Ingham, a small town some 100km north of Townsville and well on the way to Cairns, is perhaps most famous for being the inspiration for the Australian folk song "A pub with no beer". In 1943, an Irishman by the name of Dan Sheahan rode 20 miles into town for a well earned drink and was just a little put out to discover that the town's only pub, the Day Dawn Hotel, had been emptied of its entire beer supply by a regiment of American soldiers who had been there the...

In an uncharacteristic display of generosity, our tour guides Brent and Lisa allowed us all to have a lie in on our final morning on Daydream Island, before crossing back to the mainland and being taken for breakfast at the local botanical gardens - or at least, that's what they clearly wanted us to think. Personally, I reckon there simply wasn't an earlier boat, and they just wanted it to appear as though they were feeling bad about all the early starts we had b...

Daydream Island is in the Whitsunday group and seems to be nothing more than a small island containing a hotel and sports facilities. Coming out on the ferry yesterday morning, it was a bit like arriving on Fantasy Island and I half expected Tattoo to be waiting for us on the jetty. Compared to the challenges of Fraser Island, our two days on Daydream have been all about relaxing - in fact, it's felt something like a good old fashioned Butlins family holiday com...

The Big Pineapple is just one of the "big things" of Australia, which they seem to love just plonking all over the place to catch the attention of passers-by. Sometimes, I'm told, It's difficult to travel anywhere n the country without driving past a big this or a big that. The Big Pineapple, at least, has made some sort of effort to be more than just a giant plastic fruit by the side of the road - but not much. There is a little train to drive visitors aroun...

In 1995, on my first tour of Australia with the AAT Kings coach party, we stopped for a few nights at Fraser Island, Daydream Island, Rockhampton and Ingham on our way South, having already made our way up through the red centre of Australia. The following few entries are taken from my diaries of the time, and updated for this book. The ferry to Fraser Island departs from Hervey Bay and seemed to me to be more of a makeshift raft just large enough to transport a...