Sharky and Wendy

This is our last stop 'Melbourne'. Just as we did before (Sydney) we came at a time when everyone else was in Melbourne for the Commonwealth games AND the Grand prix. We flew in from Perth to be kindly picked up by my cousin Wayne and his wife Ando. We stayed in Melbourne itself for a couple nights and went to the penultimate night of the athletics. (The night our 4x100m relay guys dropped the baton). It was quite enjoyable but rather tiring having to stand up all the time for the Australian, Kenyan and Jamaican national anthems.Jason being a bit of a stalker of the famous pinned down Barry Davis the commentator to get a piccie and autograph. Melbourne was buzzing at this time with lots of stuff going on but it was also really ... read more

We booked a tour to The Great Barrier Reef from Cairns and got a complimentary day on a 'coral cay' called Green Island. We actually stopped off at Green Island on the way out to the reef on the first day. It was probably one of the worst days to do the trip as the sea was very choppy and lots of the other tourists on the boat were throwing up (lovely!). It was also choppy at Green Island so we decided not to snorkel as the visibility wasn't very good. However as we were on the beach the lifeguard set off his siren and orders everyone out the water. Jason ran over to be nosey and saw a young crocodile was swimming to the beach. This apparently has never happened before at the island and ... read more

We moved on up the coast after Airlie beach but only by 5 hours this time. We stopped of at Townsville for the night as we planned to go over to Magnetic Island in the morning. Townsville itself is quite a nice looking city but we didn't spend very long here. We made our way to Horseshoe bay on the island and stayed at the YHA which was excellent. Apart from having to stay in a hut type place this was one of the best places we stayed at. More so for me as there was lots of wildlife about. Just around the resort I saw loads of these cute 'dainty green tree frogs'. A large grasshopper type thing, a stick insect, possums (cheeky guys come into the bar and raid the bins) and lorikeets. Every ... read more

After flying back to Brisbane from Christchurch, NZ, we moved on up the east coast to Hervey bay. This is the set off point for most of the Fraser island tours. We ended up in a really nice backpackers (Woolshed) that had a DVD player! We booked a 2 day 1 night tour on Fraser Island. Fraser Island is quite special as its the biggest sand island in the world and has lots of trees on it. We took a walk through the forests and walked along the huge beach. It's not safe to swim off the island there are too many sharks apparently. However there is a little area called Champagne Pools which are large rock pools that are big enough to swim in. We took the option to do a little flight around the ... read more

We moved along the North Island to the Coromandel peninsula. This is on the way to Auckland and has some spectacular beaches. We didn't have that much time here but we managed to stop off to see Cathedral Cove. This is a lovely secluded but well known cove on the East coast. It is a 40min walk to get there but is worth it as you can see from the photos. Being on a weekend it was actually quite busy but this was mostly due to a wedding going on down there. Its a lovely location for a wedding but I wouldn't fancy walking 40mins in a wedding gown on a hot day. We also saw a little blue penguin swimming off the beach. Further down from Cathedral cove is Hot water beach. This has hot ... read more