We flew to Cairns on Sunday, deciding on the flight instead of driving, as I did not fancy the 2,500km journey on outback roads. We were also told that the petrol is really expensive in the outback, as there are few places to refill, and you are essentially forced to buy it if you need it, because you're miles away from anywhere! Also, they had had a months' rainfall the day before we got into Darwin, which would have likely flooded roads. Flying just seemed the more sensible option!

The flight was ok, but we were told to arrive 3 hours in advance for a domestic flight, and that we would be leaving from the international terminal at Darwin. I have always been a sceptic about arriving soo early, and the fact that it was a domestic flight just seemed ridiculous to get there with so much time to spare! We checked in at 2.30am for a 5.05am flight and waited from after we checked in (there was no queue as we arrived first), until 5.00am to board, as boarding was delayed. I feel my opinion is justified!

So we arrived in Cairns and took the airport shuttle into the city. The airport is 8km outside the CBD, but you see (and hear) planes take off fairly regularly. Unsurprisingly all of which are Quantas Domestic flights - Australia is so far from everywhere!

We bought a car today, after shopping around and madly calling everyone who's adverts we found on hostel pinboards. The one we eventually bought was a Mitsubishi Pajero circa 1985. To be honest I probably bought it on impulse, even though it was cheap. It had rust everywhere and virtually nothing that wasn't essential to the car moving didn't work. Anyway, long story short we couldn't transfer ownership of the car so we returned it to the crazy German guys we bought it from, who wern't happy as they needed the money to get back to Germany for military service, or they would be imprisoned. The car was registered in the Northern Terrirotry and we're in Queensland, which might as well be different countries as far as the regional governments are concerned. Effort! It's safety certificate was from last September, which is not recent enough for the stringent Queensland council, so the Germans should have got a new one before they sold it to us. They didn't, and so we legally couldn't transfer ownership of the car to my name. Désolé? One of the most ridiculous days of my life. The insurance system is different in Australia. If a car is road taxed and has a safety certificate (called REGO), it is insured 3rd party for the designated owner to drive it. This is incredibly useful. If it wasn't this way I would rent not buy!

We're now buying a 1992 Mitsubishi Express Campervan from an Irish/Australian hippy girl, who met us to show us the car in bare feet. She's selling it on behalf of a friend, and therefore really needs cash from us unless we wait up to 4 days for a bank transfer from England. Unsurprisingly trying to get my ATM withdrawal limit raised from HSBC, calling from Australia in the evening, was like pulling teeth. I eventually got through to an Indian woman, who unfortuately was unclear and difficult to understand over the phone. The maximum I can take out, whilst being on the phone to a person infront of an ATM, is 1000 pounds, or $1600 AUD. We can only just about get hold of the $2300 we need before we have to spend another night here! We've been in Cairns for too long now, it's nice enough for a couple of days, but walking everywhere is restricting and we're quite bored of it now. We want to go down the East coast and see what it has to offer!