We are up at around 08:00, it is another gloriously sunny day.We packed an overnight bag and packing an overnight bag ready for our visit to the Bay of Islands and have breakfast. We had planned to set off at 10:00, but it was more like 11:00 when we set off on the SH1 heading north.We head in the direction of Whangerei (pronounced Fangerei in Maori- a bit like the doric at home in Aberdeen!). We stop off at "Hundterwassers Loo" on the way. These are public toilets in Kawakawa that were designed by an Austrian born artist and ecoarchitect Friedensreich Hundterwasser. These are the most photographed loo's in New Zealand. Lots of wavy lines decorated in mosaics and brightly covered bottles - bizarre!. We carry on for a while longer before stopping at Waipu (Pronounced ... read more

Up at around 07:00 and finish off packing. Down for breakfast - poached egg and bacon, we are booked in for Bed & Breakfast again. The cases are picked up at 09:15 and we check out at 09:45. We have a departure time from Hamilton Island of 10:55 for Melbourne. The weather is back to torrential wind and a wee bit blowy. Our luggage is picked up and we check out of the Beach Club and are taken over to the airport in good time for the flight to Melbourne. The flight is full and takes just under 3hours. At Melbourne we go to te International departures and check-in for our flight to Auckland, New Zealand. The flight is full, but we are back to travelling Business, so we have plenty of room. I watch some ... read more

Up at 06:00 again. Di is this time worrying about me going snorkelling after seeing the sharks last night, and starts to ask where I keep the insurance policies! We go for breakfast at 07:00, the special this morning is poached egg and bacon - really good!. Then it is off to get ready for snorkelling. We are dropped off on the beach and told to remain in a certain area. The snorkelling is good and I see a Stingray and a number of exotically coloured fish (there is a chart on the vessel for identifying fish and putting a name to them, but I am not too good at this - I'll never get my "fish-spotting" badge!). The snorkelling is not quite as good as yesterday, there are small particles in the water and a ... read more

We are up at around 7:00 and go for breakfast at around 08:00. When we return to our room the luggage has been packed up and moved to reception. We checked out and got a courtesy car to the marina to catch our ferry to the mainland (Shute Harbour) We then got a bus to take us to the Abel point marina to check-in for the sail, but we are sailing with Whitsundays Sailing Adventure, and we find out that we need to check in at the office in the main street of Airlie Beach so we have a 10 min walk back to their office in town. We check in and find out that there are only a total of 8 people on this sailing! It is about lunctime now so we take the opportunity ... read more

Early start as the car picked us up at 05:55. It’s not raining!!! We hope that this is an omen for some better weather!! We made our way back down the Captain Cooke Highway to Cairns. This time we could see a bit of the scenery in the half-light, with the Coral Sea on our left and the hills of the tropical rain forests on our right. With it being early morning there was still low cloud and mist in the valleys to our right. We pass some kangaroos at the side of the road. Out to sea we see a number of small islands just offshore. We arrived at the airport at around 6:50, in good time for our flight at 7:55. We takeoff early, the plane is a prop job, a Dash 8 and ... read more