With much sadness we left PD and headed to Cairns - mainly to get ourselves ready for the oncoming journey to Japan, in 3 days. Cairns is not the nicest place in the world - with lots of young backpackers just visiting to drink and party. We could`ve showed`em a thing or two back in the days where we had money to burn on alcohol!!!!. Its a small city with no real beach, and a public swimming pool (which they call Lagoon), and a huge shopping centre. The backpac...

We took 2 days out of the tranquility and beauty of PD (Port Douglas for those who didn't read the last blog!) to visit the further Northern attractions of Cape Tribulation and Mossman Gorge. The grey humid weather we had experienced our first few days in PD had subsided and it was now blistering heat - a good 40 degrees and very sunny. Our little Getz hire car was brilliant - pumping our the aircon and not overheating once :-). Mossman Gorge is just up the ro...

We arrived at the airport at 4.30am, after little sleep at the Jackaroo. Our time in Sydney and Manly had been great and the weather had been very pleasant. It was very humid stepping off the plane in Cairns at 8am, and actually suprisingly overcast for the first few days. Luckily our transfer was awaiting us, and shot us up to Port Douglas (new abbreviation is PDas we can't be bthered to write the full name everytime) immediately (an hour north of Cairns).PD is ...

Happy New Year to you all. Sydney was incredible - the tickets we got at the Botanic Gardens were sensational. The view consisted of the boats in the harbour, the Opera House behind them and the Harbour bridge right behind that. We also had a beautiful view of the city skyline. The whole day was a good 30 degrees plus - so again we were very happy we didn't have to stay out all day - our event started at 7pm. We had a 4 course meal, complimentary champagne, a D...

Christmas day was great, Ange and Drew picked us up from Manly and we went to their home in a northern suburb called Castle Hill. We met Anges parents Dot and Pete and all of their siblings and their families. It was really nice to spend Christmas with a family even though it wasn't ours. We couldn't beleive all that we have done this year - last year we were sitting at Dave's Uncle and Aunt in Johannesburg with high aspirations of all the year held in store fo...