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Vicki's travel diary... After I said my sad fairwells to Liz, I went to visit Leanne. We had a fab girlie night watching Grease and having facials. She also tried to show me a red back spider in her garage ??? I'm quite glad she didn't find one! The next day, she dropped me at the airport to meet Pete. It was so good to see him after a couple of months apart. We spent a couple of days exploring Sydney, then hired a car and headed for the Blue Mountains, which were bloody cold. While we were there we almost got stuck in the canyon at dusk. I wasn't happy about the prospect of climbing up the 'Great Stairway' in the dark without a torch. Pete of course found my mad dash for the last train highly amusing! We bid farewell to the miserable weather (thank god) and flew North to Cairns, where we picked up our home for the next 2 weeks. We had complete freedom, were self sufficient, and best of all - I didn't have to pack/un-pack my ruck sack continually. I was one happy lady! Our first major stop was Port Douglas, a charming town with a great beach, shoping, restaurants and bars to boot. It would have been easy to stay there the whole time. We pressed on further north to Cape Tribulation, the only place where World Heritage Forest meets World Heritage reef. We went snorkelling on the reef and sea kayaking, spotting huge turtles along the way. Our guide even took us croc hunting down a creek (apparently he was only 5 foot long so wasn't life threatening !?!). On Pete's birthday we climbed Mt Sorrow, which was a challenging but fantastic walk through the forest. We saw a huge cassowary footprint on the way down. Cassowaries are 6ft birds who have the potential to kill a man with their with their claw (think along the lines of Jurrasic Park) I wasn't scared at all.. honest We went further north again to Cooktown, stopping off at Mossman Gorge on the way. It was quite a long drive through a vast and changing landscape. Cooktown is a sleepy colonial town with a pretty pier, whose main claim to fame is Captain Cook. We took a walk to visit it's lovely deserted beaches and old light house. We passed at least 3 snakes and I had my flip flops on. Nothing like being prepared. From Cooktown we popped back to Port Douglas. Pete went on a fishing trip. Whilst he didn't get to use the fighting chair, he saw humpback whales + a shark jump out of the water to take a huge bite out of a fish one of the other guys had caught. From Port, we visited the beautiful waterfalls of the Altherton Tablelands, before spending our last night in North Queensland at Mission Beach. Further south, we spent a few lovely days in Noosa watching the surfers, going jet skiing in the sea, exploring the national park and chilling on Alexandra Beach. Pete even tried a bit of nude sunbathing and swimming which he found extremely liberating (no photos though you'll be pleased to know!). Next stop was Fraser Island - we hired a Land Cruiser and camped and visited many of the beautiful lakes, champagne pools and spotted dozens of Tiger sharks from India Head. After Fraser, we went back to the lovely town of Noosa to spend our last couple of days together before Pete started work. The last few days have been spent catching up with my friend Louise who lives just south of Brisbane, and saying my final farewells to Pete :-( Next stop Sydney...
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