Sunshine Coast

Hi all--- We're having an amazing time in Australia so far! From Brisbane, we took the bus up to a town called Maroochydore so that we could climb Mt. Coolum, the 2nd highest monolith in oz (after Ayers rock). We hiked to the top, climbed at Coolum Caves, and then camped (illegally) in Mt. Coolum National Park. We then took the bus to Noosa--we saw a wild koala while hiking in Noosa Heads National Park and camped at the most beautiful caravan park, right on the Noosa River--we were literally camped on the bank of the river which looks like a tropical paradise with white sand beaches, tourquoise water, and palm trees. Overall, Australia is way more beautiful and tropical than we expected! From a hostel in Rainbow beach, we did a self-drive, 4X4 camping safari trip to Fraser Island--the world's largest sand island and a world heritage site. We went to Lake Wabby, a sand dune lake and had fun driving on very intense, narrow, off-road tracks with 6 other really cool people from around the world. After 3 days and 2 nights on Fraser Island, we returned to Rainbow Beach and fed wild dolphins (It was Jenelle's first time seeing dolphins in the wild and she thought it was awesome)! We are now in Hervey Bay and our internet time is up so more to come :-)

howdy mates

Our first day in Brisbane was great. We explored the city and went rock climbing at kangaroo point next to the Brisbane river. To get to the climbing area we took a ferry to a small park in the downtown area. The climbs are illuminated by lights so its possible to climb at night. We bought a 45 day (hop on and off) bus ticket to travel up the coast from here to Cairns. The trip up the coast begins soon.

made it to "oz"

Hi all-- We arrived in Brisbane, Australia this morning after the longest flight of our lives. We departed from Billings on the 12th at 2:30, flew through Denver where we got to hang out with my best friend Heidi, then flew to LA where we caught our flight to AUS. Heidi upgraded us to 1st class for the 1st two flights so that was awesome. We flew to AUS on Virgin Australia and the flight was awesome except for the fact that it was 14 HOURS! With a flight that long and the time difference, we completely lost a day and arrived here today, the 14th. Our flight was actually to Sydney, but we got off in Brisbane for a layover and decided to stay because we were headed that way anyway. I had originally saw that our flight went through Brisbane and tried to book to there instead of Sydney but it was actually more expensive--weird how that works--so we just got off here anyway and it worked well. Next we are planning to head to the Great Barrier Reef and do some scuba diving!! We are really excited to be here. For any of you in Sydney, we'll be there at the end of our time in AUS so we'll see you then :-)