Blogs from Townsville, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 26

You’ve guessed it I’m still in Cairns and still enjoying the sunshine and partying, but progress has been made and me & Nicole have taken the plunge and booked our campervan for tomorrow to start the road trip. I’m going to miss this place as I’ve met some fantastic people, but I have to get moving! On Monday a few of us from the Hostel went on a snorkelling and diving trip out to the Great Barrier Reef. It was amazing and as you can see from the pictures, we all looked “hot” in our masks and wetsuits!!! Unfortunately I’ve had a sore throat and ear ache for a couple of days, so I couldn’t do a full dive. I got down about 2metres before my ear felt like it was going to explode. I went ... read more

Onto Townsville, arrived just before noon. Townsville has a very nice feel to it, I would have liked to have spent more time there. We took in Reef HQ aquarium; arrived just in time for the small fish feeding (not the sharks.) The fish-feeder (big title) definately had the pavlovian effect on the fish. When they saw him they grouped and swam in a bit of a frenzy yntil they were fed. The most alarming fish to see fed was the Barramundi; a large fish about 1 meter long. The fish-feeder prepared a 1/2 mackeral and waved it over top the water. The barramundimade quite a ruckus when he came to the surface and "sucked" in his morsel of dinner! I didn't take many pictures because I don't think they turn out too well. We ... read more

Well here I am actually holed up in Irvine waiting for the bloody rain to abate. I truly believe that we have brought the weather back with us from England but as they have been experiencing a very serious drought here then we probably shouldn't complain. That said, it is playing havoc with our camping. Anyway, due to technical jiggery pokery I am able to sit and write this and then simply upload it at an interweb café thus saving me a few dollars- watch the pennies and the boat payments will look after themselves and all that. So to the travels so far. We have done this section of coast a number of times and so were determined this time to avoid the real tourist hotspots. Having waved a slightly hesitant goodbye to Cairns ... read more

We're now in Australia. We've been here a week or so now and have done quite a lot already. We spent the first few nights in Cairns and had a great night out in the Woolshed including watching some fine Goldfish racing (blowing bubbles behind them in a tank so they move forward, highly amusing). After collecting our Van nicknamed "Em" (after the well known rapper Eminem - because the van is white on the outside and black on the inside) we headed north to Cape Tribulation, named after Captain Cook's ship ran around nearby. The rainforest was amazing and lived up to its title by chucking it down all the first day and night when we were there; luckily we had purchased a van tent just hours before and had erected with minutes to spare. ... read more

Gordonvale...Babinda...Innisfail...Tully...Ingham. The small towns we drove through on our escape from Cairns along the Bruce Highway all seemed to display similar traits, ie unattractive residents, most still displaying their Christmas decorations (10th of Feb!!!) and all having a big corner pub with attached 'drive thru' bottle shop named 'The Victoria'. If you are a resident of one of these towns I apologise (although I doubt you can read) as I am sure they are all great places to live, but alas we passed them by. Fading light forced a stop over 250km south of Cairns on a camp site so dated that it was almost coming back in fashion and home to so many tree frogs that Carla mistook one for a light switch in the ladies shower block and touched it on its head, and ... read more