After travelling over 4000 kms from Sydney, we spent a few days doing not much around Cairns (apart from going to see the dire Da Vinci Code);the weather was quite cool and rainy so we were putting off a trip to the Barrier Reef until the sun came out. But we were running out of time so today we were on a boat at 8am.The weather was still miserable, and the sea rough, so much so that I and about 10 other passengers were banished to the back deck with sick bags......

Arrived in Cairns yesterday and parked outside a backpacker's hostel in the van. Took advantage of the van for the last time today and went a few km north to Yorkeys Knob, which is a tiny place on the beach. We hung around the beach all day and attempted to play frisbee in the wind, to the amusement of the lifeguard on duty!

We drove to Mission Beach on Friday morning, and have spent 3 days here. The sun broke through a few times yesterday but it has been generally consistently wet and grey. So it says a lot about this place's charms that I still think it is absolutley gorgeous. The rainforest meets the beach here and the long, slightly curving beach is stunning, even in the rain. We met a couple of blokes from Burnley who are working over here, about 20km inland, helping...

Went into Townsville this morning to the art gallery for an exhibition on WWII in Queensland. I've never seen anything about Oz's involvement in the war before, from their point of view, we always just seems to get the european angle so it was really interesting. We then set out north again, and turned off the highway about 90km from Townsville randomly having seen a sign for Jourama Falls. Really glad we did too! Had to walk about 2km before we got to...

Drove around 350km yesterday and stopped at a rest area on the site of a petrol station. Was quite surreal, we made a meal of pasta and sauce and fried bbq chicken skewers, all while sat on a gas station forecourt virtually! Drove a few kms south west of there to Bowling Green NP. We saw baby kangaroos everywhere, hopping around, eating grass ad always lookign around inquisitively. They are quite fascinating.These were the first kangaroos we'd seen up close ...