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Published: December 4th 2010
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So we flew from Christchurch to Cairns and the first thing that hit us was the heat and humidity even though it was night time! This was only a taster of what was to come over the next few weeks!
We just stayed in a hostel on the fist night and then picked up our Hippie Camper the next day. Not quite as nice as 'Hotel Hiace' we had in New Zealand but it does the job! We hung around Cairns for a few days enjoying the 35° heat realxing at the lagoon.
One of the days, we went snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef which has definitely been one of the highlights of our travels so far. It really is spectacular to see that whole different world under the water. We absolutely loved it and we got to see Nemo!!
After our few days in Cairns, we started our trip down the coast where our first stop was Mission Beach. There's not much going on here and the weather was so humid at this stage with numerous thunderstorms. We just walked along the beach and then left the following day.
Next stop was Townsville which is quite a big
town but not much going on here either. The reason we stopped here was to go to Magnetic island. So the following day, we set off on a really early ferry to try and make the most of the day on the island. By about 9am we were absolutely drenched! We managed a few walks around the island but the views weren't that enjoyable with all the clouds and rain!
So we got back in the Hippie van and we drove down to Airlie Beach which is a really busy little town and the departing point for all Whitsunday Islands trips. We headed off on our cruise the following day and it was really enjoyable. The sailing boat we were on was class (Boomerang - best in the fleet apparently!). As well as that, we had a really good group which made for a few good nights on the boat. We did some more snorkelling in the reef again and it was really really good. Not quite as clear as up around Cairns but we got to see as many fish and coral. A few too many stinger jellyfish around though!!
We just relaxed in Airlie Beach for a
couple more days after the Whitsundays trip. Its a pretty hectic town so we needed a bit of a break after that!!
We drove on south with a few small stops along the way including Mackay, Rockhampton and then onto 1770 where we spent a couple of days. There's a really nice beach here at Agnes Waters where we relaxed for a day but the highlight of our time aorund 1770 was the chopper tour we did. The two of us got kitted out in leather gear and drove 63km around 1770 and Agnes Waters on our motorbikes. Colette has definitely found a new love in motorbikes and speed which nearly ended in disaster when she had to swerve to avoid a kangaroo! Really good fun trip and we would recommned it to anyone.
Our next main stop was down at Rainbow Beach where we were going to do a 3 day trip of Fraser Island in a 4x4jeep with a group of 8 people! This was another really fun trip and again we had a cool group of people. Fraser island is beautiful - Lake wabby, Lake Mackenzie, Indian Heads, Champagne Pools are all really cool. We
did have rain on our first day but it didnt stop the party and everyone had a good time getting covered in sand! We just spent 1 more night in Rainbow Beach when we got back from this trip.
Then we drove a couple of hours south to Noosa and this was probably one of the nicest beach towns we have been at so far. The town is full of really nice cafes and shops and the beach is amazing. Also, we spent a few hours one day walking through Noosa National Park which has some beautiful views. We were starting to run out of time so we had to leave Noosa but could definitely have spent longer here.
On the way towards Brisbane we stopped at Australia Zoo (the home of the Crocodile Hunter). I have to say, the Irwin family merchandise is a bit over-the-top. There's everything from dolls, to action figures to DVDs and magazines of Steve's daughter, Bindi. Anyway, that didnt stop us from enjoying the zoo. It was quite impressive and well worth a day here. The croc show was class!
After the zoo, we drove into Brisbane and were met with
hoards of people and traffic....yes, the first Ashes Cricket test was on! We had kind of forgotten about it but it didnt take us long to find out that every bed, campsite and even parking space within 20km of the city was booked up! We did manage to park up outside a house for the night which meant we could hang around for a day. We just walked around the city the next day which looks really really nice and I wish we could have spent longer here but the lack of accommodation forced us to move on!
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