Our last day in Cairns was my 23rd birthday. Will bought me a jigsaw puzzle of a snake, amongst other things, and I insisted it needed to be completed on the day, thinking it would be a simple task, we ended up spending hours on a near impossible puzzle (very frustrating!!). In the evening we had a really lovely dinner near the sea front, trying the Aussie trio (kangaroo, emu and crocodile bbq kebabs) and coral trout, it was all yummy! Never tried so many new things in one meal!

The next day we left later than planned, after deciding that driving for six days with a nail in one tyre was maybe not such a good idea! A new tyre and stocking up of food essentials later, we headed west. Our first day was slow driving up mountain roads, with stunning views, into the tablelands west of Cairns. The area reminded us of home, being highlands it was a bit cooler, and really green and hilly.

The scenery in the outback was different from what we'd expected. It was much greener and many more trees, we'd expected more of a red dust desert. We have endless, and probably very boring, photos of the slight changes of the landscape! With little else to notice, these changes seemed much more significant than the photos show! The expanses of nothing were so vast, with absolutely straight roads running for miles and miles. Will's grandpa told us the outback is known as the GABA (Great Australian b***** All), and he's not wrong! Sometimes the landscape would seem totally deserted, and then at times there would be so much wildlife, with us having to slam the breaks on to avoid kangaroos, eagles, snakes and lizards.

Our closest encounter was with a snake that Will ran over (although not actually hitting it). We decided to reverse to have a closer look, and Will failed to notice when the snake reared up and tried to get to me through the window. He thought I was just 'being a girl' when I started to scream! He did notice the second time the snake tried to get me when we pulled off! We're still not sure what type of snake this was, but he certainly didn't like us!

One thing we were surprised to see was bushfires. We knew that these happened in the outback, but thought they were much rarer and big news. We saw one huge one in the distance, huge burnt out areas, and some small fires still alight right on the side of the road.

We decided to be even more adventurous, and take a 180km 'shortcut' via an unsealed red dust road, thinking this would be great fun. It wasn't!! The road was awful in our van, going from flat to really bumpy every few metre! We did feel jealous of all the 4x4s speeding past us with no worries! Also, by the end of the road our bed sheets and everything int e back of the van had a layer of red dust covering them, as did we!

Arriving in Broome was very exciting, to see civilisation again was such a relief. Broome itself was smaller than we had expected, but had a really relaxed atmostphere and a beautiful white sand beach. There were a couple of places where you could drive onto the beach, which of course we couldn't resist. And the water was slightly warmer than on the east coast which was a bonus! We managed to find our first Sunday roast since arriving in Australia. It was a buffet, which was really strange, and a man served huge portions- i'm still not sure how we managed to eat most of it. The locals in the pub were getting really excited about crab races, which we found really funny!

Our journey from Broome to Coral Bay was fairly uneventful. We had a bit of a scare with the van, Will noticed an oil leak, and realised it was a gearbox problem when the van started not going into gear properly. Luckily we made it to Coral Bay, and found it was a broken seal in the gear box, as oppose to a broken gearbox itself, which was a huge relief in terms of mechanic costs!

We've spent our time in Coral Bay with Cat (a friend from home) who is living out here. Coral Bay is a tiny beach town with a gorgeous beach; loads of snorkelling; a hostel (where Cat works); two campsites; two restaurants; a bakery (which makes yummy pies); a few shops; and a pub. We've spent lots of time relaxing, went on a camp trip to a station (farm) south of here, snorkelling, and visiting the pub! Tomorrow we are going on a kayak tour out to the reef, where the snorkelling is supposed to be amazing.

From here, we continue south towards Perth, before starting our next mammoth outback trip across the south of Australia over to Sydney and then Melbourne.