We got up early the next day for a trip to Australia Zoo, home of the crocodile hunter Steve Irwin. The zoo was two hours north of the city and we took a train and a bus to get there. The zoo was great. We saw some sweet otters, three large elephants (who we got to feed), lots of kangaroos and wallabies, tiger cubs, farm animals and the hugest crocodile I have ever seen!

The crocodile was so big it was crazy. We saw it being fed and it was really quite un-nerving. We didn’t see Steve Irwin himself but we saw his face everywhere throughout the zoo. His range of merchandise bordered on the ridiculous and I only bought some postcards and none with him on them! Lee-ann and I had a laugh doing impressions of him saying ‘crikey!’ and were frankly scared at the Steve Irwin dolls that we saw. It was a long day but tremendous fun.

The next day Lee-ann had to take back a hair dryer she had bought because we thought that I had broken the one she had brought with her by me telling her the wrong voltage in Australia, d’oh! Anyway, she managed to get her money back and we spent the day wandering round the city and going on a little river cruise.

We had booked ourselves onto a three-day trip to Moreton Island, and so the next day saw us back at the transit centre to get a coach that would take us to the ferry. It was mostly families and groups of older people heading out to the island but there were a few other young people.

Moreton Island turned out to be a family kind of resort but with the provision of dorm rooms for the backpackers who venture out there. The island was beautiful. A clear blue sea, yellow sandy beaches and our room was a mere two minutes from the sea itself. We shared our room with a straight Norwegian couple, one guy from Korea and his mate who was from Japan.

With the price of the trip you got four activities included and these were, snorkelling, quad biking, a sand safari and feeding some wild dolphins that visit the resort. We booked times for these activities over the next three days and then relaxed in one of the pools, as it was incredibly hot. As we walked to the pool I took in the surroundings and realised that we were really on an island paradise. The view in front of me was something off a postcard. I was beaming.

The first activity we indulged in was the quad biking. Our ‘guide’ was a very loud, cheery Aussie who insisted on calling Lee-ann ‘irish’ but he was patient with us, going through all the things we needed to know and making sure we had our helmets on correctly. We practiced slowly moving off and doing emergency stops before we headed off properly.

The quad biking was SO much fun. The engine’s really noisy and the bike really vibrates between your legs (oo-er!) and you really feel the heat off it. The bikes handled well and our guide took us up hills, down sand banks, along the beach and I got up to some really fast speeds, I felt exhilarated. At one point we stopped at a point where we got a marvellous over the resort below us and over part of the Island.

The next day we went on a snorkelling trip to some wrecks off the island. There was a large group of and us and we were all wearing very sexy sweatsuits. It was great snorkelling rounds the wrecks but I was rather annoyed by some of the other people who kept hitting me in the face with their flippers. Honestly, some people. We had fun feeding the fish with bread. You could almost feel them nip you as they grabbed the bread with their mouths.

The snorkelling was excellent but earlier in the morning we did something I thought was rather daring. Lee-ann and I booked ourselves onto a parasailing trip! We were taken out on a little boat and Lee-ann bravely volunteered to first. The guy attached the parachute and gets you to sit down. You then get gently put out. When I did it I was so scared at first. You go so high but after a while the sheer beauty of the view calmed me down and I really enjoyed it. The height was an issue for me but it was fantastic and I had the best experience. Both of us had a great time and we were very happy that we had done it.

On one of the evenings we went along to feed the wild dolphins. The same group of 8-12 dolphins come into the beach at the same place every evening and the resort provide fish for tourist to feed the dolphins in a way which is safe for the dolphins. Lee-ann and I both fed a very beautiful dolphin called ‘echo’ and we each got a photo to capture the moment. On our last day we went on a sand safari, which was fun, but it was super hot and when I had my go at sand tobogganing I got a lot of sand in my mouth, not fun.

The accommodation was fine and we chatted a little bit to the Norwegian couple. The male half of the couple was really quite attractive and one morning I was given a little treat. Both the Norwegian guy and myself were on bottom bunks and when I woke up one morning I was facing the dudes bed. With a sleepy head I didn’t think much of the fact that he was asleep on top of his sheets, after all, it was so hot at night. It wasn’t until I saw his humongous morning erection pushing up his boxer shorts that my brain sprung into life. I had to suppress laughter and tear my eyes away from his lovely package. I felt too bad at looking again so I turned my back to him and snoozed on. It was a lovely wake up though!

Moreton Island was simply fantastic and we had a great time for not a lot of money, excellent! We spent another night in Brisbane before flying up to Cairns. This time we didn’t need to change the time on our watches thankfully!