Named after the year James Cook first stepped onto Australian land, actually in Town 1770 on 24th May 1770 this town is one of if not the least commercial places you can visit on the East coast. It hardly has any tourists and the only people that seem to come here are us backpackers. Compared to the rest of the East coast, 1770 is extremely cheap for activities. For example surfing is 7 times more expensive in Bondi. At 11am we went on the free tour provided by scooterroo, this is a drive around town 1770 and the area we [View Full Entry]

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We checked out of koalas one at a time so that we didn't have to leave the room for another half an hour when we had to put our bags in storage and make our way to the harbour. We were early and the first ones there so sat by the bay and waited for the others to arrive, in total there were 15 of us and then three staff members, which was a nice number. Anita was our skipper, who was originally from Sweden, Carly was our dive leader and Billy was our hosty. The boat wasn't as big [View Full Entry]

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On the boat to the mainland we bumped into James, who we met in Cairns, it turns out that he had booked on the same Whitsunday and Fraser Islands trips as us so will be spending the next few weeks together. At around 3pm we arrived at Airlie beach and had to walk back up the road the bus had gone down to get to Koalas Hostel, as with our Island package we get 4 nights free accommodation at selected hostels. After a small problem of not being booked in we finally all three of us managed to get in [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Townsville on Wednesday at 5.30am and luckily we were able to catch the 6am ferry across to Magnetic Island, which only took half an hour. It was so early when we got there that the information desk was closed and we only had the phone number for one place who were unable to take our booking as reception was closed. We made breakfast with what little we had, bread and peanut butter and made ourselves comfy on the bench outside the terminal. I had a cat nap whilst Erica plucked her eyebrows, honestly i have never known [View Full Entry]

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By 8am we were on our way, Our first stop was at Mossman Gorge, were we had a short walk to the river for photos, I attempted to get some Peter Lik inspired ones but he obviously has a better camera than i do. But even so the scenery is that nice i still managed to get some good ones and a couple of arty ones too. We then had breakfast at one of the picnic tables there before heading to Daintree National Park, Cape Tribulation. After crossing the Daintree River our first destination was Kimberly beach, which was deserted, [View Full Entry]

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We walked back into town from the rental company and chilled out in our dorm for a short while. Every night we got a free meal voucher at a local Irish pub (PJ O'Briens) so we went for something to eat there, fish and chips, which despite being very small portions was quite nice. The beer was quite expensive so we only had the one then we returned to our hostel and sat out on the balcony with our wine box were we got talking to a lovely couple from Ireland. On our way back we were approached by the [View Full Entry]

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On Monday we covered some distance, a total of 1036km, but to be honest we didn't really see that much. We were going to stay in Camooweal at a free rest area, but it didn't look that inviting so instead we carried on until we reached Mount Isla, were we managed to get a few bits from the supermarket just before it went dark. As a treat (as I was still a little emotional and missing Michael) we got some Boursin and crackers which was lovely, although it did remind me of being at home with him. We had got [View Full Entry]

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On Thursday night we stayed at a small place called Victoria River, which wasn't a particularly interesting place and we drove for a total of 803.3 km. We have seen several bush fires the past three days, even in areas catergorised as low risk. They didn't burn as much as I had expected, maybe that is because the bush land is quite scarce in these areas. On Friday we made our way up to Darwin, 595.5 km. The bush seems to be much denser here in the Northern Territory and is more like a small trees than a bush. After [View Full Entry]

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It was around 10 am on Sunday when we set of on our adventure and it was quite sad to leave Chris, Bryan, John and Nikki behind as they have been great to me over the past week! It took us a little while to find highway one, we ended up driving a little too far up route 60 but eventually we realised and were on our way! We had originally planned to head straight to Geraldton but we discovered that the Pinnacle Desert was on the way so decided to pay it a visit. It is basically millions of [View Full Entry]

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We flew via Singapore and had 5 hours to kill before our next flight. There are plenty of things to do as we found out last time we were here. This time i had trip to the beauty salon and then we had a swim in the outdoor pool and Jacuzzi. We were met in the airport by Erica's mum and dad (Chris and Brian) and her Uncle and Aunt (John and Nikki). By the time we got through customs which was a nightmare, it was around 1am. We then had a 45 minute drive to John and Nikki's house [View Full Entry]

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