Cairns

Coaches aren't liking us at the moment the journey was a little longer than planned but quite a lot more dangerous, a tropical storm came through on the journey up and the windscreen wipers decided to die so the coach continued however it slowed when a car came the other way as the headlights meant that the driver could see nothing at all. On arrival a minibus collected us and took us to Gilligans and where we were informed that we had arrived just in time for the free dinner. This was pretty much the same as Bilbo's 15minute chilli con carne however there was a large sweet chilli pot to cover the flavour. New flatmates seem nice and we are all up early to go on different boats in the morning, we are going with paradise passions.

Magnetic Island

Another day and another coach, unfortunately this one was late by almost two hours, eventually we arrived in Townsville if just a little later than planned, then onto a boat over to the island, there are a few islands around the area and with the sea mist it looked remarkably similar to the journey we had made from Phi Phi to Phuket in Thailand a couple of weeks before.

The Hostel was a little different to others we had been in, instead of large block with dorm rooms this was lots of huts each with a few bunks in. Palm trees line all the footpaths and the pool, the hostel hosts a full moon party and it looks like a great place to be when it happens, large open decked bar with steps down from it all to the beach. In the morning I woke early and ran/jogged up to the point on an off road path and clambering over rocks, it around 7 in the morning and it was still rather warm, coming back quite drenched after seeing some great views and time for a jump in the pool followed by a walk to the nearest shop.

Food loaded up and time to head to cairns.

Airlie Beach

Waiting for the coach I started speaking to a French guy who had recently been around NZ and was showing us all his pictures and telling us stories of the trip and the best places to go when we are there. One very useful piece of information that I gained from him was about the coaches in Oz he had been travelling with Premier Motor Company, a little quieter than greyhound who we had been using most of the time as the Oz experience buses never seemed to be leaving anywhere at the right time/day for us. Premier were also the cheapest and do almost exactly the same route and stops, he had a hop on hop off ticket from Sydney to Cairns for under $300 and when he took his overnight bus leaving 5 minutes before ours everyone had double seats so cheap and comfortable, definitely something to recommend if you don't mind meeting people in the hostel rather than on the coaches.

Back on the coach and off to the next stop this time it was a 12 hour overnight coach, bearable but not the best nights sleep of the trip for sure.

Finding Base hostel along the main street seemed simple enough, I met Kate sitting by the door covering in diving leaflets trying to plan her next few days. Check in wasn't until 2 however you can leave use the baggage storage, kitchen and chill out room all day, we left our things and went looking for what to do. Airlie beach is one of the nearest parts of the mainland to the Whitsunday Islands, a small group of islands with white sandy beaches, they are very popular with many people go sailing and diving around the islands, We decided a day trip to Whitsundays wasn't really in our budget and we didn't have time to go off and stay on yachts overnight so we looked for other things to do. After a little discussion we hired a car made some lunch and were just about to head off when we met John, we grabbed him and his guitar and headed to (can't remember the name but will find out later) creek, a waterfall in the area. It's about 20km from Airlie beach, fairly simple to find if you have a map or directions. The creek opens up in the trees to a wide open and deep section with the falls at the end, we all swam and ate food followed by Johns lunch supplies he bought for us all, grapes, cheeses and of course some wine to go with it. An ozzie guy was there with snorkel, mask and torch checking the depth and bottom for a guy who then jumped off, after chatting I was convinced and went for a couple of jumps myself, however when you are at the top of a 60ft drop it looks higher from the top.

Back on the ground, some of Johns music earned him a beer from one of the people in the creek and then back to Base for dinner, then the customary free drink given out in most hostels before bed.

Hervey Bay

This was just a quick 2 hour journey up the coast from Rainbow so probably the shortest journey of our whole trip. We stayed at the Palace hostel, originally we were given a keys to a block that was empty and almost like a small house with kitchen/dinning room and then about 5 dorm rooms off that. However on going to ask for linen they said there was a mistake and we were moved to the block nextdoor where the kitchen was the communal room for everyone in the hostel, it smelt pretty much like a bar after a crazy night before crossed with a student kitchen. The beach and town are nice but compared with other places we had been it all seemed rather plain, the best part of the trip was meeting a Canadian guy (John) in the kitchen and then the next day on the hammocks to find out he was a singer songwriter travelling with his guitar so we chilled out all waiting for our busses listening to him play away.

