After another uncomfortable overnight journey on the Greyhound (these are normal 'National Express' style coaches not sleepers) we arrived in Hervey Bay which is the key departure point for trips to Fraser Island. On arrival it was pretty gloomy and heavy rain seemed imminent. We enquired at our hostel about the weather and a possible trip to Fraser Island, but to our dismay we were told that the weather would be poor for the duration of our stay and it might ...

We were in the small seaside town of Airlie Beach solely to visit the Whitsunday Islands and Craig was especially excited about this because many is the islands and beaches are named after places in Cumberland such as Carlisle Island, Scawfell Island and Whitehaven Beach. The beach at Airlie Beach we didn't see, nor did we see its beautiful lagoon or any of the Whitsunday Islands. On our arrival after a 12 hour overnight Greyhound bus journey it was raining he...

Our adventure on the Great Barrier Reef started at the Cairns Dive Centre shop where we were introduced to the dive crew and given an orientation by Ned about what we'd be up to for the next three days aboard the MV Kangaroo Explorer. We set sail on a catamaran to a pontoon where day trippers go snorkelling on the reef and then were picked up by a smaller boat which conveyed us to the Kangaroo Explorer. Once on board we were shepherded onto the sun deck where w...

So eventually we had arrived in Australia, how exciting!! Neither of had graced this country with our presence and everybody that we'd ever spoken to about visiting Australia had gushed about it. Forewarned about the stringent entry rules we traversed both immigration and customs with ease. Craig's wooden backgammon set ignited little interest at the border and Gemma had applied for our e-visas whilst she was in the UK so we sailed through the formalities. Our...

After a couple of months in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand it was a nice change to be in a modern clean city again although our time in Singapore was limited to 2 days. We spent most of our time in Singapore walking around the city and taking in the sights. Our budget is dwindling and Singapore in an expensive city, so Singapore Slings at Raffles were right out of the question. We walked around the Padang watching a cricket game at the exclusive Singapore Recrea...