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]

---

---

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]

---

---

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]

---

---

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]

---

---

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]

---

---

Day 243 (25.11.07) Yet another early morning saw us up and onto our next tour bus, this time a funky 4WD truck, by 5.15am. The next two days would be filled with a visit to Kakadu National Park renowned for it's centuries old aboriginal rock art and huge waterfalls. We set off down the road and began to get to know our extremely laid back tour guide Karl. A couple of hours later and we were at our first stop, the Mary River Wetlands currently a river but further into the wet season this will expand to become 15km across in [View Full Entry]

---

---

Day 238 (19.11.07) All packed up and ready for our flight to Alice Springs we sat in our hostel and waited for the shuttle bus to the airport to arrive. Some time later we were still waiting. With less than 1.5 hours until our flight departed we were eventually collected and proceeded to drive around town to collect yet more concerned tourists - would we make check-in? Finally we were headed towards the airport and thankfully were able to check in with a little time to spare. Panic over we settled in for a 'very short' wait before we boarded our [View Full Entry]

---

---

Day 241 (22.11.07) After a couple of beers the previous night we were once again up at 5am for a 5:45 pick up - they just haven't heard of a lie in around here! Meeting our new guide Justin, we were on the road this time north toward Darwin. On our way up the long straight roads of Australia we made a couple of stops, an Aboriginal art shop and an ancient (in Australian terms) tele-communications station at Barrow Creek as well as crossing the Tropic of Capricorn before reaching our spot for lunch and our main stop for the day [View Full Entry]

---

---

Day 235 (16.11.07) We have a couple more days before we fly out of Perth to Alice Springs and we'd decided we wanted to spend them in Fremantle as we really liked it there and would get to see Ozzie again before we left. We had a few things to do today before we could leave so we headed into town and were done by lunchtime. They had put up Christmas decorations around the city since we were last here - so strange, to us it doesn't feel like christmas is on it's way - the weather just keeps getting hotter [View Full Entry]

---

---

Day 234 (15.11.07) Today we had to drive back to Perth as the car was due to be returned the next morning. It's about 750km from Esperance so we set off early to get some distance under our belt. In between Perth and Esperance is basically nothing except a few small towns and the natural wonder that is Wave Rock. Apparently formed around 60 million years ago by weathering and water erosion the rock is shaped like a perfect wave just about to break. At 15m high and 110m long it's a really impressive sight to behold and it's impossible to [View Full Entry]

---

---