Number 1. The Arts Factory Jungle

and the number 1. spot goes to...

The jungle!!!

This is going to be the toughest one to explain. I simply cannot put into words exactly how I feel about this magical place, but I will try my best to persuade you to go.

So what is the jungle?!

The jungle is a small campsite which is part of the Arts Factory hostel in Byron Bay.

Where is the jungle?!

The jungle is located in the The Arts Factory (the best hostel) in Byron Bay, which is approximately 4/5 hours south of Brisbane, and 10 hours north of Sydney.

Byron bay itself is another blogpost of goodness altogether so I won't try to squeeze too much into one.

Simply, it is a seaside town inhabited by primarily hippies, musicians, and every kind of artist you can imagine. 
It is a hub for surfers because it is host to several beautiful beaches. The town itself is pretty small with one main street and tons of cafes and restaurants. 
The lighthouse, located a bit of a trek up a mountain, is also an attraction because you're pretty much gauranteed to spot pods of dolphins below, and it is the most easterly point of the australian mainland.

I had, like all the best hostels, been recommended to stay at the arts factory, located a ten minute walk from town. 

My first week there, I stayed at the hostel itself in dorm rooms, but I was soon to discover the campsite adjoining the hostel.

After a week of forking out a whopping $32 a night in the dorms, I decided I needed to avail of tent-living. A small $100 per week fee. 

A guy I had become friends with, gave me a tiny two man tent, which I pitched easily in the first free space I could find.

But within a couple of days I had myself a massive 8/10 man tent all to myself, including a proper mattress on milk crates and a giant tarp to protect my tent form the rain. 

Buying and selling tents with their allotted plot and whatevers in them seemed to be pretty commonplace, so I just pretty lucky to come across somebody selling a nice big tent in a prime location because the jungle hut and kitchen/amenities.

Jungle hut.

My tent.

Kitchen.

In my time in Byron Bay to be honest I really didn't do much. Everyday pretty much consisted of going to the beach, chilling in the jungle hut, playing with hula-hoops, playing table tennis, volleyball, going to the supermarket, chasing bush turkeys, hanging out in someones tent, getting goon for the evening, playing drinking games, and going out.

But what made it so special was being with friends all day long.

Whether we were doing something mundane or exciting, even a bad day in Byron Bay was a good day!

 I met such a diverse and cool group of people that it didn't matter what we got up to, it was always fun! I love these people so so much and I miss each and every one of them.

Between the beautiful weather, the relaxed hostel, the lively town and whatever musical activities were going on in the jungle hut, Byron is my favourite place ever.

It is so hard to some it all up but this video does a pretty good job of showcasing just how wonderful a place Byron is. 

You have to go there.

Number 2. Fraser Island

So number two on my favourites list of the East Coast is Fraser Island!

If you're a backpacker seriously low on funds, this is the one ultimate trip that you absolutely, under no circumstances can miss.

After weeks of moving from hostel to hostel, eating your meals 3 times daily from the local Woolworths, and generally floating about, it is wonderful to pay a one-off all inclusive fee that sets you up for a couple of days on a brilliant adventure.

There are a couple of options you've got when heading to Fraser Island, you can hire a 4by4 with a bunch of friends and head over yourselves, or you can book in with one of the tours that leaves from either Hervey Bay or Rainbow beach.

On my trip I went from Rainbow beach with the company Rainbows on Fraser, which is, if you're familiar, mixed with the Dingo's groups.

The basic idea is that you arrive and spend a night or two at Rainbow beach in the hostels getting organised for the trip. A group consists of around 8 4by4 jeeps which have 8-10 people in each.

Furthermore the groups of jeeps are then split in two, so you will be going around the island in your car, following 3 other cars.

But at nighttime all the groups mix together in one campsite.

Because of the size of Fraser island there is a lot of ground to cover so its important to get in a good group for your car.

I was with my friends Laura and Gemma, but we made the great decision to split into different jeeps, and therefore in the evening we could meet up and introduce all our new friends!

Sounds kind of cheesy but it was brilliant!

I may be slightly bias... but I do believe I had the best group in my car.. such a mixture of personalities and we all loved having a good singalong and jokes. needless to say there was never a dull moment in all the hours of driving..

