Hello from Airlie Beach!

As I write this, i'm trying to ignore the fact that i'm freezing as my vest top is blummin well soaking, due to the never-ending rain in this thoroughly soggy country. Which is a little ironic really, considering the fact that Airlie Beach is a buzzy little backpacker town, and is heaving with bars promising wet t-shirt competitions... hmmm, maybe I should pop in next door and demand the free drink they're offering for willing participants?!

Anyhoo, enough of my gripes (because let's face it, it's hard to feel sorry for someone who is poncing around the world) and on with the blog!

Since Mike's last blog, we've been to see Ayers Rock (big, red and very cool, more of that later), we've flown to Cairns (Greyhound bus? Pah - we're flashpacking baby, and 3 days on the bus wasn't an appealing prospect!) and we've picked up our campervan (Mike has discovered his feminine side, as plenty of rednecks have stopped to gawp at our little flower-covered mobile home as we've chugged past.)

First up, Ayers Rock. We'd decided against the overnight camping option, as the thought of sharing my sleeping bag with a snake wasn't appealing. The intial 5.30am pick-up was a bit of a shock, but I was feeling very pleased with my decision to do the one day tour when our guide asked us to keep an eye out for snakes. His very helpful advice was this - 'If you're bitten, make sure you tell us what breed the snake was, or we won't know what anti-venom to administer. If you can't tell us what bit you - well, we'll gather around and say a little prayer for you.' Wise words indeed! Needless to say, I spent the day skipping along the dirt paths, determined to keep my little ol' ankles out of the snakes' nasty little mouths. I'm a brave, brave mouse... The day got off to a sluggish start, as it took 5 hours to get from our hotel to the rock. It all made up for it though, when we first set sight on it - it's huge! After a mooch around the Olgas, we finally got up close and personal with the rock, as our guides explained the aboriginal stories behind it. Later in the day we had a BBQ as the sun set over the rock - a thoroughly lovely experience. The guides were an entertaining pair, and after talking solidly for the entire 18-hour experience, I feel pretty confident in saying that they could even out-talk Mike - seriously!

The next day was corkingly hot, and we had a full day to kill in Alice Springs before we got on our flight to Cairns. Now I know some of you have laughed at Mike and I for our flashpacking ways, but it was cheaper than the skanky greyhound bus - honestly! Besides which, having seen the general dread-locked, whiffy-looking types who have disembarked from the buses (they even have nose rings and acoustic guitars - how very 70s darling!) i'm not really convinced that either Mike or I are equipped for such travelling companions. Nope, i'm a flashpacker and proud of it! The flight was thankfully a pretty uneventful affair and we landed at Cairns at 8pm, where our hostel bus was waiting to pick us up. 10 minutes later we'd dumped our bags in our luminous orange room, and were happily ensconced in the bar. Bearing in mind that the happy hour was until 9.30pm, it would have been rude to refuse the cheap beer...

The next morning was beltingly hot, so Mike and I whizzed through the showers before the rest of the backpackers woke up. We'd coped with the bunk beds admirably, but Mike's cold shower wasn't the greatest start to the day. Happily his mood rapidly improved when the pretty 20-yr-old waitress took a shine to him, and completely blanked me. Grrrr. Cowbag. Bring on the botox...

Luckily it was my turn to get excited when we collected our campervan an hour later. Oh it's a beauty! It's white, with purple butterflies and flowers painted all over the sides and the bonnet. I think it's fab, Mike thinks it's the gayest thing he's ever seen. Fixing his smile firmly in place, Mike drove us North to Mossman, a gorgeous part of the world that is a lovely combination of mountains, sugar cane fields and rugged coastline. We hooked up our van to the mains (yup, you need to charge your battery every night, or the fridge will go warm. And warm beers make for an unhappy husband) and went to explore the town. It took all of 10 minutes, as Mossman is weeny. Giving up our quest for excitement, we retired back to our van where Mike cooked a lovely meal on the camp stove, then we spent the next 20 minutes working out how to put the bed together - it's like a jigsaw, except a bit less fun as Mike clonked his head on the ceiling at least every 30 seconds. Sleeping in the van was fun, despite the overhead trees dumping large berries on the roof every few seconds. They sounded like mini hand-grenades, and our van looked like a purple poo explosion by the following morning...

