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For our last week in Australia we decided we needed to do something a bit more adventurous, so we reverted back to the olden days, hired a campervan for the week, and headed away from the East coast backpacker trail.
The first port of call in our Jucy campervan was the Daintree Rainforest, via the expensive town of Port Douglas. The Daintree rainforest is one of the oldest in the world and was the location of our first tour; Bruce Belcher's Crocodile Explorer tour. We all boarded the small boat and went cruising up the Daintree river in search of some crocs. We managed to spot about 10 different crocs ranging from a 1ft one that was only 3 months old to a fully grown male adult at a size of 5ft and very fat, hence the name 'Fat Albert'. It was very cool seeing them from the safety of the boat, but I wouldn't want to run into one of them around the campsite!
We then headed up to Cape Tribulation on what was a breathtaking drive through the rainforest, stopping off on the way for a board-walk in the hope of spotting a Cassowary. Unfortunately, no such
luck. We only spent one night in Cape Trib and our time there was cut short due to us getting a flat tire caused by a sharp stone.
We then traveled a long way south and inland towards the Crater Lakes National Park via a quick look at the Mossman Gorge where Julia was very scared of the wild Turkeys. We had a walk around some of the lakes with our personal highlight being Lack Eacham, where we managed to spot some turtles swimming around in the beautiful crystal clear water. One of the other great highlights of the area was a peek at the phenomenon of the curtain fig tree, I could spend ages explaining how it's formed but instead I'm just going to say its pretty cool.
Our final major stop was the 'accessible outback', a place called Undara. This place seriously rocks and is very highly recommended by us. The first thing we did was a short bush walk to the Bluff lookout. It only took us about 1 hour but was really good, and although the 30something degree heat does not make the walking conditions easier it all adds to the fun. We then
went on a tour of the Undara lave tubes (the longest lava flow from a single volcanic crater on Earth), which are yet another phenomenon that Australia has to offer. We had an awesome tour guide called Greenie who definitely made an average tour very fun and interesting. That night we settled down to bed, using the duvet for the first time as it gets cooler at night in the outback, before sleeping like a log after our busy day.
The following morning we got up bright and early and headed off on another bush walk, this time a bit longer, but easier due to it not being as hot yet. We were even lucky enough to stumble across some wild Kangaroos really close to us which was pretty cool. We then headed back towards Cairns finally visiting Tjapukai which is an aboriginal cultural park where you learn all about the story of the indigenous Australians, and even had lessons in throwing spear's and boomerangs. We watched them do dancing, light fires from sticks and had our faces painted in Aboriginal designs. We then went to drop off the van before a sorting out loads of stuff for our
flight the next day, and also managed to squeeze in a Didgeridoo lesson.
So now we head away from the land down under, the experience will be something that will be with us for the rest of our lives. Its a great and diverse country that has so much to offer. We have loved every minute of it and even in our three months here we have only really touched a small portion of it, so we'll just have to come back again one day!
Off to Hawaii now (via New Zealand for a night).
Love Julia and Dan xxx
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lee rizvi
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Awesome guys. God speed you
on the rest of your magical mystery tour, that's waiting to take you away. ka keti Pou pou..Wave if you are flying over NZ...