Rainbow beach & Fraser on rainbow backpackers

The Hostel is good, everywhere so far has been all positive and this is no exception, the room was a 10 bed dorm with 2 fans and no air-con but still it wasn't super hot. Most days they put on a walk at 5 in the evening meandering through the countryside up to large Sandblow where the guide taught us all about the beaches, the history and how to throw a boomerang with the reward of a beer if you could catch it, I was close but unfortunately no free drinks for anyone. Photos taken as the sun was setting and some body board sand boarding done and time to head back for dinner and then bed.

Our room mates seemed cool however many were off to Fraser island in the morning so even though most wake at first light around 5 and snooze there is a lot of hustling and bustling around 7 as they all try to work out what they need for the next 3 days and go off to their 4x4's. Once up a little wander to the supermarket to find breakfast, there is no big Coles or Woolworths in Airlie beach so all the shops a quite expensive. A quick jump in the pool to cool down and a chat to our overly friendly gay french room mate before finally reading the last few pages of book 1 and then going to check out the beach. The weather has been quite up and down with a couple of tropical storms passing by but mostly missing us although they have brought with them lots of wind. The sea is in a bit of a mess so nobody is really our surfing, a few people gave it a go but soon came back to leave their boards on the beach and just swim until a bigger wave day.

The rocks around Rainbow are all sandstone with the cliffs stained by the forests decaying over thousands of years to give the different colours and the beach it's name, occasionally there are super light patches on the beach where the sand is almost pure silica. The sandstone cliffs gave us a place to carve our names with all the others placed there over the years.

Some fish and chips shared before going to hostel for a night of drinks with some one of our room mate Kate and some other Europeans she had befriended, we still had quite a lot of Goon left so this was all consumed before we all headed down to the beach, the whole night left many of the others feeling a little worse for ware today.

Brisbane to Rainbow beach.

Up early and Faye takes us into the city with Sasha who is dropped off at work, we are taken to Queens street where we say our goodbyes and then go for a wander around a couple of the shops as we work our way to the coach station. Bex disappears of for a few minutes, while I move the bags to the right bay, to return with some KFC that she had been craving for days. I had been a little hungry waiting so had eaten another peanut butter roll, it seems to travel well so along with tuna has been one of the main basis of our diets for the last couple of weeks.

The journey was fairly standard, we stopped at one service station that had a massive kangaroo that had been used in the opening ceremony of the 1982 commonwealth games.

Brisbane

Arriving we tried to contact Chris to find that he was working for the next few hours, we went for a little wander to waste some time until he was free. We ended up at the culture centre where he met us although on arrival said that he had just been on his phone checking the directions at the traffic lights when a policeman had seen and fined him $300.

The house was nice, big and air conditioned, it was great to see everyone again, Chris cooked us some Kangaroo that we had picked up on the way, it is super tasty I will definitely have to try some more before we leave.

The next day we went back into the city with Sasha when she went to work, everyone in Australia seems to start their day early and go to bed fairly early too, so we were in the centre about 8.

We checked a few places out and ended up at the pretend beach in the centre, it is next to the river and rather surreal, it looks like a normal beach with lifeguards but on entering the water it's not salty and occasionally you come across a metal grate in the sandy bottom.

At night we all went out to EH a local “tavern” as they call it but to us it would be a club/casino/restaurant/hotel, quite expensive however chris won $80 on the slots so most of the night was on him. He had also heard about an interview he had been to for the job of a spotter catcher and he had been offered the job so he would soon be starting his dangerous animal training.

Day two in Brisbane and we all jumped in the car and drove to Noosa, some surfing beaches up the coast around 1 hour, Sasha feeling a little hungover bought everyone ginger slush puppy type drinks. Noosa is a little surf village and clearly quite a popular area to holiday, the beach is nice with lifeguarded areas although these were not very busy today as the swell was pretty small. We had a go surfing Chris' board however it was a little small for the waves so the rides were quite short however it did mean that I could use Chris as an instructor to help me with my duck dives.

After Thailand for a week and now Oz for almost two weeks one would expect that we would start to have tanned however I have been using so much sun cream I think it looks like I have just come straight off the plane, we have found a Gingers size pot, about 750ml for $10 in Woolworths.

The last full day and we decide it's time for a rest day so spend most of it in the house talking to Faye and catching up on everything such as clothes washing, it's super hot today so going outside anywhere near the middle of the day wouldn't end well.