So, we've finally picked up the campervan….and it is unreal!! The first day we got it we were off to 'Tara' to see some of my relatives, my Grandad's brother Mick and his wife Marilyn. Barnesie won the standard game of rock paper scissors and got to drive first, it was a 4 and a half hour trip out to Tara, so he took the helm for the first half and then I took over for the final leg, unfortunately for me this was as Mick pulled a bottle of chilled red wine from his boot and 2 glasses, so Jack and Mick had a bottle of wine or two between them on the rest of the journey! We spent a couple of days in Tara, it was quite a small town, population of only 900 people, but it was a nice place, had a couple of good pubs, one of which served some good food as well!! We then went out to 'Chinchilla' to meet Mick's son Iain and his family, they live on a 300acre plot of land in the outback and it was amazing! Iain took us out to show us around the 'back garden'!!!! We also went attempting to shoot 'roos as he has a gun license, unfortunately my lack of experience with guns meant I ended up with a nice big cut just above my nose from the kick of the gun the first time I shot it, still I nearly hit the 'roo!!! Iain then showed us both how it was done by removing half of the 'roos head!!! Sounds quite bad but it's just how things are done in the outback, and we thought it was brilliant! That night we got to test out the rest of the armory, 3 'hunting' guns, a shotgun and a 303 from world war 2, so I'd class us as pro's now…naaaat! But we both managed to hit the log from 25 meters with the 3 hunting guns and then, Barnes managed to put a bullet into it with the 303, so he was pleased! Well we thought that was good, but the next day's things got better, Iain let us have an explore around his land on one of his quad bikes, so off we went Me, Jack, Francis, Iain's 3 year old daughter and Jojo one of the dogs! So that was a great start to the days, although we did nearly lose Jojo, he spotted a small 'roo hopping through the bushes and then decided to jump off of the quad and chase it, so after about 20minutes searching, we still had no Jojo! We drove back to the house and then luckily as we were just telling the story of what happened to Jojo when we saw a tiny little dog running towards us in the distance, we both breathed a sigh of relief! After that we took, the Ute, Bobcat, Quad bike, guns and chainsaw up to a bit of Iain's property to have a bit of an adventurous afternoon! Well, we dug holes and knocked down trees in the Bobcat, it's crazy, the controls are like something you would use on a computer, two joysticks!! We then watched Iain cut down a massive tree and then we cut it up into smaller bits so we could use them in our shoot out later on! Next it was back on the quad bike, and we all had a go and spinning some 'Hoops'!!! (Doughnuts!) which was pretty cool. Then we set up another shooting range, 100 meters from the Ute, 3 coke cans filled with water on tree stumps, then it was take it in turns to see who could hit them, well we both missed on the first go, then Iain hit one, the second round was exactly the same, and then I stepped up an just managed to hit the last can, apparently a couple of millimeters lower and it would of hit the log, it had made a burn mark where it scraped along the top before hitting the can, so it was close but I'll take that!!! We then went back and spent the afternoon relaxing with a couple more beers before going out for one final drive to see if we could get a 'roo of our own, unfortunately conditions were not good and they didn't fancy coming out that night, I personally think it's because they had realised two super sharp shooters were on the hunt, but Iain said it was because of the weather!!! It was really good to meet the family, and hopefully it won't be the last time!!!

