Roadtrip from Brisbane to Cairns and some more

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Hey everyone!(Its me, Jani, writing this one again)

Greetings from the HOT Cairns. We arrived here on tuesday by a relocation rental campervan. That was fun! I did the driving and Carolina did the navigating. We really didnt know whatelse to expect than we were going to drive atleast 1750 kms. As it turned out, it was as easy as putting up a tent in Fraser island, which was really easy.

We went to the rental company to get our car around 10am. We had an idea of reaching Rock(vegas)hampton at the end of the day, which wouldve been about a 600km drive. Unfortunately our driving didnt really start 'till 3pm... Firstly there was a lot of people in the shop waiting to be served. Secondly when it was finaly our turn, the bloke who went trough the car with us was working his first day and didnt know squad. Thirdly when we did get on the road, the car broke after 20kms driving. Fun hey?

They drove us another car and this guy actually knew what to do and gave us good pointers on what to do with the campervan. As you can see from the pics it was quite a large van and had lots of little things we shouldve known about it, such as how to turn on the waterheater.

Anyways, after 3pm we drove on for about 400kms and spent our first night in a tiny town called Gin Gin. It was small, but everybody we talked to was really nice and friendly. Our second day turned out to be the grand driving day, as we drove from Gin Gin to Airlie beach. This was about 850kms. It took us about 10hours with breaks to reach Airlie Beach. We stayd overnight in a fancy caravanpark and overly enjoyd our night there. In the morning when we actually saw the ocean we were stunned in a positive way. It was soooo beautiful. We tried taking pics of it but somehow the magic of the colors doesnt really show. Then we drove up north and stayd in a rest area nearby Cardwell.

The last day we just drove to Cairns stopping only in another tiny town called Babinda. It was a cute place and we had a break there and walked through the town twice... It was pretty small 😊 We reached our hostel Gilligans around noon and had coffee in town before returning the vehicle in perfect condition to the rental company Maui.

We were surprised how much fun we had just driving up and stopping in these tiny places and lookouts. We drove the A1 road which is called locally as the Coastal road. It goes closeby to the ocean but you could actually see the ocean from only a handful of places. It was usually atleast 30kms from the ocean and at the furthest we thought we were driving in the outback desert. The scenery varied from the farmlands to the beatiful green mountains by the road.

Its our 4th day now in Cairns. Honestly, our stay here has been a real rollercoaster! First night I got know our roommates from UK and Ireland. And their drinking games. I got absolutely hammered. The next day wasnt as good, we just wondered around in the city and went to see the Tarantino movie, Deathproof (<-- Excellent movie btw, we recommend it to everyone). Then on Champagne-Thursday we drank too much, thought the hostel was having a togaparty and all of us in our room and some others joined us and dressed up in togas. Only to find out that the party had been on the previous day. Anyhow, we had a blast and went around Cairns in our togas!! The Vaasa famous helicopter is now known worldwide 😉 It took liftoff and probably never hit the ground again, ha ha ha!

We are meeting my family, Ruth Ann & Bill, tomorrow and spending the next 2 weeks with them. Plan is to catch up, go to a diving/snorkelling cruise to the Great Barrier Reef, do riverrafting and bushwalking(known to people outside of Oz as hiking).

Cant wait! Next time the blog should have some great pics from the Reef and from the rainforests!!

Love ya all!

p.s. Cant believe that we have only 4months to go before we get back home!

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Comments

[Bonnie]

Wow!!
What beautiful scenery, and incredible photos! I hope you guys are all having a wonderful time. Tell Ruthann and Bill hello for me, too. I really wish I could wave a magic wand and be there with you all. Sounds like so much fun...lovebonnie