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Australia

Australia is a dangerous place ...snakes, spiders, crocodiles, jelly fish, shark attacks and also while I was there, fires and torrential flooding.....and by some luck I avoided it all.

The plan was to fly into Cairns, travelling down the east coast to Sydney and onto Melbourne five weeks later. Cairns is one of the main stop offs to go diving and snorkelling at the Great Barrier Reef and with boats that take 200+ people the water can get a bit crowded. Someone had advised me to continue up North to Port Douglas where I managed to get a much smaller boat of just 20. The coral was amazing and came face to face with a white tip shark which fortunately is smaller than the whites of SA and relatively harmless. Just after I left Cairns the weather closed in and there were reports of heavy flooding.

Further down the coast went to Whitsundays to do a three day live aboard sailing trip with more diving. The trip started badly when an hour into the trip the dive instructor did in his back in lifting an air tank and we had to wait, at sea, for a replacement. We were also due to go to the outer reef which apparently has the most amazing diving and coral but due to bad weather and high seas it was not possible.

Next stop was Fraser Island which at 1840km sq is the world largest sand island and is a world hertitage site so it is abit surprising that you meet a group of people and then are given the keys to a 4x4 to cruise around the island. Had three days on the island drving through sandy tracks and racing across the beaches during low tide. just after I left Australia Fraser Island had to be evacuated due to severe storms.

After a brief stop in Brisbane I went straight down to Sydney where I caught up with Chris, Tania and Scott. It was the the first time I have met my nephew and just missed his 1st birthday by a few days. After moving from place to place every few days it was a good to kick back and take it easy for a few weeks....travelling can be hard work!!!

From Sydney went onto Melbourne which had been in the news over the last few weeks due to the bush fires which were described as the worst in Australia's history. I took the opportunity to catch up with some friends I had met in Africa who live outside Melbourne. They kindly put me up for a few nights, gave me a quick tour of the local area and even a trip to the husbands work place which was a power station and from the roof you could see miles across Victoria. We then took a trip into the countryside to see the remnants of the bush fires which had stopped nearby, the burnt countryside, houses and cars resembling the aftermath of a war zone. It was incredible to find out that the fires were started deliberately by arsonists and caused so much destruction.

The last few days in Australia were spent on the Great Ocean road which is on of the worlds top ten drives however it is unlikely that whoever put together this list was driving a 1.6l Hyundai Getz but the views were stunning.

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