The following day we left heading back towards the coast, we also went through the Bunya mountains which was pretty good, it had some really good views and broke up the drive as well. We then headed for Australia Zoo as that is where we would be going the next day, again we passed through some more mountains which we stopped and got a couple of snaps of, utilising the campervan well! These were the Glass house mountains which are about 10mins from Australia Zoo so we managed to find somewhere to sleep and then set up camp for the night, it was the first night we actually spent in the van and it was unbelievably hot! But it was a good experience! So onto Australia Zoo, probably most famous for the Crocodile and Steve Irwin. They have a 'Crocoseum' which is basically a stadium in a Zoo so it was quite surreal but this is where they do the Croc shows twice daily, the keepers get into the areas with them and then feed the crocs and give a talk on them as they are doing it, so that was really good, we then walked through the Kangaroo enclosure but it didn't seem to have the same affect on us as it did on other people in their as they were no longer 'nice friendly' animals to us, as a couple of days earlier we were attempting to shoot them!! But anyway, we then headed towards the tigers and we both said that it was definitely up there with one if the best things we've seen at any zoo before, they were just starting a talk/demonstration with two of the cubs and one of the keepers was in the water playing with them, hiding behind rocks, using toys to get them to run and jump off of the ledge into the water where he was, he even got his shirt ripped, it was kind of like watching someone play with their pet cats, yet these were just nearly the same size as him!!! It was a really good day, managed to get a couple of photos with a small croc, eagle and feeding the elephants which was also good, these were pro photos taken by the zoo so unfortunately they won't be on the blog but Mr. Animal Photographer himself (Jack) managed to get a couple of his usual worldy pics of the animals which we have put on! All in all a great day out.
We then headed quickfire up the coast, stopped off at rainbow beach for a night, then onto Bundaberg which is famous for its rum, so we thought it would be rude not to do the tour of the rum distillery and have a few tasters! Also bought a bottle, and it was nice, finished that in a couple of nights after, it was then onto Airlie beach which is where we would have had our own self drive boat to see the islands, weather was not on our side again as it was really cloudy, dark and raining so we couldn't have gone out in that, even though the boat we had booked wouldn't of been available anyway as the place was closed until March which they didn't tell us!!! But ah well, we took it like men and moved on!!
We were making good time up the coast, and made it all the way to home hill, which was about an hour short of our intended destination, again the weather was not on our side and we were heading into cyclone season in north Queensland, luckily for us it didn't materialise into a cyclone but it did still bring monsoon rains which flooded the roads out of home hill, so we were stuck, we decided to get some food and then parked up in a petrol station for the next 5/6 hours, Barnesie suggested cards, so we began a marathon session of rummy, first to win 50 games wins, well…that day we actually only got to 20, with jack winning 20 - 12. We then decided to stop for lunch and have the jelly we had bought for some energy, again luck was not on our side as we thought we had bought jelly cubes so we could eat them straight from the pack, unfortunately in Australia the jelly comes in a powder not cubes, so again no luck there. We thought our luck would never change because, as we were thinking, again about food and the soup we had bought for tea we realised that we couldn't cook it out in the rain and couldn't think about doing it where we were parked as we were under a petrol station!! Then came the best news of the day, some guys pulled up next to us and told us that their was a free BBQ back in home hill as there was also heaps of truckies who couldn't get through the road either, so we followed them down to the BBQ and enjoyed a couple of sausages and some beers, we then got chatting to one of the locals, after a while he told us we could park our van behind his shop if we wanted as it would be less noisy and we could use their toilet/shower etc…and offer we accepted of course! When we got back to his house we went inside for a few more beers and ended up sleeping inside on a couple of mattresses on the lounge floor, and that's where we spent the next four nights, so our luck had changed as Warren and Ena cooked us some really nice meals and looked after us for the four days, so a big thank you goes out to them. Warren and Ena also had another "stray" as the hairdresser next door could not get home so she was also eating at their house, on the Saturday we had a bit of a monster drinking session, starting at about 1pm and finishing at approximately 5am the morning with a couple of jacks not so famous cocktails! So thanks to Kym for taking us out and showing us the "night life" of the Home hill area, actually turned out to be quite a good night, for such a small place!! Warren also had a bar in his front room! So naturally we wanted to try it out and make some cocktails which we did on one of the other nights we spent their so all in all our luck did change! Again, thanks very much to you all.
We then moved onto Townsville which is where we were having our dive medical, which we both passed so that was a great start! The it was off to Magnetic Island which is where our diving course would be held, starting the following day, the first day………….JB'S BIT!!!
