When I had woken up I started to take photos of the amazing surrounding (right in front of the sea), so absolutely staggering! 🙂

Then I went to wash up  the dishes in the sea, because we forgot to take water with us for dish-washing :/. It took me quite a long time, but since I was awake from 5 am, it was no problem. Then we had breakfast ( oats with banana slices and water) yummy! 😀

At 7 am we packed our stuff and continued our way to the ferry. 🙂 We had good fun on our way  Just have a look at the videos 🙂

It took us an hour to get to the ferry. On the road we found some 4 WD’s already been stucked in the sand. So we stopped and  tried to help them to get their stucked cars out of the sand. (push, push and push) 🙂 I tried so very hard, manpower of five guys together, but my group was waiting, we had to be in time for the ferry, and so  I left the guys, very exhausted, to continue our trip.

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At 10 pm we arrived at  Fraser Island and started immediately to drive along the beach. 🙂 Have a look at the photos and  you can imagine why the trip would be funny and full of adventures. 🙂 All of us were in a very good mood, looking forward to discover this perfect and beautiful Fraser Island. I only hoped that we wouldn’t  get stuck. 🙂

We started to drive to Lake Garawongera, because we thought it would be an attraction and a ‚must‘ to have seen the lake, but it wasn’t, it was disappointing. Nevertheless, we went for a swim, and at about  midday we decided to go on and drive to the Maheno shipwreck (because of the tide times 12:57 and 18:57, we had to be careful when and where to stop.

At 12 pm we met Nadja (a German 22- year- old girl) with her Mitsubishi Pajero. We packed  our luggage into her car ( Jan and I shared his backpack) and started our tour to Rainbow Beach (our destination for today). To get there we had to catch a „ferry“ ( a transporter on a wire). As soon as we had arrived at Rainbow Beach, Nadja switched the gear to 4 wheeldrive and we started our tour along the beach ( it’s very hard to drive in the sand, she told us, and  only experienced drivers can handle this without getting stuck :/) But she is a good driver 🙂 At 5 pm we found our camping place and started to build up our tent.

 (A  6-person- tent). Then  we prepared our dinner (noodles with tomatoe sauce) and a salad and after that we went to sleep. We would have to wake up early in the morning to get our ferry ( it is due to start to Fraser Island at 8 am :/ )

After we had spent one night at Ben’s house (couchsurfing-host, who lives near Brisbane), we went on  to Noosa Heads ( 2 hours drive ). There we went to the beach, sunbathed, read books and went for a swim.

Then we returned to the car and realized, that the car didn’t get started anymore (l had left the lights on) :/ So we tried to find somebody, who could help us with jump leads. Luckily we found a young guy, who could offer us his help  and five minutes later our car was ready to get started again. 🙂 🙂 Then we drove around to load the battery and after about 15 minutes stopped to check, whether the car would start again:. … Bad luck on Halloween, it didn’t . 🙁 So we asked for the next „Supercheap Auto“. There I checked the type of my car’s  battery  and decided to buy a new one for 189 Dollars ( quite expensive :/). Never mind.

Then I succeeded to remove the old battery and fix the new one with the help of some tools from the shop . 🙂 🙂 Then the car started regularly again. It was 8 pm and we had to look for a place to sleep for the night (on Halloween … strange feeling without you guys . We decided to sleep in the car and I gave Johannes my tent to sleep in (same situation as before: 3 guys, one car, but this time I am sleeping in the car :))

The next day we decided to drive to the Australian Zoo to see the animals, we had already seen in wild nature,  in pens or enclosures. 🙂 Just check the photos hope you enjoy them guys

holding a salt water crocodile^^

sitting next to a lizard

stroking a kangaroo 😀

stroking a koala 😛

After breakfast we decided to visit the man-made beach. We took some beautiful photos there, went for a swim and sunbathed in the lovely sun.

At 11 pm we picked up Johannes (a German guy from Karlsruhe) to share with him the petrol costs and to visit Fraser Island together. 🙂 We arrived at the Golden Beach in Caloundra and wanted to snorkel, but we didn’t, because we got a warning from citizens because of sharks. So we drove to the next barbecue ( they are all along the coast for free ) 😉 and enjoyed a wonderful dinner. 🙂 Then we went on to look for a sleeping place.

The next day we said goodbye to Leo and Tom and returned to our car in Cleveland.