A highlight was definitely the drive to lake McKensie, a pretty famous lake for being so beautiful.
But it does take over an hour to get there on an extremely bumpy off-road track.

In my jeep, the seats faced one another along both sides of the car and we just had a seatbelt which went across the waist, which as it turns out didn't do too much because for the entire over an hour there and back, we were all falling around the place and grabbing each other and parts of the car, its was pretty hilarious and definitely one of my favourite memories.

Lake McKensie.


Fraser island is host to a number of different beautiful spots but one of the best is Eli creek which is a freezing cold creek that is so powerful it brings you right downstream to the beach.

So if you can bare the cold, you just have to jump in and lie straight on your back like on a lazy river, and let the creek do its thing.

Eli creek.

Lake Wabby.

In the evenings on the island we would all make dinner taking turns cooking or cleaning between the 10 of us from our car. Then the drinking would comense.. there was a big campfire and plenty of goon, and one of the nights we discovered a brilliant german drinking game called flonkeyball, which is very like snatch the bacon except with alcohol.

I had the best time on Fraser island and with the group afterwards on Rainbow beach, before we all headed our separate ways.

If I was to go back to the East Coast this is a trip that I would do time and time again, and gets a big A+ and 5 stars from me.

Number 4. Snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef

So in fourth place for my favourites-slash-must see's, is snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef. 

Now I was lucky enough to do this a couple of times because I spent almost 4 months in Cairns which is the closest harbour to the reef, and the most popular place to do it, but also the Reef is accessible 

from loads of other different locations along the East Coast as you can see below. 

Therefore, I was also able to snorkel on Magnetic Island (off Townsville), and on the Whitsunday's boat trip.

In Cairns you are pretty much inundated with travel agency reps coming up to you asking if you have dived the reef or snorkelled yet. Even if you can manage to avoid these pesky salespeople then you still can't escape the numerous dive shops, underwater camera shops etc...

Cairns pretty much makes its living, it would appear, from the Great Barrier Reef.

There are a numerous different companies you can go with ranging in price, reef locations and time spent on the boat.

My first trip was a day trip with Deep Sea Divers which included an introductory dive, unlimited snorkelling, and snacks, lunch and entertainment, all at a cost of $160.

The second trip was cheaper at around $100 but without the intro dive.

It's important to know that as amazing an experience seeing the reef is, it definitively is not as colourful as one may hope. Put it this way, it's no Finding Nemo basically. And the visibility can largely depend on the weather. The reason I preferred snorkelling to the diving was that my ears hurt the further we descended. For most people, diving is the most exciting part, but for me snorkelling was more relaxed and enjoyable.

Snorkelling is also fairly easy to get used to, only takes about 5 minutes to get going, and with flippers on its easy to keep up with the fish that you are following.

On both my trips in Cairns I wasn't lucky enough to spot a shark or a turtle. But there are lots of colourful fish, some pretty big ones, and a good few rays hanging about for the most part.

When I took a trip on Tongarra, a Whitsundays sailing boat for a few days, we had the opportunity to snorkel several times too. This is another part of the Great Barrier Reef and we visited a little cove nicknamed "the aquarium" simply because there are so many different fish! 

You jump in and are immediately surrounded by hundreds. Especially if you take some fish food with you... watch those fingers!

My favourite snorkelling experience was when the boat visited another location called turtle bay, and from the boat you can see these giant turtles surfacing every so often.

Obviously when you are in the water snorkelling around its a little difficult to hear your peers yelling out of the boat for you to "swim here! swim there!" to locate these giant turtles.

But I was lucky enough to be swimming along in one part, where the visibility was quite bad..  and see a large shadow begin to emerge towards me. 

It was pretty scary at the time actually because all of a sudden this dark shadow becomes larger and larger and gets closer and closer until you bump into a giant turtle! I mean giant! This one had to be around a square metre in size!

Pretty darn cool, and as soon as it sees me infornt of it, it glides to avoid me and continues on its way...

Here are some pictures of what to expect, but unfortunately we were never great with the underwater camera so a lot of the fish escaped our snaps..