Hi everyone, JB's cameo section. Please try and read my section in a very strong Jamaican accent. Ok so we arrived on (cue Jamaican accent) "the island" at around 1. We cruised around blaring out the finest (Jamaican accent again) "Reggae beats" in the van checking out the different bays, then decided to get off the road and head to a place called (Jamaican accent again) "Radical Bay". It was awesome, apart from the fact the sun was shining and there wasn't a soul on the beach only the parrots flying to each of the many Palm Trees which we were surrounded by. So we decided to try and get our self a Coconut or two, Instead of climbing the trees as they were too tall, we threw big other old coconuts at them trying to knock em' down, I had no luck and gave up. C however being the soldier he is persisted and was rewarded with a monster. Admittedly it took him Yonks to get the dam thing open but a success anyway. Drank the contents of the middle which was 'delightful'.
Then we went rock climbing for a bit, that was pretty radical, and as it got darker we headed back to the van. That night there was an electrical thunderstorm which was v. impressive. so all in all a TOP day. You can stop the Jamaican accent if you want now, or continue if you were good. My bit done, hope everyone is good. Keep the messages coming !!! Tada

So the first two days of the course were mainly theory, a lot of reading and listening but obviously for such a technical sport this was definitely needed, we also got to do a pool session on both of the days, although we weren't very deep under water it still got you used to breathing underwater and also gave us chance to practice and learn all of the skills that we would then need in the ocean, we then had to do a test on the second day just to show we had learnt the required skills. So onto the following day and we were all really excited about going into the ocean for the first and second of 4 learning dives, on these two dives we got to feed some fish with bread underwater, which was pretty unreal! The visibility wasn't all that great but you could still see all of the fish swimming around and the coral on the bottom of the ocean, we also had to do some skills on these dives to show we could do them in the ocean as well, they were skills such as removing and replacing you mask, regulator and the actual scuba unit underwater. The overall experience was really good, everything that I thought it would have been and more and I think Mr. Barnes thought the same too. We had the rest of that day off, so we decided to take a trip around the island to a waterfall that some lads had suggested to us, we got their to find a waterfall with a bit of a pool at the bottom, then we saw a nicely placed rope swing hanging from a tree that overhung the pool, so naturally we spent the rest of the afternoon jumping into the pool from the rope swing and also from some of the surrounding rocks! We've got some pretty good videos of this so hopefully we can add them to the blog! Four people then joined us in the waterfall and they had bought beers with them, we thought that was a brilliant plan so went and got a 6 pack and then joined them on having a couple of cheeky beers in the pool, it turned out they were staying at the same hostel as us so when we returned we all met up and had dinner together and then played a few drinking games which turned into a bit of a session, probably not the best the day before another two dives, but the hangovers weren't that bad the next day!!
So onto the last two learning dives, again we went out to the same reef but it was just as good as they day before, the visibility was again not the best, sometimes you could see for about 8meters or so but then others you could barely see the person swimming in front! The instructor said it was good learning conditions as the worse conditions you learnt in the better a scuba diver you will be! We'll see how that turns out!!! We then went back in to the shore and sorted all the gear out, then got told we had all passed! Happy days! But the fun wasn't over yet as on the course you got two free dives when you qualified so that afternoon we went out for another 2 dives, this time as certified divers, we went a bit of a different route this time, actually swimming over the reef which was pretty spectacular, also again feeding the fish on the way round, Jack was also lucky enough to see a sting ray on the bottom but I missed it! So then it was back to the beach and the diving was over for magnetic island, it was a really good course and the instructors were brilliant so thanks to them as well, and hopefully our diving will continue, but at least we've left the island as qualified divers with 6 dives experience!!
So its now back to the driving, heading up the east coast towards cairns, we've got about 10 days so it should be a nice leisurely drive, and we can safely say that approximately 2624km's into the drive and with about 500km to go it is definitely a really good way to see the country! (although we have probably spent about 40% of the nights actually in the van, but that is a welcome relief as it does get a tad hot some nights!!!)
So hope you are all well and enjoyed the snow, probably meant some time off of work for some!! We'll hopefully get one more blog in just before we leave Australia in 2 weeks time!! Then it's off to New Zealand and the job hunt begins!
Keep the messages coming too, take care
C and Barnes
xxxxxxxx