Ok so far so good on the van front she got us to and from Cape Tribulation and granted the roof fell down, it leaks and the gas doesn't work but I've always been taught that a second class ride is better than a first class walk! We re-stocked and then headed down south. Our first stop took us to Innisfail with the hope of finding some fruit picking work. This, (excuse the pun) was not fruitful!! It would seem that you really do need working visas, as over the years the farmers have been busted by the tax man and now no longer do 'cash in hand'. From there we headed to Mission beach which was really nice and chilled. We learnt here that you can't just pull up anywhere and sleep and that most places by the beach have rangers that petrol the areas and move/fine people, so we found ourselves in a camp site for the night. On the up side I (Lizzie) befriended a nice fisherman and got us some rather nice fish (a 'bunder') for dinner and cooked us up a feast! Plus it really would seem that the van is not water proof- it absolutely pissed it down that night, to the extent that to go to the loo we resorted to putting on our bikinis and to be honest we should have just left them on to sleep in as well! The nice fisherman also told us a nice area to go to near by called alligator's nest, which did not live up to its name but was a really nice water hole. From there we headed to Townsville. We had decided to check out some diving here as we had been told that the Yongala (a ship wreck) was the best in OZ and was well worth diving. So that was the first port of call. We got the dive booked which was four days on the boat and we had to our advanced course at the same time. The day before we left however Thea had a run in with the police! It was the funniest thing ever especially because the police were flagging us down for a good while before we realized it was us they were after! Basically Thea was driving by our speedometer at 65km in a 70km zone however the police clocked her doing 85km.... so after a good talking to and a $150 fine later we discovered that we had been driving for two weeks with a broken speedometer. Also that morning the windscreen wipers broke- yes it was raining at the time, and the radio fell through the dash board and the locks broke in the front. Ok run in number 1 with the trustworthy traveller's auto barn. I phoned them and politely pointed out the few problems we had had with the van that cost us $6000 only two weeks ago. They stated that in order for the work to be done we would have to drive over 300km back to where we bought them - I gave them 'sex and travel' and we were soon on our way to the garage. So we went of diving and the van got fixed free of charge perfect! Ok the diving, where to start, it was amazing!! We had ten dives in total, two night dives, one of which we did on our own- recipe for disaster if you ask me but we are still here to tell the tale!!! It was very different to the Rum Runner as it was much more serious and hard work plus we had to study to pass the theory for our advanced! But the dives were so good!!! We saw so much, I won't bore you all but we saw many a shark, a manta ray (some people will have been diving for over ten years and still won't have seen one!!) we swam with turtles and we befriended a fish which we named 'grumpy old man fish'- when we get back ask Thea to do an impression of him for comedy value!! Apparently it really is like 'finding nemo'. Basically it is a whole other world down there and as part of the course we dived down to 30m which was top, not to mention what it was like to dive the wreck. We both did pass and our now advanced divers which is cool!! Oh and how could I forget... we had a visit from a tiger shark!!!! We had just got out of the water like literally we were still dripping when a massive tiger shark came up to the boat!!! We did move dive sites after that!!!! Back on dry land and we still had two days to kill before the van was ready so we chilled at the beach and went to the cinema and saw 'Lion the witch and the wardrobe' which was really cool!!! Hope you are all well at home love Lizzie and Thea x