Lizard

Today we went up to Cape Tribulation north of Cairns for 2 nights, stopping off at some falls and at Port Douglas on the way. Luce and I did a really good horse trek on the beach and lounged about sunbathing and swimming at the hostel, which was more like a resort. We also spent a lot of time at a really nice rainforest cafe where we could eat, use the internet and where i found a book called "Is Elvis Alive?" which kept me amused for several days! LOL! We had 2 lovely people in our dorm - Moshe, an Israeli, and a French girl, Helene - so we hung out with them a lot and had a very funny night out at a local bar talking to some drunken locals and having to walk ... read more

RAFTING today!!!!! Woke up last night at 2am because the fire alarm was going off, marvellous! So not much sleep for the lizard :-( We had such a fantastic time white water rafting today, it was so much fun, i think it's the best day out we've had all along the east coast .. We had a Scottish raft "guide", Chris, and we were in a raft with 7 really nice English lads. I thought I'd spend the whole time in the water but actually only one guy fell in, the only time we all fell in was when they made us all sit on the edge of the raft saying that was the best way to go down the rapid and then they tipped the raft up. Suckers. The weather was great and the scenery ... read more

Got the local bus to Mission Beach village which was tiny, so we had a quick browse around there and then went and sat on the beach again. Then we had a massive long walk back to the resort in the heat of the day along the beach, which was probably not very clever, and got the bus at about 3pm to Cairns - our final destination :-( !!!!!!! It was only 2 hours on the bus and we're staying at the Bohemia hostel which was recommended to us and is gorgeous. Had a cheeky cocktail at the bar (mine was lush, Lucy's looked like Kermit the Frog had been liquidized) before heading into town and having a Chinese meal. Had to have a relatively early night as we've got a 6.20am pickup for rafting tomorrow! ... read more

Had another argument with Lucy over breakfast but hopefully we've now got it out of our system and patched things up for good!! Bumped into a girl that was in our dorm in Rainbow Beach, who was telling us horrific tales of bed bugs (which consequently I dreamt about last night!) We met Hoyt, the guy we'd met the night before, on the ferry going over to the mainland, which was a bit creepy... he was urging me to go and visit him after Cairns, hmm, maybe not. Got the bus to Mission Beach, stopping in Cardwell for some fish and chips at a roadside café. Once again we were majorly anti-social and had a double room for ourselves which was lush, really near the beach and with a swimming pool just outside the patio doors... ... read more

We stayed the night in Townsville and had a few hours in town before getting the ferry over to Magnetic Island where we hired a mini moke (which was painted pink and had Spongebob Squarepants on the front!) and zoomed off to Horseshoe Bay where our hostel was. It was like driving a cross between a giant go-kart and a dodgem, sooooo much fun, although I think I scared Lucy half to death. She later told me she did get a bit nervous when we were hurtling towards a blind bend and I yelled out 'where on earth is the gear stick on this thing?' When we finally got to our room in the hostel it was like a Turkish prison in need of some serious redecoration - bare concrete floor, saggy bed and no air-con ... read more

The boat was officially buggered so we just spent this morning crawling back to Airlie Beach! We put the sails up and i was in charge of navigating/working the rudder, and thankfully managed not to crash us into anything. It was killing my arm after about 5 mins but i managed to do it for about an hour and made Lucy take lots of cheesy photos of me pretending i knew what i was doing. It was a shame to say goodbye to the others, and also we were missing out on the group night out as we were getting the bus at 8pm, but i have to say it was quite nice to be back on dry land as feeling sea sick is exactly like having a hangover and we'd all been suffering a bit. ... read more

Got woken up at 6am by Stefano getting the anchor up which was of course attached to our room(!) so chains were clanging like crazy for 10 minutes. We set off and the boat was rocking really badly so Lucy went up on deck feeling queasy. I was fine at first and even pigged out on a whole fruit and nut bar as i was so starving, but unfortunately as soon as i saw up i puked the whole thing up! Nice. Felt really rough, like most people, so we just sat on deck and tried to eat breakfast. We moored in a bay and got the dinghy onto the beach where we walked to Hill Inlet (next to Whitehaven Beach, the most photographed beach in the Whitsundays) where we could sunbathe on the fine, white, ... read more