19/05/09 Tuesday Day 276 Yet another overcast day. Having left Caloundra, we headed to Australia Zoo. This place is huge. It’s very well laid out and the map is very easy to follow. Being Steven Irwin’s zoo, there was obviously loads of crocodiles. And like most crocs, they don’t do much! We had only about 40 minutes to walk around before the first show in the Crocoseum. This is massive. It’s like a big football stadium. During the 40 or so minutes walking around we say Tasmanian Devils, foxes, a camel and some koalas who just seem to sleep is the [View Full Entry]

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19/05/09 Tuesday Day 277 Luckily by the time we arrive into Brisbane it had stopped raining. Found the caravan park quiet easily with my phone sat nav. No backtracking or anything! After some lunch we had a look at the maps and bus times for the place so around half 4 we headed into the city for a stroll. The bus stop is about 5 minutes walk from the park and it takes about 20 minutes to get in there. First impressions of the city were amazing. Such a vibrant place and a clean city. It’s very easy to get around [View Full Entry]

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18/05/09 Monday Day 276 After leaving Hervey Bay in beautiful conditions this morning, we had a quick look at the beach there. Nothing special. Then it was some 30k’s away to a place called Maryborough. This was where the Mary Popping Author came from and there’s a statue of Mary Popping there! For some reason I was expecting something huge. Instead it turned out to be the size of a normal person. Pretty neat though. Once we had that seen, we headed for Noosa and Noosa Heads. We were hoping to spend a day or two here relaxing but as soon [View Full Entry]

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16/05/09 Saturday Day 274 Yet another day of driving Another 400k+ day clocked up. We did however stop off at the rum distillery in Bundaberg for a quick tour and we also got two free drinks which made the tour turn out to be good enough value! That was about it for today really. So now we’re here in Hervey Bay. We’ve a tour booked for tomorrow to visit Fraser Island. 17/05/09 Sunday Day 275 Fraser Island Checked out the town last night. It’s basically one massive long esplanade with shops and pubs dotted around in little groups, but none more [View Full Entry]

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15/05/09 Friday Day 273 A day of driving Today was a day of driving. We drove from Airlie Beach to Rockhampton. It turned out to be an epic journey, just a few clicks shy of 500 kilometres. Left just before 10am, get here after 4pm. There’s nothing really in between so it had to be done. After arriving we checked out the city/town. It’s small enough. You can walk around the main part of it in about an hour. Tomorrow is another epic. It’ll either be 300k’s to Bundaberg or 400k’s to Hervey Bay where we’ll be on another tour, this [View Full Entry]

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12/05/09 Tuesday Day 270 Nothing much to report on Airline Beach. Arrived here in the afternoon. We thought the caravan site was a short walk to the turn. It turns out it’s a short bus journey but it’s not so bad as the bus stop is right outside the door. We checked in and headed back into town on the bus to check the place. Typical beach town really but nice all the same. They also have a lagoon in the middle of it where you can swim or just lay out for the day. The town is small enough too [View Full Entry]

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11/05/09 Monday Day 269 Magnetic Island Today we went on a boat trip to Magnetic Island, just off the coast of Townsville. It’s a big enough island, probably a bit too big to get a pedal bike around. On the way out we realised that we’d need our drivers licences to rent one of their scooters or tiny 4x4 jeeps so instead we got a 3 hour tour of the island on a stretch jeep! It was a great tour though. Very informative. One of the highlights was the morning tea where the table cloth was the same design as the [View Full Entry]

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08/05/09 Friday Day 266 A flying day and a busy day Early start this morning, very early. Up at 4am to go for a hot air balloon ride. Mareeba is the capital of hot air ballooning in Australia and since we’re here it’d be stupid not to. Went to our pick up point and was met there by the pilot, Dave in his 4x4 carrying a trailer with the balloon all folded up and the basket where we would all fit in. There was a bus load also coming from Cairns but they would meet us at the launch site. There [View Full Entry]

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07/05/09 Thursday Day 265 Cape Tribulation First stop this morning was Four Mile Beach. Nothing special really. It’s just another beach. I suppose the bad weather we’re currently having doesn’t give a good impression of the beach. We then headed north from Port Douglas and crossed the Daintree river by cable ferry. Basically there’s two steel ropes, one either side of the ferry, which the ferry actually winds on and pulls us across the river. It only takes a few minutes to cross the river anyway. There’s some amazing views of the valley as you drive along the roa [View Full Entry]

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04/05/09 Monday/Tuesday Day 262/263 Back to living out of the bags Early start this morning. We had to catch a flight to Melbourne to get another flight to Cairns. This is due to our original flights and our original plan. Don’t ask for an explanation! Uneventful flight really! First thing we noticed getting off the plane was the heat. It was up in the high 20’s. Big difference from cold Sydney. There’s loads of mountains around the airport too which was like landing in one of the Canary islands. It’s nice to be back in shorts and thongs (aka flip-flops) again. [View Full Entry]

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