Nicola world travel

On the way to Cairns we went via the Atherton Tabelands, we stopped in a town called Innisfail and then went to Millaa Milla falls where Peter Andre filmed his videa for Mysterious Girl. The waterfall is really cool and pretty big. We went to Eacham lake next which was quite large and got some nice photos, before going to Curtain Fig National Park and seeing a "killer" fig tree. The seed for tree had landed on the branch of another tree and grew until it completely took over the tree and strangled it to death, it then went on to kill the next two trees beside it as well and it now massive!! So that was pretty awesome to see. We then drove along some really windy roads through the moutains and the views were ... read more

Arrived in Mission Beach Wednesday afternoon, chilled out for a couple of hours, and booked some stuff for Cairns and then watched a film in the evening. On Thursday morning we went white water rafting!! It was such good fun. We did up to grade 4 rapids and got nice and soaked. We had a chance to float along the river too, outside of the raft, which was pretty cool. We had 2 French guys in our raft and a French instructor so they kept speaking French all the bloody time!! Luckily we also had the river medic in our boat (and even more luckily didn't need him!!) who was Australian, so there was someone speaking English to us, and he was a really funny guy, he decied he couldn't say Anwen so nicknamed her "Annie" ... read more

Arrived at Base hostel on Magnetic Island at 8am on Saturday. Luckily we were able to check straight into our room and have breakfast and freshen up before our diving course started at 9am. In the morning we watched videos on suba diving and had questions to answer. Our instructor OJ gave us the answers to save time and then we went into the pool to learn the first set of skills. Setting up the equipment is pretty difficult and there is a lot to remember and a lot of checks to do. All the equipment weighs so much when it is on. We have weights belts and the big tank of oxygen on our backs is so heavy! So I was pretty relieved to get into the water and have it all become weightless. We ... read more

Had an 11 hour journey to Airlie Beach and Wednesday! We stopped in Sarina and did lawn bowling which was pretty random and I got perved on by some of the old men there! I'm even worse at lawn bowling than I am at 10 pin bowling and I came to the conclusion that I pretty much suck at all activities! I keep trying and hey its the taking part that counts! :P Arrive in Airlie quite late in the evening and feeling pretty stressed! Had a lot to sort out this evening to get ready for our Whitsundays trip tomorrow. Had to do laundry as I have run out of clean clothes, as well as meet our bus group for food. Had an amazing pizza at the Downunder bar, possibly the best pizza I have ... read more

Arrived at Krooombit cattle station in time for lunch. Food was delicious had really nice veggie patties and salad. Got given a cowboy hat and neckcheif and changed into my check shirt, so felt like a real cowgirl :D Took a hike up to sunset hill. Was proper exhausting in the heat so all crashed out at the top and then got attacked by ants so went back down. We then did a goatrodeo! I was useless with the lasso but we had to get into groups on 3, and Anwen had the job of trying to catch a goat, we had a minute to try after which we just had to grab a goat by the horns, Charlotte straddled it and I grabbed the poker and pretending to brand it. Each group of 3 had ... read more

Stopped in Rockhampton on our way to Emu Park and as everyone is having a chicken curry there tonight I got to buy myself some food here. Had Pad Thai which I haven't had since Thailand so that was a nice change! Emu Park is really nice. The dorms have single beds not bunkbeds which was awesome after so long in bunks! Funny how much you will appreciate not having someone above or below you! We had some drinks tonight and Charlotte and I did a shot called "Cowgirl" it tasted like strawberry baileys! Mmmm. The guys in the next dorm came into our room and were mucking about I had to got and take my pyjamas to stop them from trying them on! Slept pretty well tonight but up early again in the morning.... read more

Hammered it down on Saturday morning when we left Rainbow Beach. All day I kept slipping in my flip flops when we would take breaks in the journey. Wet floor and flip flops are lethal and after the 6th slip I fell over in the middle of a zebra crossing! I got up extremely quickly to keep going as a car was coming but I tore a whole in my new three quarte trousers :( On our way to Agnes Waters we stopped at a rum distillery at Bundaberg. We did a rum tasting. Not much of a rum drinker usually but rum and coke was actually quite nice. They also had this coffee and chocolate liquor (thankfully couldn't taste much coffee) which we had with cream and it was delicious!!! Rum went straight to my ... read more

Arrived in Rainbow Beach in the afternoon on Monday, its a very small town with not much here at all so just went to the supermarket for a food shop and then took a stroll down to the beach. Didn't eat all day so was absolutely starving so treated myself to chocolate pudding at the hostel tonight. Meet some people, some are going to Frasers tomorrow and some are in my group on Wednesday. We for a walk around the town in the night with a Swedish girl called Anna. We were trying to find anywhere that was still open so she could buy some chocolate but everything was already shut up 8pm! Played pool with Anna back at the hostel, we were both awful at it and each of the two games we played took ... read more

We only had one day in Brisbane as we are starting to struggle to get up to Cairns in time, but its a city so in a lot of respects the same as any other city. There is however a very nice area called South Bank so after we had checked into our hostel we headed there. We arrived at the hostel at 12 only to be told we couldn't check in till 2. They let us store our luggage and use the bathrooms and kitchen though. I always find myself getting cold on the buses so I dressed a bit warmer to travel butit was absolutely boiling when we got here and had carried our bags several blocks. So I really wanted to change into something cooler. As we didn't have a room yet and ... read more

Arrived in Byron Bay on Sunday. We got to our hostel Holiday Village quite late and just wanted to go straight to sleep. We arrived with a girl called Jodie who had also been at Spot X and travelled on the same bus as us. In our room was an American guy who seemed really funny at first but was having drinks with two girls (who weren't actually staying in our room) in our room. They stayed for ages pre-drinking before they would go out, and he clearly loved to be the centre of attention entertaining everyone. But my amusement soon wore off as he would not shut up and they contemplated staying in even though they could see the rest of us were trying to sleep! Thankfully they all eventually went out and he didn't ... read more