Friday 15th Feb

The Campervan!

This is where the fun all starts now…we love OZ!!! We arrived at 'Wicked Campervans'(the cheap backpacker company) at midday and found we'd got lucky because the quote was originally a grand for 33 days (had air con though, good move we later found) …but when we got to the desk, she only charged us half of that amount! Get in! We didn't really question it. So she took us to our van.Well the novelty of 'Wicked' campervans is that they all have like a logo on them, some have spiderman crawling up the side and others (Cat & Keiro) have rude comments on them, so we were well excited, and anxious at the same time, at what ours would be! So we sighed a sigh of relief when we walked past thevan with "4 out of 5 people suffer from diahorrea, does that mean that 1 enjoys it?" but were a bit disappointed to realize we we're walking past 'Asterix & Oblix'……to finally arrive at our campervan…..wait for it……….'THE TICK'!!!!! Ha! What a let down. Apparently it's an old comic/cartoon.Oh well.

So off we went! Hooray, goodbye Carins forever!!!! I let chris drive first cos the thing was bloody massive, and when I had a go it felt like maneuvering a small bus! We got used to though and set off north for our first destination- Port Douglas!Well actually, our first destination was to drive back to 'Wicked Campervans' because we forgot to ask what petrol the van took, but that doesn't count!

The drive north was really nice, Captain Cook's coastal road (the guy who found Oz, thanku very much) with mountains on one side, the sea and beaches on the other! All with the Artic Monkeys booming out because, oh yes, we had a cd player! We got to Port Douglas town around 3 o'clock, was very nice and quaint, so we had a little stroll, went up the hill to the lookout point to see all of the bays from birds-eye view (well, ish!) before getting back into the van because we were too excited and wanted to get back driving!!! 5months without a car is too long! So, the next plan was to find a campsite for the night. Thanks to Cat, we picked up a 'Camps' guide which listed loadsa campsites, free ones too, and what facilities they had, so we ended up at 'Wonga' - a nice site on the beach. We had to pay a tenner I think but the showers were hot and the toilets clean! We made some tucker on our stove and sat drinking 'XXXX' beer and playing cards (oh, and doing puppet shows in the torchlight late on cos we were fed up!)

The next morning we got up early and after packing the bed away and having a cuppa, we set off for destination number 2! We went further north towards Cape Tribulation, had to do a ferry crossing first, and it was well smart, mountainous roads with streams running over the road and loadsa jungle EVERYWHERE!!!!We spotted this sign for an ariel walk and wondering what it was we turned off and ended up at this tourist centre right in the middle of the jungle! It was called the 'Daintree Discovery Centre',a day trip thing where u could learn all about Cape Trib and it's wildlife and walk around the jungle on a boardwalk so not to get hurt by the deadly spiders, snakes etc. that inhabit Oz! So we paid the woman 30quid (ouch) and took ourselves round. And as I am now informative Debs, I shall tell you what we learnt.

1. The Daintree Rainforest is older than the Amazon, the oldest jungle in the world at 560billion years old, older infact, than dinasours as it 'became' in the era of the conifers! (yes I am reading off my notes)
2. Not off my notes now - Oz has 9 out of 10 of the worlds most deadliest snakes
3. Black Bean trees in Oz are being used to help cure aids
4. Platypus', suprisingly, contain posion and inject it thru a spike in their knee (As if!)
5. 'Bush Tucker' is being researched and actually appears in aussie supermarkets - well done Ant & Dec!
6. Certain trees in Oz (forgot the names) contain the main ingredient for perfume in their bark, in particular, which appears in the likes of Channel Number 5!
7. The 'Stinging Tree' is like a nettle but it can seriously do damage to humans!
8. The 'Golden Orb' Spider, see pics, is massive and ugly and looks mean…and is harmless!
9. The inland Taipan (most poisonous snake in the world) has enough venom in one bite to kill 150 humans

That's your lot now! We got bored of listening to the hand-held audio thingy the woman gave us to walk around with and press the number at each pit stop to hear info!

So, after our very informative morning we headed up to Cow Bay, just South of Cape Trib, and checked out the beach, very desolate, and had some dinner - tin of tomato soup with bread - and ended up finding a campsite just in time as the rains came! This one was the same price as the first camp site but it had a kitchen for campers and seriously loads of wildlife as we were in the Daintree area! There was a also a rehabilitation centre, just a pen really, where there was 2 pet kangaroo's and a wallaby with arthiritus! Bless! Least we got to see some roo's though, we'd been driving along stretches of road for 4hours that day with all of the signs saying, Kangaroo's crossing next 20km, and we saw naff all! Not that we wanted roadkill or anything! Actually, we almost had some roadkill, but as I was driving (hehe) I managed to spot the wild boars and avoid having to have pork chops for tea! Damn!That night we drank, again, avoided all the weird bugs in the loo's, and sat scratching our mosquito bites around a candle inside the van listening to the rain. Great.

The next day we headed for Cape Trib and had a most wonderful time!!! The beach was well nice, the only time, in our diverse experience, where we've seen trees line the sand! Was weird, and a bit swampy, but smart! After that, we headed back along the roads, like driving around the Lake district, Alex you and Dave would love it, for the ferry and all the way back to Cairns to get to the internet and ring home! We we're actually really cheeky as well because we lied and went to the Woolshed's for the good ol' free meal deal we used to have at the hostel when we stayed in Cairns! Har har! Good on us I say!

After that we set off at 9pm, still not sick of driving and wanting to get to a free campsite for a change, and ended up a couple of hours south in a tiny tiny town called 'Babinda'. All I will say is that it had many alcoholics (we ARE in Oz), plenty of those men who wear their white socks pulled up to their knees with sandals on, a mining site, and a campsite over the railway tracks where we could use the loo and sleep under the shade of tree and next to a picnic bench! Was free though so can't complain!

That's all for now,

Catch u soon,

Lots of Love Chris and Debs!xx