We were up bright and early yesterday in order to check out and catch our bus at 7.00am. The bus was quite busy but we got good seats and left Airlie Beach just a little behind schedule (after picking up a very drunk/half hungover passenger!). The journey was the longest we are going to face on the way down the east coast and we made a brief morning and afternoon stop, which sandwiched a lovely BBQ lunch, cooked by our driver Deano - with a little help from ourse...

Sunday we woke up and showered in time for our 10.00am check out of Koalas hostel - it was pouring with rain and showed no signs of letting up, but we were still trying to be optimistic about our sailing trip to the Whitsunday Islands. We stored our bags, after our trek, shoe-less, in the rain, at the OZ Sailing office, then we made our way along the boardwalk towards the marina, stopping by a 'bottle shop' to pick up a box of wine ($12 for 4 litres, bargain!). ...

Yesterday we were up at 8.00am still on a high from our skydive! We checked out at 10.00am and hung around Scotty's Beach House in the boiling heat waiting for our bus to arrive. We departed Mission Beach at just after 1.30pm and headed south with Greg as our driver. We made good time and after a food break en-route we made it into Townsville for around 5.15pm. We headed into the ferry terminal and collected our ticket which was included in our accommodation pack...

Yesterday we were up and at Backpacker World Travel Agency, our OZ Experience pick up point, by 6.45am. We checked in and got on the bus ready to leave just after 7.30am. We had the mis-fortune to be in front of a few 18 year old Dad's girls, who charged their tickets onto their Father's credit cards! Very posh and immature. We stopped off at Innisfail, a small town just outside Cairns, to pick up some provisions and ATM stop. Then we headed to a Crocodile F...

Yesterday was probably our earliest start of the trip so far, we were up at 3.45am for a 4.20am pick up to travel inland for a hot air balloon ride over the Atherton Tablelands and the rainforest. We arrived at the 'launch site' after about a 45 minute journey and we were airbourne by 6.00am. It was such an amazing experience, so smooth and tranquil and really comfortable although none of us were graceful getting into the basket! After 30 minutes of photo taking,...