Cairns to Alice Springs Getting up bright and early, returning our hire car with no hassle, bags packed and we were on our way to the airport. It was only a short distance from our hostel, check in was relatively quick and pain free and the flight was not particularly busy so we were able to stretch out if we desired. The flight itself lasted around 2 hours 30 mins with food and (non alcoholic) drinks complimentary. We had previously been advised to take a taxi from the airport to the YHA as the shuttle bus had recently put up its [View Full Entry]

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Panoramic Picture: View From Alexandra Range At Start Of Cape Tribulation Car Hire We were both extremely sleepy when we heard the alarm go off from the mobile phone at 6:15am. Pretty much every morning has been an early start as of late, but we hadn't really got used to it yet. After showering and getting ready in the dark, we hopped on to our hostel's shuttle bus and made our way to the car lot to pick up our hired car. We had initially been looking to do a day tour to Cape Tribulation, but with some advice from a [View Full Entry]

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Arrival In Cairns Our bus came in at 6:30am so after making it to Koala Hostel to claim a free night, courtesy of our quiz win. We had a quick sleep before hitting the streets in search of tour operators to arrange some diving and a trip to Cape Tribulation. Once we had done this, we headed for a walk around Cairns to get a taster of the place (pretty nice town) and got some tasty Mexican grub at Koalas (seems to be their speciality) for a cheap price. A jug of beer went down well and we headed to bed [View Full Entry]

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Airlie Beach Arriving early on Sunday morning after yet another Greyhound overnight trip, we were desperate for a proper lie down in a bed. This hadn't happened for 5 days now as the past 4 nights had been spent either camping or propped up in a bus seat. The exhaustion was now becoming a bit overwhelming. We managed to get a double room at Koalas, in part due to the vouchers we won at the quiz in Hervey Bay a couple of nights before. The room was pretty cool as it had an ensuite and even a kitchen. A bit posher [View Full Entry]

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Our Stop Off In Rocky So, because of the miscalculation in our schedule (we'd been told that our Whitsundays trip left on the Sunday instead of the Monday) we had an extra day to kill before our next trip at Airlie Beach. We had an option to either spend the extra day at Hervey Bay, Airlie Beach or anywhere in between. We opted for in between. Browsing through the Lonely Planet, we noticed an entry for a town called Rockhampton and that in this town you could go to the Dreamtime Cultural Centre for an Aboriginal tour which included boomerang throwing. [View Full Entry]

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Hervey Bay Arriving at Hervey Bay, we were greated by the Koala mini bus waiting to transfer us to the hostel and a short drive later we had checked into the hostel and dumped our bags in the room. Our room was not particularly nice, however we did have it to ourselves which was a bonus. After a much needed long, hot shower we were tucked up in bed desperate for a good nights sleep. Unfortunately the group excited about their trip to fraser island the following day congregated outside our room with a few drinks, cheering, laughing and singing. A [View Full Entry]

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Panoramic Picture: Canoeing The Morning Lake Arrival At Gagaju As part of our bookings with Wicked Travel in Sydney, we had a 3 day bush trip in the Noosa Everglades thrown in for free, with the only costs being National Park entry fees. We had initially been unsure whether to undertake this trip at all as it wasn't originally part of our plans and it seemed a bit disorganised. We had eventually opted to do it though, which was our main reason for coming to Noosa. However, the information on the camp itself was limited. We had been told to bring [View Full Entry]

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Heading off early from Brisbane, we loaded up Megan and Stews campervan, stopped off at McDonalds for some breakfast and also to allow Megan and Stew to use the facilities to freshen up after their first night sleeping in their campervan, and hit the road in search for Noosa. We did not need to be at the Gagaju Bush Camp untill 7.30pm on Friday night so we decided to head into Noosa Heads for some exploration and a few hours at the beach relaxing before stocking up on "tasty" dry food for the canoe trip the following day. We arrived in [View Full Entry]

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Panoramic Picture: Zoo Kangaroo (a wee bit blocky due to site picture size regulations) Australia Zoo On Thursday morning we awoke bright and early catching the 8am train from Brisbane eager to get to the zoo for it opening. I think poor Gary was beginning to get tired of me going on and on about the zoo but I was desperate to cuddle one of the Koalas and my expectations of the zoo was high from my internet surfing whilst working hard in Sydney. The train journey was around an hour and a half, and after arriving at Beerwah, the courtesy [View Full Entry]

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Arrival The bus journey from Surfers to Brisbane was relatively quick, mainly because we slept like babies. We were soon stretching our aching muscles at the Brisbane Transit Centre in the warm Queensland evening. We had phoned up and booked a cheap deal with Brisbane City Backpackers, a central hostel in, surprisingly enough, the city of Brisbane. We stumbled about with the weight of our bags up to the hostel using rough directions from the Scottish receptionist, who oddly enough knew another Gary Stewart from Scotland that was in Australia. We checked into our 8 bed dorm wh [View Full Entry]

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