We spent the morning on the beach enjoying the Australian winter weather and after lunch left the pikey campsite and headed on towards Townsville. It was quite a drive and we arrived in the late afternoon just in time to purchase some supplies and book our ferry to Magnetic Island on the following day. The tourist centre had provided us with free camping information and we headed off to a nearby site. As the sun was setting we were unable to locate the site and had to choose the next option - a BP truck station just south of Townsville. We [View Full Entry]

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After breakfast and some beach time we headed back into Cairns to have the seatbelt in our van fixed at the Wicked Office as the mechanic had been absent the previous day. From here we headed south to our next port of call - Mission Beach! It was quite a drive and we arrived quite late on in the afternoon. Unfortunately there was nowhere free for us to camp and we had to opt for the next cheapest option. This happened to be a council camp site but it was right on the beach. After securing our possessions and trying to [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Cairns after our mini outback adventure late in the afternoon and picked up some supplies. We were uninterested in staying the centre of Cairns and so instead drove north to Ellis Beach where we were able to take our van down onto the sand. The evening was spent similar to many of the previous ones: we made ourselves a rather large fire, enjoyed a barbecue style dinner, consumed some light, crisp cold ones and all of this whilst watching the ocean. We awoke the next moring to blazing sunshine and spent a few hours on a nearby beach [View Full Entry]

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Our next major destination was Cairns and we had decided that we should attempt to get there along smaller, less used roads rather on the main sealed roads we were so bored of travelling on! Dale had also been researching the area and there was a couple of interesting places we wanted to visit. However, after 3 days of bumpy roads and limited signposts we had found none of the attractions we had aimed for. Having said that we had experienced the deep outback and had really enjoyed driving off the road into a clearing to make fires, explore and spend [View Full Entry]

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After such a long stretch of driving it was nice to finally reach some form of civilisation. (This is a phrase rather than our actual feelings on Australia as a civilised country!) The town actually had shops and people bussling around and we headed to the tourist centre to take advantage of the ammenities and ask a few questions. We checked out some prices of tourist activities but once again opted for the free option and drove to the nearby lake of Moondarra. The weather was great for what was supposed to be winter time and we spent much of the [View Full Entry]

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We knew that this leg of our journey was going to be tough! The owner of the campsite had nicknamed our route something along the lines of death valley?!? and this had not given us much hope. There is very little to speak of but we spent the majority of the day taking it in turns to drive 100km stints through complete nothingness! After a long day of driving, we found a large rest stop about 50km outside of a town called Camooweal and as usual made a fire and cooked our dinner. The day was actually made shorter anyway as [View Full Entry]

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The next morning we were awoken by our 'neighbours' shouting at us. They were kind enough to inform us that we were lazy and missing the best part of the day. Breakfast was cooked on the fire once again and we enjoyed noodles with boiled egg - A cheap and interesting alternative to a sausage and egg mcmuffin. We packed up our camp and headed on around 9.30am towards Pine Creek. It turned out that it was a one road town consisting of a garage and a toy shop that sold alcohol! From there we made progress towards Edith Falls where [View Full Entry]

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Today was a much better day! We woke up after a good nights sleep and checked out at 10am. Next stop was McDonalds for breakfast and then we jumped in a taxi to 'Wicked Campers'. It took a while to sort out all of the administration but eventually we were given a Kia Pregio with "Hell Boy" as our theme. We were all very excited and headed south to get some fuel and food supplies. After 150km we headed into Kakadu National Park and stopped for a game of American Football at the side of the road. We reached Jabiru, the [View Full Entry]

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After the luxury of Singapore Airport, we arrived bleary eyed in the far smaller, less attractive Darwin Airport. We then had to endure the rigorous security checks, which at 4am and with no sleep was rather aggravating. Eventually, we collected our bags and escaped customs with relatively few problems. We entered the main part of the airport and headed straight for the information desk where we were met with a moody Austalian woman weighing around 250lbs. Needless to say she was very unhelpful and told us that Darwin was likely to be busy and we would have trouble finding accomodation. Howeve [View Full Entry]

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Regrettably, this is to be the last entry from Asia. However, paying US$12 a beer in Singapore means that some relief is also felt! Today we have spend relaxing on the internet and updating the blog before we head to Changi Airport for some final shopping and awaiting our flight to Darwin. Mark's Final Thought: "As I sit here in my air-conditioned internet booth with my wet towel drying beside me and my jumper airing in an attempt to remove the smell of mould i begin to wonder! The past 6 months have been amazing! There have so many highlights and [View Full Entry]

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