So Cairns, the final city on the Oz itinerary, what did Sharan and i see? What did we get? We make our final Greyhound bus journey, no movie on board - boo! But a pleasant and uneventful 2.5 hour hop from Mission Beach. Top marks for this service, this is the way to travel - so convenient - we hopped on and off booking stops on the internet - piece of cake. Stayed at Cairns Beach house hostel - not exactly on the beach, just a bit away from the centre but a (hig...

Mission beach - the skydive capital of the East Coast - no ta :O) Happy to relax here - a magnificent, and sparsely populated beach here - nice calm waters. Our brief stay here was marred by lack of air conditioning and our roomie nicking the double bed and turning off the fan - i must have slept 2 hours with this humidity. Boo. Cairns next, Oz adventure nearly done.

Grey and ominous skies met our start out to Townsville....basically it tipped it down. This was a reminder that cyclone Hamish was on his way - great name. Oz was flooding in the North and burning in the South - craziness. Got to Townsville and walked off the bus straight on to the ferry - zoomed over to Magnetic Island through the choppy seas, a bit concerned we would get stuck here if the weather got worse! Checked in to the Base backpackers, great bar - right...

Airlie Beach - one overnight bus journey later and it's 630 am - here we are. Now, as everyone does when they come here, we are going to sail the Whitsunday islands! But first we 'sleep walk' through the day, check out the man made lagoon, check-in for our bat the next day, eat, shop - find the last Matt Reilly (crazy Oz author) book i need to read, and just relax. Packed a bag for 2 nights on a boat... Sailing day - so we stock up on some beers, most others are...

Welcome to the steak capital of Australia! Sharan and i spent a day and a night here, not terribly long, but long enough we think. We got there in the evening after being pick up by the YHA courtesy bus and a very nice lady called Robby who gave us some gems of advice on what to do.....we then settled in to our air conditioned cabin - domino's pizza for dinner, very continental ;OP an overnight bus 1155pm that night - the manager let us use the facilities for the...