Having said our goodbyes to everyone from our Fraser group, we caught the Greyhound down to Brisbane. This was almost up with Melbourne as my number one Oz city. Very lively with a river running through it past cliff walks and 'Street Beach' a pleasant lagoon. We caught a Citycat ferry from the centre to the western edge of the city near the Uni, and then returned after darkness had fallen to find the cityskyline lit up spectacularly. On our only full day here, we hired bikes for a tour of the city, taking in Kangaroo point with its stark cliff [View Full Entry]

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Travelling down from Airlie Beach to Hervey Bay - the nearest access point to Fraser Island - we stopped en route in Rockhampton ('Rockie') for a night to break up the long journey. Apparently Australias cattle capital, the route to Rockie was dotted with sightings of cattle trucks bursting at the seams with horns and tail poking out every where. The following day, we were back on the Greyhound bus until arriving at Hervey Bay Beaches backpackers in time for our briefing from the Beaches staff. There were 18 people booked up for the following days 3 day 2 night departure [View Full Entry]

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Having left 'Maggies' under threat from Cyclone Jim, we had our fingers crossed for good weather on our Whitsundays trip. Luckily, although it rained at Airlie Beach as soon as we got off the bus, two days later we woke up on the day of departure to brilliant sunshine. Our chosen performance yacht was called Freight Train, a former winner of the Sydney - Hobart yacht race, and would be our home for three days and two nights. Designed for racing, the sleeping arrangments were ...snug best describes it, and with eight people in the forward compartment pretty hot too. Our [View Full Entry]

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Jumped on an early tram by the skin of our teeth and made our way through the city to the the airport via the Skybus. No dramas checking in, although we both got randomly tested for traces of explosives! Must look dodgy.. Our hostel in Cairns was called Gilligans, and was a huge place calling itself a Backpackers resort hotel, and had a lovely pool and out door bar, a huge indoor bar/club area with pool tables, giant screens (handy for the tennis) and well equipped rooms with balconys. A bit of a luxury really but still only 10 pounds a [View Full Entry]

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Picking up our second hire car from St Kilda Europcar, I had to check the number plate to see that it wasn't our original car. Picked up lin and the bags from the Ritz then drove out of Melbourne along the M1 to Torquay, a small town at the start of the Great Ocean Road with a large surfing contingent at the busy beach. We sheltered in front of the sea wall for our lunch before continuing down to the famous Bells Beach. This is renowned for the huge waves that are a magnet for surfers and appears in the late [View Full Entry]

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Leaving Katoomba and the Blue Mountains behind, a two hour train ride saw us back in central Sydney where we picked up a Hyundai Getz from the EuropCar offices. A neat little car much like Lins Clio with air-con, and a CD player. (The only CD we had was a dodgy 80's hits compilation i'd picked up from a charity shop!). Driving south we stopped at Cronulla, a suburb on the edge of Sydneys rail network, and hit the beach for a few hours of sunbathing and messing about in the surf. 250kms of driving on the Princes highway saw us [View Full Entry]

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Arrived in Sydney and walked out of the airport terminal into a hairdryer! 32 degrees and it was half past five in the afternoon! Our first hostel/hotel was the Sydney Central on Wentworth, a budget hotel which despite having a fridge and tv in the room lacked the one essential... air con! Still it was fairly close to Darling Harbour and the city centre and we had a pleasant walk around getting used to the fact that we were now in Australia.. a strange feeling when the flight was only a few hours to get there but you're still thousands of [View Full Entry]

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Now you'd have thought that we'd have had enough of buses, but no! We took an Atomic shuttle from Christchurch up the coast to Kaikoura, the world famous whale watching town. Having booked this trip at least a month before, we were disappointed to find on arrival that it had been cancelled due to bad weather, even though the sea in the bay looked like a mill pond! Not only that but all the mornings sailings had been cancelled and the 1pm boat that they moved us to was waiting on a confirmation. Now this would mean we missed our bus [View Full Entry]

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Our last Stray driver and our guide to the Catlins was Noddy. A nice enough bloke, but very opinionated and always having a dig at the Aussies for one reason or another. We made several stops on the trip up to Dunedin at: a fur seal colony, a petrified forest preserved by molten lava millions of years ago at Curio Bay, three Hector Dolphins playing in the surf at Porpoise Bay and then a walk down to see yellow eyed penguins at Nugget Point.. but they were hiding! At Dunedin - 'the most scottish town out side of scotland!' - we [View Full Entry]

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Arriving at the ferry terminal at Bluff, we could see across the water to the huge Aluminium smelting plant that we had heard about at Lake Manapouri. A huge facility if a bit of an eyesore! We caught the Stewart Island Experience ferry and and hour later, arrived in the little harbour that was the centre point of Oban, the only town on the Island. Our accommodation was the Stewart Island Backpackers which was quite pleasant, and we bagged a twin room from the pile of keys available. It was only midday by the time we arrived so we had a [View Full Entry]

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