Then we drove to the Queensland transport shop to transfer the name of the carholder to our names. 🙂 Then we sent some requests for couchsurfing-places and were successful. An older man answered that he wanted to meet us at 7 pm in front of the City Hall in Brisbane. He wrote, that he would like to show us around, invite us for food and drinks, and even pay the parking fee for us. We couldn’t believe it and thought he wanted to make fun of us or something like this. :/ In the end we decided to go and meet him. After 5 minutes waiting, he arrived in front of the City Hall. 🙂 He asked, what we wanted to eat and I said „steak“ or „seafood“. 🙂 So he took us to a restaurant near the Brisbane River (with the best view over the river and the Brisbane Bridge). We enjoyed such a tasty dinner. I had garlic prawns with French fries, white wine, vegetables served on rice. The restaurant was so expensive and exclusive there weren’t even prices in the menu. 🙂

Then he gave us the money for the parking fee and for some nights in a hostel, said that it was nice, having met us and took a cab. 🙂 We were so lucky and stuffed, it was a dream. 🙂 An unknown person just invited us to a wonderful dinner and paid everything for us. This night we spent about 10 kilometres away from Brisbane in a suburb in the front-seats of our car. 🙂

Today our couchsurfing hosts took us to a beach, where we could snorkel. At first we were a bit scared because of the sharks, but then we actually did it, and I took some photos with my underwater camera. 🙂 After we had snorkelled we jumped from a little bridge and had a lot of fun. The beach, the bay and the landscape looked so beautiful it was really  amazing. 🙂

As soon as we were awake after a rather sleepness night in our tent, I decided to look for a shower. 🙂 Luckily I found one at a caravan park next to our tent ( it was open because of the huge music festival which was to open this weekend on Stradbroke Island)

After I had had a shower we packed all our stuff (not much) and hitchhiked to the beach. 🙂 A young couple from Australia, who have come over for the music festival, gave us a lift in their  very small car. 🙂 After we had arrived at the beach, we started to walk the North Gorge track with our backpacks.

We saw a kangaroo family and some whales on our way.

We spotted a lot of nice places to camp but decided to keep on walking, because it would have been  too dangerous (e.g. in front of a cliff^^). We were just going to settle down in the wilderness again, when Leonardo (the booked couchsurfing-host) called us and invited us to his apartment. After we had had our lunch, we walked along the road to hitchhike to his apartment.

We were lucky and a very friendly man with his daughter picked us up and gave us a lift to the „whale watch ocean resort“, our new home. Very beautiful view, our own room and so friendly hosts (Leonardo and Tom). The two guys told us, that we should feel like being at home, could do whatever we wanted, and stay as long as we wanted. 🙂 🙂 Heaven again? 😛 We were also told that it was not good to go snorkelling that day, it would be better to wait till the next day, and then go to the South Gorge. 🙂 So first of all we took a nap in our comfortable new room. 🙂

Parking in Brisbane is very expensive. We had to pay 4 dollars/hour. That was too much, we can’t afford a lifestyle like this. So we decided to head for North Stradbroke Island by ferry. When we just had arrived at Cleveland to catch a ferry, we realized, that it was too late. The last ferry had gone at 7:55 pm, we arrived  at 8:00 pm :/ Damn it! So we went to the shops and parked our car at a carpark and  prepared for the night. It was our second night in the car, and both of us slept very well. The next morning we relaxed in the sun, played darts and enjoyed ourselves.

At 3:25 pm we caught the ferry to Stradbroke Island (15 AUD each for a return ticket, quite cheap :D) and we arrived at the island at 4:00 pm. We thought it is a small island, but after we had talked to a man on the ferry, we learnt that we were wrong:  Stradbroke Island has got 2000 inhabitants. 🙂

That is not much, but definitely not an island to walk along carrying backpacks all the way.:) So I decided to  hitchhike again, and Jan couldn’t believe it, but the third of three cars stopped. An old man, Peter, picked us up. Once, about 3o years ago, he had been working in Düsseldorf for a shipping company.

After we had jumped into his car, he asked us, where we wanted to go. Our answer was „we don’t know, haha, somewhere where we can camp for free“. He showed us a place, where we could camp (and where the rangers wouldn’t find us) 🙂 Then he toured us  around the island to show us the nicest spots:

The main beach ( one of the best surfing beaches in the world), a walking track, where one can see dolphins, sharks ( yeah real sharks, he said, at least once a year, a stupid tourist gets hurt or eaten by a shark) and a place, where we can see whales. Here are many nice spots to snorkel, and we decided to go snorkeling the next day. 🙂 I will use my underwater-camera, that my sisters gave to me as a good-bye-present, and I have already used the compass, which my friends gave to me as a gift, so that I will always find the right path to walk. 🙂 Thanks for that! 😀

When we will have snorkelled tomorrow and have challenged our first day on this island we will try to contact the one couchsurfer-host, who is  living  here on North Stradbroke Island. 🙂 Maybe we can sleep at his place, because a pop-up tent for two guys  and two backpacks is quite small. Sleeping in it is like sleeping in a sauna. 🙂

After we had had breakfast in front of the car on the road, we decided to drive to Brisbane to get to know the city, get some wifi and electricity to recharge our phones, laptops and search for jobs. So we started and visited many places. I will participate in a photocontest on facebook ( later more) See the photos .

The last photos shall show the new common behaviour of young people concerning electronical devices. Facebook human fellows