Blogs from Port Douglas, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 12

News Flash: (11th September) Sarah is driving Ramraider this weekend at Santa Pod, Northamptonshire in the European Drag Racing Finals. On the first of two qualifying days she was the top qualifier in her class with the top re-action time of 0.0002 second - good on you, Sarah!! We hope you and the gang enjoyed the weekend. Obviously we are a little behind with our blogs but we’re trying to catch up – there’s just too much to see out there! A quick hi to Amy in Melbourne. Amy’s birthday was on the 2nd September so we hope she had a fantastic day! Alas, Friday 2nd September didn’t look too promising. It was overcast, a bit windy and rain had clearly fallen at some stage during the night. We had decided that we would only stay ... read more

How things change as time rolls on...my adventures are starting to look and feel a little different now. After the non-adventure of Lucinda I rolled into Mission Beach and was pleasantly surprised to find a town that had what I was looking for. Sunshine, warmth, cafes and a vibe that suggested happy times are coming. To add to this, was a very long flat stretch of sand for me to begin my new exercise regime after packing on the pounds that follows many travellers as they eat their way through each destination. The sad thing about Mission is that it has been ravaged by the cyclone in February and what is left is a town struggling with tourism, not to mention ecological damages that is said will take 15 years to rectify. Worse is Dunk and ... read more

It was raining intermittently through the morning. Since we have five full days in the area, we had decided to relax today and formulate a plan for the remainder of our stay. After checking with our hotel's tour desk, we walked along the beach into Port Douglas. There are fairly ominous warning signs on the way to the beach. These warn of salt water crocodiles and "stingers" (jellyfish). Although the jellyfish are not in season, there still were containers with bottles of vinegar to alleviate their stings. In the summer months, they actually net off swimming areas and recommend protective suits as defense from these seriously dangerous creatures (the jellys not the crocs...doubt there would be a suit to protect you from the crocs). We did get back in time to enjoy the resorts salt water ... read more

So, Tiger Airways. Tiger Airways are the newest, most controversial budget airline in Australia (of which there is a surprising lack. The common argument is that Australia simply does not have the population to support a network of low-cost carriers. See below). Similar to Ryanair in operandi, it appears their chief difference is that Ryanair is infamous for late flights, Tiger are infamous for cancelling flights. The conspiracy theory is; if your flight is unpopular one day, i.e. not near full, then it is not economically viable for Tiger to fly the plane. So they invent a reason for the cancellation and push as many plebs onto the next plane as they can. If they can. You can see where this is going, can’t you? Our flight was leaving Melbourne at 10pm, arriving Cairns at 1.30am. ... read more

We're back! And after 12 days of work, we're glad to be. By the end of the trip we couldn't wait to get back to travelling, meeting new people and seeing new sights. WWOOFing was definitely an experience we'll never forget, but let's just say we're glad it's over. We did manage to see some sunshine out in the bush though, the weather cleared up for a few days and the heat was a nice change. On the second last night in five star camping we were awakened by Amy around 4am, "wanna see a snake!?" groggy eyed in disbelief we stumbled out of our bunks to see Amy holding a 3 meter python by the neck. She'd heard the animals going crazy, chickens screaming, cats hissing, dogs barking, and a parrot yelling "SHUT UP!" and ... read more