We took another Greyhound from Mission Beach to Airlie Beach. We wanted to go sailing, and the Whitsunday Islands off of Airlie is the place to do it. We landed in town, explored, and lined up a 4-day 3-night sailing trip. Our boat, Spank Me (no that isn't a request...it is the actual name of the boat), could hold up to 28 people, and we had 22. It is a racing boat that won a presitgious race from Hobart, Tasmania to Sydney in the late 1990's. It is a no-frills ...

I was still stick in Cairns, so we couldn't dive the Great Barrier Reef for now. The town of Cairns itself is in the off-season, and combining that with the on and off torrential rains, we decided to try our luck further south. After only a day in Cairns, we grabbed a bus out of town to a place a few hours south called Mission Beach, where we hoped we would still be able to dive the reef. We landed at Scotty's Backpackers, a little family-run place that had a gr...

Today is the day that Bev is reunited with her Australian friend, Denise, after last seeing her 22 years ago. Denise came to the US in the 1980's for two years while her dad worked near Columbia, Maryland. Bev and Denise hit it off right away and stayed in touch until around ten years ago. Denise found Howie on the Classmates website a few years back, and then she and Bev reconnected. When we added Australia to the itinerary, we knew a visit to Denise would b...

We arrived in Australia, and their customs officers came down on me hard for a bulb of garlic that made its way into my bag accidentally. We had so many groceries with us in various bags throughout New Zealand, and I just missed the garlic when we were leaving New Zealand. Oops! Anyway, not the happiest start, but we were stoked to be in a new country. Our hotel was really nice, and we landed at a good place for a quick lunch. We were pretty wiped from the...