Tuesday 21st December Its only about two hours back up North to the Gold Coast and we are looking forward to visiting the nice beaches of Surfers Paradise. We've arrived at an area at Gold Caost called Southport which is about 5 km outside Surfers Paradise which is perfect as the main town area of Surfers isnt that great as its mainly shops and food halls and actually looks and feels like Tenerife! We'll take a day visit into town later on the week if we are bored. We checked in and get our beachwear on as the weather is terrific and we must make the most of the sun while its out as the weather forecast is pretty poor for the next three or four days. We have a private room to ourselves which is ... read more

Sunday 12th December It's off the bus 9am and a 20 metres walk into the Fraser backpackers hostel. Thank god that the hostel is close by as we are stiff with sleeping on the bus. Once checked in we are instructed to be at the bar for 2pm for our induction and registration for the Fraser Island tour which departs tomorrow. Our dorm has 6 bunk beds and there's only top ones left so without any hesitation we're up and zonked out for a few hours. At 2pm we meet at the bar to go over our insurance details, license documents and are split into 4 groups for the tour. We watched a half hour video on safety issues and legal matters involving Fraser islands protocols as there have been accidents in the past and now ... read more

Thursday 2nd December We left Scotty's Hostel on a free shuttle bus to the greyhound bus stop where we waited a short while for the greyhound that would take us three hours to reach Townsville, our next stop. The journey was uneventful and we arrived at Townsville. The bus stop is directly outside the ferry terminal where we would catch our water taxi across Cleveland Bay to Magnetic Island which is a bonus, no mucking around with bags. Magnetic Island is only 12km from the mainland and its a short thirty five minute ferry across the lovely Coral Sea into the ferry port at Nelly Bay. This 20.1 sq mi mountainous island in Cleveland Bay has effectively become a suburb of Townsville, with 2,110 permanent residents. Judging by the house prices, its an exclusive island to ... read more

Sunday 28th November We enjoyed our long lie in and once we got ourselves together we hailed a taxi and headed for the airport to catch our scenic flight tour plane. We arrived about a hour early so we sunbathed out the front of the building as it was scorching hot again. Our pilot arrived and took our details and informed us that our 30 minute flight was being upgraded free of charge as our other 4 passengers have booked on for the hour. Since there's only one pilot on today they are putting us all up together. Obviously we don't complain. After a quick demo on the safety issues we walk out to our plane which is a 46 year old bucket with wings. Its all good as we board the plane with Jill up ... read more

Wednesday 24th November After being picked up at 4.05 and driven to the airport we were a little worse for wear as neither of us got much sleep. The thought of the 3 hour flight to Brisbane followed by another 2 hour flight to Cairns doesnt seem to bother us now that we are seasoned travellers!! The flights were uneventful and as we stepped off the plane in Cairns the sudden thump of humidity hit us like a sledgehammer. Yip, we are in the middle of rainforest territory allright. By the time the bags come off baggage we are peeling off jackets and tops and gasping for water. Jill sorts out the free shuttle to our hostel and we arrive down on the esplanade in no time at all. We stupidly picked any hostel we could ... read more