Hervey Bay

I woke up early (probably because I went to sleep so early) and decided to Facetime my mummy. It was nice because there was no one around at 7am so the Internet was quick and it was peaceful. I then decided to go for a run on the beach and was joined by an enthusiastic Matt. I'm very slow compared to him though so I made him sprint to places so he actually felt like he'd done exercise. 

After showering we had a quick breakfast of toast before heading back to the bus stop for our 9.45am bus down to Hervey Bay. There was a stop for lunch at a fuel station where we bought some cooked sausages and added them to some bread we already had to make sausage butties. We also had some spicy mayo left so they weren't bad sandwiches. Back on the road we arrived a few kilometres out of Hervey Bay but luckily noticed a minivan with the name of our hostel written on the side. We hadn't booked a pick up but went over and got in the minivan with no questions. Five minutes later we arrived at the hostel and checked in. Very easy. 

We had some time to kill so went for a walk round the town, onto the beach for a bit and then stopped for an ice cream at a place that had 72 different flavours! I was in awe and took a little while to choose what I wanted. Finally I settled on panna cotta ice cream with a raspberry sorbet. The sorbet was a vibrant red and tasted delicious and the panna cotta was a nice subtle sweet companion. I'm very excited to get to New Zealand and try ice cream there. I remember my grandparents telling me years ago that they had the best ice cream they've ever tasted in New Zealand. 

We headed back to the hostel for 4pm as we had a briefing for our Fraser Island trip which we were embarking on tomorrow morning. After being told what to pack and what food to bring we split off into groups (there was 29 of us in total). Matt and I ended up in a group with two German couples and one German girl that we'd actually met in Airlie Beach. There are a lot of Germans in Australia. We wrote a list of what food to get for the next three days and then I booked a taxi to take us to Aldi. Yes, Aldi. Oh how I've missed Aldi. However, one of the German couples had their own campervan so they drove there with the German girl. This meant that the taxi was split between four of us and it wasn't cheap. At $15 each way that worked out as $7.50 each. We would have been better off going to the small spa supermarket next door instead. Aldi is cheap and we got lots of good snacks for ourselves as well. The taxi thing annoyed me though as it would have been cheaper if we'd all got one together and the other three never offered to contribute towards it. 

When we finally got back to the hostel it was gone 6pm so we cooked a lovely tea of pasta with pesto, a red pepper, red onion and pork and fennel sausages chopped up. It was delicious and we made too much so saved some for our lunch tomorrow. After tea we popped across the road to buy some goon for $10 (Aldi over here doesn't sell alcohol) and then returned for a tea of canned rice pudding and chopped up banana. It sounds like baby food! It wasn't as good as the one we'd had the other day but it was still quite pleasant. 

We had a quick play of a quiz on the computer (obviously a Harry Potter related quiz) before showering and going to bed. We have to check out at 6am tomorrow morning so it will be an early wake up.