‘Hot and stuffy Townsville’ as it was noted in our guidebook lived up to its name, probably not helped by local bush fires. We wasted no time stuffing our rucksacks full and jumping on a ferry to Magnetic Island. We spent the first two nights in The Base hostel with a rowdy bar and a large village of huts and teepees. We spent time on the beach and in the bar as well as investigating the ice cream shops of Nelly bay! We then caught the bus to Horseshoe bay - notably the bus drivers have to wear a uniform on [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Mission Beach and booked into The Sanctuary Retreat. A man in a 4 wheel drive came to pick us up fromt he carpack for the drive up through the rainforest to the hotel. Our room was amazing - a green hut suspended in the rainforest which you could almost touch from bed. Having settled in we headed down to our own bit of beach - along a footpath through the trees (very beautiful although the return walk was hard work in the heat). A beautiful sunset made it all worthwhile plus a brilliant dinner on the restaurant balcony [View Full Entry]

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We left Cairns and headed north towards Port Douglas for a lunch stop and then on to the Daintree River, as we travelled the trees became more lush and dense and though we had clear skies it was clear we were entering a rainforest. We went for a boat trip before boarding the ferry and had the whole boat to ourselves which was ace. Terry showed us four crocs as well as a blossom bat, snake, wonky crabs and some spoon billed birds. We then headed over the river on the ferry and made our way to the beach campsite at [View Full Entry]

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Sunday 20.09.09 We left Benalla with a plan to drive a couple of hundred kilometers, before pitching the tent (sorry everything will be in kms, the car only counts in kms). We’ve got an ace book which lists free and cheap places to camp so we chose one just off the route and found it without too much trouble. It was just a recreation field in a town called Yarong and the sign at the gate said we should go to the bowls club next door for a beer and to pay for the pitch. There were no other tents and [View Full Entry]

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Leaving Melbourne - 18/9/09 - Benalla - Vctoria We left Melbourne on Friday the 18th of September with a tree planting trip to Benalla (in Northern Victoria) first on the itinerary. I finished work on Friday and so did John so the car packing was left until after work. As ever it took longer than we’d planned and of course we had loads more stuff once we had to actually find a place for it in the car. Still we finally headed off to Benalla late ish and arrived at about midnight. We’d got a free bed for the two nights [View Full Entry]

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After the trip to Alice Springs we had a couple of quiet weekends relaxing and getting kit for our YHA skiing trip (at the end of July). We now have lots more stuff to pack / sell but we'll worry about that in a few months time! The highlight of this couple of weeks was probably heading to the local pub to see England's victory at Lords...very entertaining...though the landlord was threatening to charge me more for my beer for being a pom! We both worked half-days on the Friday before the skiing weekend so set off for the long drive [View Full Entry]

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Having waved off our second set of visitors it was only a couple of days before we flew out on a holiday ourselves. It was an early start on the Saturday for our flight to Alice Springs (via Adelaide on the way as it saved us a few dollars!). We arrived and the courtesy minibus dropped us at the very relaxed Alice Lodge hostel - chilled out music, hammocks, blue skies...I could have stayed forever! We were, however, already booked on a 3 day (2 night) tour to Kings Canyon, Uluru (Ayres Rock) and The Olgas so lounging about in a [View Full Entry]

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(Caroline) We had planned to do a bit more camping the weekend after Lorne but decided to give it a miss for a while until the days are a bit longer. As a result our weekend plans were not as well formulated as they have sometimes been so it was rather quiet. We spent Saturday morning at the fruit and veg market in Richmond then went on the hunt for curtain fabric for the car. We came back with some tasteful shark pattern and spent the rest of the afternoon affixing velcro to various bit and pieces. On Sunday we took [View Full Entry]

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We took our new-to-us (old-to-the-rest-of-the-world) car on a little trip for the bank holiday weekend. The Queen's birthday bank holiday reminded us suitably of bank holidays at home with grey skies and chilly afternoons but still we can't really complain seeing as it is nearly mid-winter and camping was really pretty pleasant. We headed off from Richmond early on Saturday morning towards the Great Ocean Road via Ray's Outdoors - Australia's answer to Millets (where we currently seem to be spending about half our wages!). We were back on the road again by 10.30am with a new camping stove, [View Full Entry]

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Hello again, Sorry for the long gap between updates - a mixture of reasons...mainly our slow internet connection (hence no photo updates just yet) and a lack of things to update everybody on! If you have been bothering to check at regular intervals it might be worth subscribing to the blog - I think it then sends you an e-mail if we add anything. The weekdays have mainly been filled with working, Caroline's enjoying her job at the hospital and I haven't a day off in the last 3 weeks. We're now looking forward to the arrival of more visitors - [View Full Entry]

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