Day 258 (10.12.07) Before we left for the next stage of our road trip we went for a walk down the lovely, palm fringed Mission Beach and went for an early morning swim in the stinger net. Today was mainly about getting most of the way down to our next major stop at Airlie beach so we did a whole lot of driving whilst soaking up the views of the surrounding acres of sugar cane plantations. We made our usual swimming stop around midday. This time we picked the beautiful Paradise Waterhole in the Big Crystal Creek section of the Paluma [View Full Entry]

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Day 263 (15/12/07) Waking once again at the crack of dawn we drove the last 150km to Hervey Bay and the Palace Backpackers where we were to pick up our self drive safari tour to Frazer island. Frazer island is the world's largest sand island. Originally formed as a sand spit it now stands independently from the mainland and attracts people for camping and 4x4 driving. It is another one of those essential things to do on your way down the east coast of Australia. Having been gathered in the common area we were shown two DVDs about 4x4 driving on [View Full Entry]

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Day 262 (14.12.07) After our eventful journey of the previous evening we had a great night's sleep and woke in our roadside rest stop ready to make the rest of the journey to Agnes Water. We left around 6am but it turned out to be a little further then we'd calculated from our basic map and we only just arrived in time for the 10am start to our surf lesson. We met up with team Germany as planned and psyched ourselves up ready to hit the waves! Surf lessons down the coast can be pretty expensive but we'd heard about a [View Full Entry]

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Day 260 (12.12.07) Today we were set to board our very own sailing boat to tour the stunning islands of the Whitsundays. But before we could get there we had a frantic pack of our stuff and drive over to the marina. We needn't have rushed in the end as we got there with plenty of time to spare. As we checked in we were excitedly awaiting our very own mini Ellen Macarthur style adventure. After the final formalities and picking up our very attractive stinger suits (full body lycra suits for sea swimming to minimise risk of marine stings) we [View Full Entry]

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Day 256 (08.12.07) A big thanks begin this entry, this time to the Christopher family as this was their wedding present to us - thank you all - it was fantastic! Another early start (not really a surprise now) saw us out of the hostel and on the minibus before 7am to make the journey to the Tully River a couple of hours south of Cairns. On the bus we got chatting to a couple of really nice Aussie ladies, Kate and Sarah, and decided to team up to go in a raft together. After sorting out groups we arrived on [View Full Entry]

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Day 253 (05.12.07) Since we were now making the trip to Cape Trib in the van we could choose what time we left and spent the morning shopping for a couple of essentials to make sure we could sleep and eat whilst on the road. Not far out for Cairns we took our first detour (as we do) to Yorkies Knob - this gave us the chance to really test out the van up a really steep hill to a look out (NORA did herself proud you'll be glad to know) where we got out our camping chairs and had a [View Full Entry]

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Day 251 (03.12.07) From the adventure of the skydive we were today going for the relaxation of a hot air balloon ride. This was a wedding prezzie from Mark's sister and brother-in-law Catherine and Pete so thanks a million - it was an incredible day! The only bad thing about it was that it started at about 3:45am! With it still dark outside we stumbled bleary eyed out of the hostel where we were picked up in a minibus which was to be taking us to Mareeba in the Atherton Tablelands and our launch site for the ballooning. As it was [View Full Entry]

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Day 252 (04.12.07) Continuing our fun-filled Cairns style action holiday, today we would be taken beneath the waves to visit the famous Great Barrier Reef. We only had a day to see the reef and wanted to do a three dive day, only offered by about 3 of the seemingly hundreds of dive companies in Cairns. We went with another recommendation from Raging Thunder as everything had been great with them so far. Having had a bit of a nightmare with communication between various tour companies - it became apparent that our planned tour (kindly paid for by Ryan for our [View Full Entry]

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Day 249 (1.12.07) We caught a plane firstly from Darwin to Brisbane and then onward to Cairns (for some reason this was cheaper) and managed to snatch a few winks of sleep. Arriving at the airport we called the hostel who promptly came over in a minivan to pick us up. Wearily we arrived and checked in but as our room was not available until 2.00pm we had to store our bags and entertain ourselves for the day. The Bohemia resort was really nice and albeit a little more pricey than others we have stayed in had a great pool and [View Full Entry]

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Day 245 (27.11.07) After a packed few days and all of our early get-ups on the tour we decided to have some lazy time in Darwin. We were staying a little longer than originally planned as this gave us the cheapest flight to Cairns so we had a few days to relax. Today we had a long and much appreciated lie-in and then planned to head around to see some of the town with Eve. We started the walking tour in our book and got to the first site, St Mary's Cathedral before deciding it was just too hot and humid [View Full Entry]

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