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Published: November 1st 2008
It's been an extremely jam packed few days. We started on Wed 22nd in Cairns with a trip to Kuranda on the Scenic rail returning on the skyrail (cable car) It was a fab day with bush walking and amazing views of the rainforest and Cairns.
On Thur we sailed out on quite a rough ride to the outer barrier reef! I loved it but the majority of passengers didn't (I won't go into details but it was quite unpleasant!!) Over the 2 days diving and snorkelling we saw turtles, rays (including a large bull ray on one of G's dives) and white tipped sharks. The visability was massive and the whole 2 days were fantasic. Although I don't think I'll be converted back to diving I could def get used to snorkelling from live aboards! I even managed to get over my fear of jellyfish, swimming through large numbers of apparently harmless pink ones....... although it did still freak me out a lot!!
Next (on Sat) we picked up our car and started to drive down the coast. Over the total 3 days driving that we did we saw kangaroos, camels and loads of different bird life including
white sea eagles. No Koalas unfortunately but fingers crossed for the blue mountains.
First stop on the trip down was Airlie beach and the Whitsunday islands. We spent Sunday sailing around the islands including a trip to Whitehaven beach which was total paradise with white silica sand, clear blue water and hot sunshine. Snorkelling in Mantarary Bay on the way back was fantasic too - we met a very friendly huge fish (Neopolan Wrass) which must have been 6 metres long (slight exaggeration possibly but hey.....) Apparently the extremely horrible and nasty box jellyfish have very good calendars and know they they weren't due to turn up for another couple of weeks!!!!!!! Thank goodness!
Next stop was Hervey Bay, gateway to Fraser Island. The 2 days and night we spent on the only subtropical rainforest on a sand only island were brill. We swam in freshwater lakes, walked through what felt like the sahara desert but was actually just a sand dune, climbed Indian head for whale, dolphin and turtle watching and rode in a 4x4 down the beach for 70km including a stop for pipi racing.
Yesterday we got lost in Brisbane trying to find the
hotel...... I can only liken it to Leeds with the horrific one way system!! However after some road rage and slightly frayed nerves we made it, had a really nice meal including the biggest chocolate dessert in the world last night and are now at the airport waiting to fly to Sydney!
Again no photo's yet - hopefully we'll find a place to do them in the next few days. Both of us are looking forward to being in the same place for 5 whole nights, totally luxury to be able to actually unpack!!
Love D&G
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Neil, Heather & Daniel
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We're you all busting!!!
I assume that you had a lot to drink on the 70k beach drive if you had to race to go for a pipi, who won?? Just laughing at Daniel falling into his toy box at the moment :-). Have a good birthday on Monday Graeme and just to let you know, your book is read every day to see where you are, very organised, very impressed.