Blog Day 141 Sat 24th September 2011

Last night was our final night in Nomads Cairns. We are officially camping now, well until the next free night in Nomads Airlie Beach. Today sees us packing up our stuff before heading down to the Courthouse to watch the days World Cup matches. New Zealand beat France quite convincingly as we munch away on our final courthouse pizza and huge bowl of fries. After the games we jump into Jaz and head off in search of somewhere to stay for the night.

Pulling up on the side of the road is illegal in Oz so we find ourselves driving about half hour out of Cairns to a gas station at Gordonvale. We ask a girl behind the counter if there are any places around where we can pull up and sleep. She tells us that the police are pretty relaxed about camping, so long as we don't have our full on kitchen setup outside someone's house with music blaring and beers on the go. She also tells us of a picnic area called Ross and Lock which is about 2 minutes away next to a lake. Supposedly it is a no camping area but we are told that if we go down there then we are bound to find people camping. We are also told not to swim in the lake as crocodiles have been spotted down there. So we make our way down to the picnic area, which turns out to be pitch black and deserted! Visions of waking up in the morning surrounded by lake & crocodiles kind of freaked us out, so we decide poke this idea and head off in search of another, more first time camper friendly, picnic area.

About 10 minutes down the highway we come across another picnic area, which has toilets and lights. We park up under a huge 'No Camping' sign, pull all the curtains and settle down for the night.

Blog Day 142 Sun 25th September 2011

Having made it through the night undisturbed in the picnic area we get up and make our way back into Cairns. We have a few things we need to purchase for the campervan before we can start our trip down the coast. One is an interior light, as the one in the van is hooked up to the second battery, which doesn't last too long. The second is pegs to clip the curtains together and stop the early morning sun and random people from looking through the windows.

We also need to say our goodbyes to Sharne and thank her for everything she has done for us since we met her in Cairns. Without meeting her we wouldn't have been able to afford to do half the things we have on the trip. Cheers Luv!

Once we have said our goodbyes and bought what we needed to buy and taken some photos of the huge bats that live in the trees around the city, we fill the van with fuel and head off down the highway towards Innisfail. After half an hour drive we discover that Innisfail is dead on a Sunday. So we head back to a little overnight rest area which will be our home for the night. A few vans have pulled up and have their gas stoves on the go. We aren't quite ready for dinner yet and realise that we are only about 30mins away from Milla Milla Falls. What a lovely area for a spot of dinner. Half hour later, our gas stoves are on the go, with chicken in honey and mustard sauce simmering away. It's nice and peaceful at the falls with very few tourists around, however the flies are out in force. So much so that we are forced to eat our dinner in the van, before it gets covered in the little b*****s!

After taking a few photos we head back to the rest area where we pull up behind another Spaceship. The Dutch couple are very chatty and are quick to ask if we can swap some DVDs. Their selection is about as shocking as ours but we swap all the same.