Brisbane to Cairns (Wed 14th - Tues 20th Jan 2009)

For the past week we have been continuing our journey up the Queensland coast to Cairns. Our first stop about 2 hours north of Brisbane was Australia Zoo. This is the place owned by Steve Irwin (well until he was killed by a stingray 2 years ago) and his family. Its speciality is crocodiles but you can also see heaps (to use the vernacular) of other Aussie beasts such as cassowaries (flightless birds found in Queensland), dingos, Tasmanian devils, echidnas (sort of hedgehog), American alligators and of course kangaroos and koalas. It's incredibly commercialised with the Irwin family running the whole show and it is impossible to escape them. You can even get your picture taken with Steve Irwin! The highlight of the day (show?) is the crocodile feeding done by Terri Irwin in the crocoseum stadium. Before this we were also lucky!? enough to see daughter Bindi performing on stage singing for half an hour with the Croc Men. She even has her own clothing range. It sounds all a bit tacky but to be honest it is a great day out and a lot different from your typical zoo.

Spent one night in a hostel in Noosa (a very popular and attractive holiday spot) before driving over 500k to Rockhampton and checking into the Metro Motel. En route we stopped for coffee at the small town of Maryborough, famous for only one thing - the birthplace of PL Travers, author of Mary Poppins. There is a statue of Mary Poppins outside the house where Travers was born. Next day we covered another 500k before reaching Airlie Beach gateway to the Whitsunday Islands. Highlight of our 2 day stay here was the boat trip to the Whitsunday Isles on the Whitehaven Xpress. (Hello by the way to Gordon and Angela if you happen to read this). Gwen went snorkelling off Hook Island and we had a walk and later a barbecue on Whitehaven beach on Whitsunday island. This beach is one of the longest and considered by some one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

Another all day drive (650k) took us to our final destination Cairns. We had a couple of detours to Townsville (not sure why) and to Mission Beach (overrated) a hour short of Cairns. We stayed 3 nights in the comfortable YHA in the centre of the city. Cairns is hot, humid and very wet. We were lucky to miss the cyclone by a couple of days otherwise we might never have got there. To be honest we did little of interest there. We made the mistake of visiting the Flecker Botanic Gardens to experience the rainforest. I got bitten everywhere and spent most of the time swatting away flies and scratching my itchy skin. We had planned to go White Water Rafting but this was cancelled because the heavy rain made it too dangerous. I think I'm fated never to go WWR as this is the second time it's been cancelled - last time was in Cusco, Peru. Only other thing of interest was having a massage in the night-market. A bit of a con - it was described as a 40 minute neck, back, spa and foot massage. The back and foot part was OK but the spa element consisted of soaking our feet in a bowl of warm water for 20 minutes.We probably spent more time in the Internet Cafe slowly uploading photos onto the blog than anything else.