Saturday was another lovely day, so we drove North again to Daintree. The area is very rural and peaceful, and boasts little more than a large number of crocodiles who keep the locals out of the water. Unfortunately we didn't get to see one, though we did stop for some chips at the local pub which also doubles up as the post office and the general store. We then spent the afternoon umming and aaahing over whether to pay $30 to travel further North (the road stops at this point and you really need a 4 wheel drive), but saw sense and decided to save our pennies. A visit to Port Douglas made up our mind, as we found a cool little backpacker place that let us park up in their on-site campground. Surrounded by banana plants and lots of other backpackers, it was a fun way to spend an evening. Though once again, I think the scary amount of lithe 18 year old backpackers may have made Mike's evening. My new resolve - to do more sit-ups.

By Sunday we started to realise the enormity of driving from Cairns to Sydney - it's a long way, and we'd actually driven in the wrong direction because we wanted to see crocs and mountains. All very lovely, but it was time to wave goodbye and push South. We by-passed Cairns in favour of seeing Kuranda, which turned out to be an over-touristy hippie town. The hoardes of Japanese and American tourists had us running for our campervan and into the mountains for a picnic lunch at Barron Falls. A quick peek at the falls, then back into the van and onto our destination for that night - Yungaburra. It's a traditional town that's very pretty, and our lakeside campsite was gorgeous. It was a bank holiday here, so we listened to the locals getting mullered while we sipped hot Ribena. Oh so rock 'n' roll...

Monday dawned, and the weather was getting iffy. I'm in Australia for heavens sake, I don't want to be wearing a woolly pully! Anyhoo, we hopped back in the van and I had my first go at driving the thing. Admittedly i'm not very big, but it made me feel miniscule - like i'm driving a truck. Parking also proved to be a bit of an issue, but then i'm rubbish at that in a small car too - I didn't stand a chance in my van! Parking issues aside, my driving skills proved to be pretty respectable, and gave Mike chance to take control of the navigating. However, after 2 hours of solid driving without a single pretty detour (despite my unfortunate habit of reading the map upside down, I've a knack for finding lovely waterfalls, scenic lookouts, dinky tea-shops etc. Mike - nothing), I sacked my navigator and we swapped over. Within minutes i'd detoured us to a cheese and chocolate factory (two of my favourite foodstuffs ever - this place was heaven!) and we were back on the road, doing battle with rubbish weather. When we eventually rolled into Mission Beach, we were a little non-plussed and went in search of a decent hostel. We found one that looked like it'd be great fun. It read as follows:

'Jungle pool'? Yes please!

'Make new friends, great community feel'? Yes, yes, yes!

'Awesome facilities' - sign me up!

'Communal showering'. Ahem. Sorry, let me read that again. Yup, it definitely said 'Communal showering'. What?! Was this a bad-taste 70s porn flick?! Feeling terribly British, we reversed out of the driveway, and parked up in the council campsite. It was fine - a lovely setting, despite the wee-smelling showers... but at least I only had to share my shower with a tropical tree frog.

I won't bore you with the next day of activities. It involved a lot of driving (aside from a lovely rainforest walk to see the Murray Falls - once again, I was dodging the snakes) and we eventually rolled into Ayr at 8pm. Our posh campsite made a welcome relief from the grubby facilities we'd 'enjoyed' for the previous 2 nights, though my enthusiasm quickly waned when I realised I was showering with a cockroach. I love this country, but someone should seriously do something about the wildlife. Snakes, spiders, crocs and 'roaches are lurking everywhere. Yikes.

Which brings me to today! And once again, the weather is poo. I hear that you lot back in the UK are enjoying some lovely sun, so at least you can feel smug that we're shivering and soggy - though I hasten to add that i'm still wearing my flip-flops. I painted those toenails with great TLC, I WILL show them off... Anyhoo, silly clothing issues aside, we drove through Bowen where 'Australia' was filmed (they've even got a 'Bowenwood' sign posted on the hillside in true Hollywood stylee!) so we took some photos of the hotel that starred in the film, and lurked in a cafe waiting for the rain to pass. It eventually stopped, just long enough to grab some piccies of the lovely beaches.

We're now in Airlie Beach, but I honestly can't tell you what it's like, as the clouds were so low that we couldn't see a thing as we drove in. Our campervan is parked up in a very boggy campsite, and Mike is currently trying to work out whether we can afford to do some kind of water-sports activity whilst we're here. That said, i've also been told that we'll need to wear 'stinger' suits to fend off the potentially lethal jellyfish, so once again the Aussie wildlife is giving me the heeby-jeebies. Lovely country, lovely people, rubbish bugs 'n' slugs.

I'll be amazed if any of you are still reading this (apologies if it got a bit wordy and dull!) so big kisses to anyone who is. And i'll let you know how Mike and I get on with that wet t-shirt competition...

Love always, Susie and Mike xxx