Hello everyone,

We loved our time on the east coast although it did seem a bit rushed at times. We flew into Cairns from Alice Springs and spent three nights there in total. Our first impressions of Cairns were not exactly brilliant! We checked into a hostel that was advertised as having 5 star accommodation at budget prices....and it turned out to be a little bit different to what we expected! It was filled with approx. 500 hormone fueled 18-21 year olds, mostly from England and all they cared about was who they were scoring and where their next drink was coming from. Luckily, we didn't spend much time in the hostel as Ireland were playing Wales in the rugby that night....kick off 3.30 am! The only place open late enough was a casino so we watched it there with about 20 other Irish surrounded by slot machines! Unfortunately at 5 am the casino closed so there was a frantic discussion as to what we should do! We had our laptop with us so we raced down to McDonalds (free Wifi) with about 10 others and listened to it on RTE radio online!! At 5 in the morning McDonalds had a bunch of hyper Irish huddled around a laptop straining to hear every word and telling every passer by SSHHHHHH!!! The result was greeted with a big cheer and celebratory McFLurrys and burgers! We'll definitely remember the night Ireland won the Grand Slam in 2009!!!

After moving to a new hostel on the 2nd day, our opinion of Cairns definitely improved! It is a lovely small town with a really cool outdoor swimming pool and fake beach near the town centre. They have built facilities all along the east coast because the sea is filled with dangerous jellyfish and sharks! The great thing about Cairns is its location right beside the Great Barrier Reef. We took a boat trip out there where I dived and both Linda and I snorkled. The reef was amazing, full of colour and life! Linda was especially excited to find Nemo swimming through the coral!

We picked up our Jucy Campervan on our last day in Cairns and headed north stopping in a lovely town called Port Douglas on the way to the Australian Rainforest and an area called Cape Tribulation. It was amazing to be in a rainforest in Australia.....We always imagined Australia as having such a dry barren landscape and climate! This place was filled with life and we could hear it all around us as we bedded down for our first night in our new van. Of course, being Australia, there were lots of dangerous animals around too, such as crocodiles and ostrich sized birds called Cassowaries. The stories we had heard about these birds ripping peoples insides out with their huge claws had slightly freaked us out. So much so that Linda had to skip going to the toilet the next morning when I reported back to her that there were two baby Cassowaries in the forest on the way to the toilets! (they weren't actually cassowaries at all but more than likely pheasant type birds, although I didn't realise that at the time either!) .

We made our way south from Cape Tribulation over a few days, passing through lots of nice small beachtowns. Airlie Beach was one such town and it was from here that we took a 3 day boat trip to the Whitsunday Islands. The Whitsundays are like paradise islands with spectacular whiter than white sandy beaches and crystal clear tropical waters surrounding them. Our boat was a racing yacht and in its heyday was apparently the fastest sailing boat in the world! Half the fun of the trip was sailing at high speed, tipped on our side, getting soaked by the waves and helping raise sails and pull ropes etc. Linda even got to steer for a while! We did lots of snorkelling off the boat too as the islands are on the edge of the Barrier Reef. Our nights were spent drinking cheap wine up on deck with the rest of the group including a crazy lunatic from Louth who entertained us no end especially when he modelled his Borat Mankini for us!!

Next on the agenda was Fraser island the largest sand island in the world. This was another three day trip but involved a lot more work than the Whitsundays! The two of us along with 14 others from all over rented two 4x4 Land Cruiser Jeeps and headed off to explore the island. 4x4s are the only form of transport on the island because there are no roads and all driving is on sand. We all got a go at driving during the three days and we had great fun meandering our way around the island, slipping and sliding as we went. It was like driving on ice!! Linda was only in the driver's seat 5 minutes when we came across rocks, but like a mountain goat she scaled them with ease and quickly gained the nickname 'off road lady', compliments of our Swedish hippie at the back of the jeep! Each day we had a rough itinerary, which took us to some spectacular lakes, a shipwreck, cliff edges and huge sand dunes. We spent our first night camped on the beach and cooked up a BBQ on our gas stove. The BBQ was accompanied by raw slices of potato because our supposedly full gas canister given to us by our rental company ran out!! The second night we stayed at an aboriginal campsite and the girls fluttered their sandy eyelids at the resident aboriginal man to scab enough gas for dinner. That night we sat around a campfire with another group, drank some more cheap wine and tried to play didgeridoos given to us by Nick McBride the Aboriginal owner of the campsite....a mad man who was convinced he had Irish ancestors, could see ghosts all around the campsite, and who claimed he owned the great ocean road outside Melbourne! (Lovely guy though!!). Fraser was a really unique experience, and along with The Whitsundays was one of the highlights of the east coast.

The east coast is famous for beautiful beachside towns and our two favourites came along after Fraser. Noosa and Byron Bay were definitely places we could have spent a lot more time in. Both towns have a really laid back atmosphere; the most important thing is relaxing and having a good time.On our way to Brisbane we called in to see Australia Zoo, which is famous as it's Steve Irwin's zoo and his memory definitely lives on there. There was tonnes of wildlife to see and we were really impressed by how interactive it was. There was a huge area full of kangaroos where you could feed them special food provided so we got a chance to do this and pet them too! We also rubbed a koala's gorgeously soft fur and to top it off, we hand-fed a few elephants!!

Brisbane was our last stop on the east coast. It's a small enough city but in a great location close to the coast. Brisbane has a big river running through it so we spent most of our time there, either on a boat on the river or relaxing beside it. We stayed with Pierce and Shari, a good friend from Athlone and his Aussie girlfriend, for our two nights in Brisbane, which was great.

After Brisbane we flew back to Sydney for a couple of nights before saying goodbye to Australia and flying to Hong Kong to begin the Asian leg of our trip! We have had a wonderful time in Australia, met some great people and have seen some unique sights. We definitely won't be sorry to say goodbye to 'house spiders' the size of our hands but everything else in Oz was "totally awesome"!

Love, Linda and Ger