Not Found

It has been a very busy time for us over the last two and a half weeks and a time of great experiences. Having discovered upon arrival at Brisbane that we in fact only had 17 days in which to get up to Cairns, we spent two hours with a travel agent booking the rest of our journey. We were disappointed to realise that 17 days just wouldn’t be enough to do this section of Oz justice and that we would have to leave out Great Keppel Island and Magnetic Island amongst others. A tight squeeze to say the least!
We made our first stop Noosa Junction after Brisbane, which we been told was beautiful. Upon arrival though, it appeared that we had entered a tourist spot, particularly one road called ‘Hastings Street’ which was back-to-back Australiana nik-naks. We decided to try the other side of the town and discovered a much quieter area, unfortunately the heavens decided to open on us (literally!) so we went to the cinema for refuge…..”The Others”- a v. good film! We were quite pleased that we were going the next day as we would have been struggling to avoid the other tourists if we had stayed much longer.
The next stop was Hervey Bay, a route to Fraser Island, where the Youth Hostel was brilliant (and air-conditioned!). We left our big rucksacks there (only taking the bare essentials) and made our way to the boat that would take us to Fraser Island. Fraser Island is the biggest sand (only) island in the world, with the purest strain of dingoes living there and a World Hertitage site. We spent two nights there and had a fantastic time, especially so as we were sharing a room, in the middle of the rainforest, with Colin and Kelly a Canadian couple (originally) from Vancouver.
The island had many spectacular areas including; a 75 mile beach, numerous sand dunes running into fresh water pools/lakes and sub-tropical rainforest. Our guide did some taste tests and showed us lots of wildlife, etc. We went for an 18 minute flight in a Cessna over the east coast of the island and saw a mother Humpback and her calf, a sting ray and a turtle. We went for a swim in Lake Wabby, which is a pool that has been left as the dunes have moved in around it, and were sucked on by Jungle Perch! We enjoyed a few glasses of wine whilst watching the sunset, which was lovely.
The only problem with the island was that there were loads of Marsh Flies, which are just like Horse Flies, and swarm around colours in the darker end of the spectrum, i.e. purple t-shirts!!
From there we took another overnight bus to Airlie Beach (13 hours) where we

checked into our new accommodation for the next three nights…..a tallship called “Solway Lass”. It is a one hundred year old tallship which sails around the Whitsundays, stopping at isolated beaches and fantastic snorkelling areas. We had a good time on board, particularly as we had a brilliant viewing platform for the ‘Meteor Storm’ on the 19th November. It was awesome!! The star gazing oppportunities were endless. We also tried our hands at Scuba diving again, which was excellent. The coral reefs around the Whitsundays were relatively untouched and were so diverse.
After getting back on dry land we made our way up to Mission Beach (famous for its Cassowaries - we didn’t see any!), where there was a youth hostel in the middle of the rainforest miles away from anywhere. It was a little bit like a hippy-commune and very laid back. We used it as a base to relax and to hone our backgammon skills - there was no internet or T.V.
We then made it to Cairns where it has been non-stop adventure! The first day we had amazing fun doing white-water rafting (see enclosed attachment…we are the two in the back!) although both of us managed to rip our toenails! The next day we went on a large speedboat out to the Great Barrier Reef where we snorkelled our hearts out watching all the gorgeous coloured fish and contented turtles. No sharks unfortunately!! Today, we went hot-air ballooning over the Atherton Tablelands, which was a good experience, but we definitely preferred ballooning in the U.K. as there is more to see!
As you can see it has been an exhausting 17 days, but what a memorable time! It is nearly time for us to leave this amazing land and we shall be very sad to leave it, however, we have missed so much out that we will definitely have to come back. We highly recommend a visit, if you have not been already. It is a country that has everything.
Off to New Zealand on Wednesday, so we will be in touch from there!

Hope all is well at home and that you’re enjoying preparing for Christmas (!). It seems a little strange to see Christmas trees, Santa’s and fake snow in the shop windows, that are also glaring with the sun.
The night session in the Sydney Observatory was a little disappointing as there was a large group and not a great deal of time for us all to look through the telescopes. We did see Mars and then a really clear image of the Moon, which was fairly impressive. Unfortunately, the Southern Cross is very low to the horizon at the moment, so we will have to wait a while to see that.
We have been working our way up the coast between Sydney and Brisbane, stopping at Shoal Bay, Forster, Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour and Murwillumbah. The towns have all had gorgeous stretches of beaches and active marinas. We have been on a couple of boat trips (usually with small numbers of people on board, because it is not peak season yet) and have been extremely lucky to have seen both bottle-nosed dolphins and hump-backed whales. Truly a one-off experience.
In Murwillumbah, we were very energetic and climbed Mt. Warning at 3 a.m. so that we would be at the summit for sunrise - it is the first place in Australia to catch the sun. Mt. Warning (called this by Cook as a marker for ships, as he ran aground on the reef nearby) is the old central vent of the largest volcano in the southern hempisphere. The walk was classed as strenuous, which, fortunately, we didn’t know until we reached the bottom! It certainly was a v. difficult climb of 8.8 km’s (return), especially by torch-light. The last 200m was basically a sheer rock face which was incredibly tough going. The view from the top was very rewarding, as you could see the whole outer rim of the crater. We were very pleased to have conquered such a hard climb, although the rest of the day was a wipe-out!! The Youth Hostel in Murwillumbah was really quaint, lying alongside the Tweed River. The Manager gives out free ice-cream to its residents at 9 each evening, which we all enjoyed! We met another couple there, who joined us on the climb, and we spent two v. funny evenings playing Monopoly - the only complete game supplied!
The journey to Brissy was non-eventful, although it had started to rain. It is still raining now. The rain here is fairly powerful and particularly sudden. But at least it’s still warm enough for T-shirts and shorts….;-)!
You may not hear from us for a while as it is non-stop for the next couple of weeks, cramming in as much as we can before taking-off for Auckland on the 28th November, from Cairns.