We said goodbye to the camper van on Monday morning (sob sob), and found our way to our hostel in Cairns. We got a great deal on a resort hostel with a pool so spent the first couple of days unwinding by the pool and topping up the tan. We also caught up with a Dutch guy we met on Fraser Island-Elmer- who was also staying in Cairns, and had a lot of fun playing frisbee, swimming, eating 50 cent Mcdonalds ice creams and generally relaxing by the huge public lagoon...

From Airlie Beach we boarded a 75 foot boat called "The Pegasus" for our 2 day/2 night sail around the Whitsunday Islands. This is somewhere we were really looking forward to going as we had heard such amazing things about it. The tour basically took us around lots of the Whitsunday Islands -there are 74 in all- and allowed us plenty of time to discover the Great Barrier Reef with our snorkels. We set sail around 4pm and dropped anchor in a small bay a...

We left Noosa and headed for Rainbow Beach, where the next morning we would be departing at 6am for Fraser Island, a UNESCO World Heritage site just a few km off the coast. We had booked a 4X4 self drive tour which meant there would be 11 people to a jeep, with all camping and cooking equipment on the roof and we would head off around Fraser Island exploring this beautiful island. As soon as we hit the beach we took an inland track to Lake Mackenzie which took a...

We picked up the van on Monday morning and spent a few hours sorting all of our stuff out and making sure we had some food for the first couple of days. The van was a Toyota Hi-Ace that seats 3 in the front and also sleeps 3. It has a fridge, 2 gas hobs, a grill and a sink. The first afternoon we took it steady and headed a few hours up the coast for our first night in the van. It was surprisingly comfortable and a lot quieter than the 8 & 12 bed dorms we've ...

We arrived at Sydney airport and were greeted by Luke and Luisa, two Sydneysiders we met on the coach journey to Cuzco in Peru. We had kept in touch with them and they were kind enough to offer us a room for the 8 or 9 days we would be in Sydney. It was great to catch up with them after so long, and it also gave us the chance to see Sydney from a locals point of view.We were immediately whisked back to Lukes house (where he lives with 5 uni friends) and treated t...