We had an 8 hour flight from Singapore so arrived in Brisbane early and then caught a connecting flight up to Cairns, our first point of call in Oz. We found our hostel easily and were pleasantly surprised to find that it was right opposite the lagoon. The lagoon is an enormous man made pool on the sea front (as they don't have a beach) and best of all it's free!

Australia is expensive. To give you some sort of idea of prices, take what you would expect to pay for something in England, times it by 2, square it, add 60 then triple that number and you'll be close to the Australian price. No but seriously, a lot of things are easily twice the price they would be back at home.

However, it is easy to see why the prices are so high when you hear about the wages they're earning here. Fuelled by an enormous mining boom, average wages have soared to ridiculous levels. We met an Engligh bricklayer who worked for $40/hr (approx 27pounds an hour). Even the bar staff earn $16/hr upwards. It's starting to make us think that working here, at least for a few years may be a good idea.

We went to the local supermarket (called woolworths strangely) and picked up the bare minimum of groceries to survive on. However, looking back we probably spent more doing that than we would have done using the hostel's unbelievable discount vouchers, for a meal and drink at a local pub.

Following some handy advise from a nice couple we met in our hostel, we went to a travel agency called Peterpans to see if we could book an excursion. Peterpans is the largest backpackers travel agent in Oz and they seemed really nice, even giving us free internet use for the duration of our trip. They didn't have many nice things to say about STA travel and we are beginning to see why. Once they have you booked on something, they don't really care how it goes.

Anyway, I digress, we booked a trip called 'Uncle Brian's Fun, Falls and Forests'. It was a trip into the Tablelands National Park near Cairns in a funky bus with a VERY enthusiastic guide called Cousin Brad (Uncle Brian was on paternity leave). Gus the fun bus and Cousin Brad first took us to Babinda boulders, a moutain river which looked so tempting to swim in but also had the name 'Devil's pool' and for a good reason. Cousin Brad explained that every year people are tempted into the inviting waters only to be met with a torrent caused by upstream downpours. In a flash they get swept downstream, hurtled through the boulders and dunked into devil's pool where it is common to be pinned under a boulder by a strong current. If they survive all that (highly unlikely) there is a collection of freshwater crocs at the end to finish them off!

There was an interesting Aboriginal story about the river; in short they believed that there was a beautiful aboriginal girl called Oolana, who had been promised in marriage to one of the elders, however, a nomadic tribe came across Oolana's and with them was a handsome young warrior. The moment they met, they fell in love and that night ran away to a moutain cave with the intentions to elope. When the tribe realised they tracked the couple down and killed the young warrior. She was banished from the tribe so went back up to the cave in the mountain where she cried so much her tears carved the river bed. When it flash floods it is believed to be Oolana crying for her loss. Strangely all of those who have died in the river have been young men between the ages of 18 and 25... Therefore locals believe that Oolana is after revenge or a new partner!

By this point after a little trek in the rainforest we were hungry and hot, lucky for us Cousin Brad had cake for us and our next stop was Josephine falls.

Josephine falls is a stunning collection of waterfalls and pools. One of these is a popular place to swim due to its safety and a natural rock slide carved by the river. We jumped straight in and slid down the waterslide. With the scenery and amount of fun to be had, we could have stayed there all day.

Next stop was lunch before being taken to Millaa Millaa falls (made famous by good old Peter Andre in his classic 'Mysterious Girl' music video and the herbal essence shampoo ads). So we jumped in, swam behind the enormous waterfall (40ft) and then all had our photos taken doing the herbal flick!

After getting back on Gus, we headed to lake Eacham, one of two volcanic lakes created thousands of years ago. We swam in a volcano... Luckily for us it has not been active for thousands of years, and the water was only luke warm, so no boiling lava!

As we were all having such a good day and spent so long posing at Millaa Millaa falls our time was limited at lake Eacham as we had to leave by dusk to stand a chance of sighting a platypus at our next location. Unfortunately, I think we were all too loud and scared them all away, no platypus sighted, but Cousin Brad did supply muffins and hot chocolate to make up for it! On our way back we stopped for a quick cider before travelling 1.5hrs back to Cairns along a road that consisted of 262 corners in a row! Good job we only had one drink!

When we returned we had already checked out so cooked ourselves some noodles (seems to be the cheapest item in the supermarket - a backpackers best friend) then headed to the bus station for our first experience on the greyhound bus. A 10hr night journey on a bus to Airlie Beach.