Crikey!

The Sunshine Coast beckoned and who were we to let it down ;)

Hervey Bay was the first port of call and we had glorious weather so headed the nearest bottle shop to treat ourselves to a couple of cold ones. We sat on the beach, enjoyed the heat and gazed on as the sun began to set... lovely !

Continuing south, we spent plenty-a-day just chillin' on beaches and taking the odd wander into little townships to enjoy the coffee shops, locals and of course the lolly bags! We are sooooo addicted to them :0

We met some lovely folk en route, especially Mel & Kate who were kind enough to share a big box of red wine with us... needless to say, a thick head and early night was had by all, but nothing that porridge's the next day couldn't cure! Big hi to M&K :)

In order to break the sun worshipping up a bit we arranged a couple of little excursions for ourselves. The first one was the extremely kitsch 'Big Pineapple', which, is basically a pineapple and macadamia plantation with a hoooge, big pineapple outside!!

However, we heard it was meant to be pretty cool so we tootled along and it was! We started with a rain forest tour in a giant macadamia nut (!) followed by a steam train journey through the pineapple plantation.

We then stopped at the sites little farm and got to stroke a koala and hand feed some kangaroos, goats, llamas, sheep, geese and donkey! It was brill, if not a little bit messy :) However, it wasn't as messy as the lovely big parfait we slurped on later at the on-site cafe ;)

And then, CRIKEY! we were at Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo!We had both always really admired Steve Irwin and when we heard of his death 10 months ago we were really, really gutted. However, we were both so excited to be heading to the zoo, but we were quite worried about how saddening it may be too :( But, on leaving the zoo at the end of the day we were both unanimous in saying that it was one of our best days so far in all our travels!

Whilst we had some amazing moments watching the croc shows and the SI video funnies, holding a giant 4 metre Burmese Python, stroking a baby alligator, hand feeding elephants etc, we were just amazed at how fantastic the zoo and everybody's passion for it was. Steve Irwin deffo lives on at Oz Zoo and his work is continuing, which is Ripper! Still, it didn't stop us feeling a bit bleary eyed when we saw all the condolences that had been sent in for the family from all over the world. Awesome day though and we can heartily say... CROCS RULE! As indeed does Steve Irwin :)

Next, we headed onto Brisbane and whilst very nice was just another city really. However, we still found time to catch up on UK gossip from various magazines over a coffee at Borders.

Then, we were on the Gold Coast and our first stop was Surfer's Paradise. We had heard that it was built up around there, but the high rise backdrop was still a bit of a shocker and made it akin to being on holiday in Spain a little, which wasn't a bad thing as we enjoyed a night out like real tourists :) with some old NZ friends Gary and Joanne. However, the curse of Gary and Jo continued as after a few drinks Matt was rather ill... again!

We're currently in Byron Bay which on first sights looks lovely and we're looking forward to exploring some more....... soon be Asia though, and we cant wait :)