G'day guys, how ya goin?

I'm goin pretty good. Sitting in a cafe in Byron Bay.

Well, Airlie beach didn't look so bad in the daylight, and I managed to book onto the same package as my friend Alex so at about 3pm we went down to the marina to find our boat. Our boat was called Jade and was skippered by a weatherbeaten old ozzie who's philosophy seemed to be "at sea, anything goes..." I can't really think of a lot to say about the trip. We spent the days lying around on thre deck of our catamaran, snorkelling in the crystal clear waters, visiting blinding white beaches etc, and the nights getting horribly drunk and sprawling in jaccuzis.

After our sailing trip, we got the bus down to Rainbow beach where we were doing an organised trip to Fraser Island. Now this is damn cool and I highly recommend it to anyone. Here's the jist of it:

take 10 young travellers, give them a 4x4 landcruiser, some tents, a load of food with an day by day menu of what to eat, an itinery of where to go and what to do, and then send them off in the direction of the ferry, via the off-licence..... :)

It was a bit like "Survivor - Fraser Island" crossed with "The Amazing Race 7 - Bickering Backpackers", but I enjoyed it all.. :) Needless to say, my driving skills were top-notch. On the first day, I was driving back along the beach and the tide was coming in fast. We had about 10 mins left to find the camp site and tensions were running high in the group. We had been told by the organisers and rangers that everytime we approached a "washoff" (stream/river running out to sea over the sand), we should send someone out to check how deep it it and how high the edge is. We did this for the first, but it was a waste of time as it was really shallow. As we approached the second washoff, I thought "fuck, this one looks quite deep" and I looked at my co-driver, who would be the one who had to wade out into it. "Just go for it" he said, and without another thought, i did. We flew off the edge of the bank, which turned out to be about 2 feet abover the water, and nose dived into the water, which turned out to be about 3 feet deep. The water came crashing up into the windscreen and for a good second i couldn't see a thing except water, and images of ppl passing our jeep stuck nose first in a river bed kept sneaking into my head. Luckily however, i was going pretty fast, and the momentum pulled my through the river and I revved up the other bank. But everything was soaked with salty water, which is one of the few things you are NOT allowed to do or your insurance is screwed. But fuckit, how were they gonna tell eh? The car kept going so i was happy, and my passengers forgave me pretty quickly, cos lets face it, living safely is boring, getting fucked up sucks, but living dangerously and not getting fucked up, now that's FUN! :D