So, we spent our week in Cairns and despite my big plans of catching up and visitting all the places I didn't have enough money to first time round, I pretty much spent a lot of time in the caravan park where we were staying, relaxing by the pool and having a proper little holiday, topping up my tan which had hugely faded with all the hours I'd been working in brisbane. so I had a really nice boy-free week while they were out doing their PADI courses, coming home to revise and finally flashing their scubar diver licenses every 2 minutes for no apparent reason...'we're out of gas for the stove'....'DONT WORRY......we're qualified scubar divers'...the sort of thing.

So we had a free couple of days in Cairns and decided to use one of the taking the scenic railway up to a little village called Kuranda and then get a skyrail over the rainforest back down which was alright I suppose but a little bit expensive for what it was really, however I got to go to some markets so all was well even if the boys were bored. The next day we started our roadtrip back down to brisbane but made sure we went up to see cape tribulation 'where bush meets beach meets reef' and it was really nice but would have been nicer if the weather was a bit better. We got acquainted with a few too many mosquitoes and a few bush turkeys, went to mossman gorge which was really pretty but a lot like wales I have to say before heading back onto the road and down to mission beach.

Mission beach was a stunning strip of beach littered with coconuts and desert island chic old row boats washed up on shore. It really was lovely. We parked up in our pitch in the caravan park which was pretty much on the beach, cracked open some of our midstrength beer and relaxed for the day, reading magasines and enjoying the beach as well as watching the boys (for about an hour) trying to open coconuts which I cant truely explain how funny it was. The concentration and competetion was unbelievable, they completely forgot I was there and were fully involved in being the first to open their coconut which wouldn't have been quite as funny if they weren't both terrible at it...definitely no competition for robinson crusoe or tom hanks!

The next morning we boarded our very-small-in-the-rough-sea water taxi and were pretty much thrown over to dunk island which is a little paradise island with rainforest and beaches and spent the day on the beach being lazy before getting the taxi back later in the day to continue our travels down to townsville which I'm definitely a fan of.

Didn't spend long in townsville, went for a walk in the night time because it seemed like a nice place and got pretty lost, managed to find our way back via some dodgy streets, all too aware we were walking along by mangroves (steve irwin territory) and above rockhampton on the map which meant...crocs!

Another day another island...magnetic island this time which we filled with walks up to the forts and lazing on the beach as well as finding a few brilliant pubs and bars, even if they did close at some ridiulously early hour which didn't really matter because since we'd been living in the camper van we'd been living a lot more by the sun...much easier and saves a lot of battery so everything was happening earlier. At this point I really want to mention just how weird Australia can be. The walk we did up to the forts (half of which were concrete squared with plaques that told us have once, as in in ww2 had housed a shed and equally obscure unimpressive things like that) was through the middle of a death adder breeding ground? You would think that maybe they would send you round it, or at least not base your soldiers in the middle of it but apparently not. The sign told us to be careful of piles of leaves and sand, fair enough we thought setting off until we found that the small track was surrounded almost entirely by piles of leaves and if we wanted to see any of the forts then we had to climb through leaves...I for one was terrified and didn't realy take in the scenery because I was too busy staring at my ankles. However when we got to the top lookout and could see every sea licked side of the island and every little bay I was definitely able to lift my eyes just for a second, it really was stunning! Back to the van for a sleep and an early start back onto the ferry and on to airlie beach.