spotted in the area as the season hasn't really started yet, so it was a great surprise. We got to see them leaping about and waving to us, while Patrick - our guide - tried to convince us that the whales can hear you and that we had to make whale noises. We didn't fall for it, but he said the Americans usually do.

We passed Indian Head to see a place not on the itinerary called Champagne Pools. It's the only place on this side of the island that you can swim without fear of tiger sharks, so we had a splash around for a short time and headed back down the island to Indian Head. This is a high cliff edge, and from there you can see the turtles, sharks, manta-rays and everything else in the ocean below. It was incredibly peaceful - there were a lot of people there but almost nobody spoke.

On the journey back down the beach we were met by a couple of dingoes, so we stopped to get pictures. They're not particularly scary and as long as we didn't harass them, they weren't very interested in us. They had a run round the beach and then disappeared back into the bush, and since we had stopped we all went digging for clams for a little race. You plop them on the sand and after a while they poke their little tongues out and dig themselves back under. Very amusing.

On the way back to the resort we stopped at the coloured sand cliffs and at the shipwreck of the SS Maheno. It's been on the beach since 1935 and during WW2 it was used as target practice by the RAAF, so there isn't a lot left of it but it was still interesting to see as the sun went down.

After dinner there were a few free beers for us so we exploited those and retired for the night. We saw a dingo running off with somebody's flip-flop but that was as dangerous as they got during our time there.

The second day was a lot more relaxed. It was off across a large and spectacular sand blow to Lake Wabby for a cold swim with the catfish in the morning, and then in the afternoon to Lake MacKenzie. The latter is an absolutely pure water lake, there are no minerals or anything in it so it is perfectly clear and you can drink it (it is full of tourists half the time though so drinking the water wasn't too appealing).

It's a beatiful location, with pure white sand and the crystal lake. It was a freshwater version of Jervis Bay in a way. Very nice.

It was a superb place and we were quite sad to leave. Now we have to work so our updates will probably be few and far between for the next few weeks.

You can ring us to wish us both happy birthday!