Campervan

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With a couple of months camping, hostelling and sleeping on friends sofas, we drove 40 minutes up the road to Palm Cove for some 'luxury' in a Novotel apartments. In 30 degrees, the air con was the biggest luxury. We spent the next week visiting the fish on the Great Barrier Reef and the remote outback towns. Despite having rented a lovely apartment, we roughed it in the bush camping for a night or two. With 2 weeks touring around, we had pushed George as far as he would go, we left him at a recycling plant to be repaired for another lucky driver (or that's what they told me..). After George was 'put down', we moved onto the confines of a camper van and made our way from Mission Beach to Brisbane stopping along the way. Having knocked a few kangaroos out our path, we arrived in Airlie Beach in time for our sailing trip to the Whitsunday Islands. With our swimmers packed and goon bags (what sort of backpackers would we be otherwise?) under our arms we boarded our boat, along with 15 others. Snorkelling the reef, watching the sunset, and sleeping under the stars was just as perfect as it sounds (ok ok, i'm gushing now). Our next stop, Fraser Island - dingoes, 4WD and lots an lots of sand. Cars were stuck every 5km and moving slower than a NYC cab. The main 'road' was a 70km stretch of sand along the beach and the roads in between were more sand than road.

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