Heading south now on the Bruce Highway we drove for 2 days through some forests, but mostly through sugar cane and banana plantations. The first night we stopped at a small town called Innisfail and met some plantation workers relaxing with a few 6 packs. It was Friday night. We had been allocated a pitch near them but suspecting a noisy evening we sneaked of to a further pitch. Peter had noticed that a comedian was on at the local hall so we decided to have an evening mixing with the locals but on arrival we were greeted with a SOLD OUT poster. Aah well we did try.

Next day continuing on our journey we had a brief stop at a sugar cane museum. Inside, whilst the lady curator was given us the welcome spiel, it was quite a long spiel, I noticed the nearby Tully sugar mill did tours so, after a quick look around the museum, we dashed down to Tully and got on the tour. We found out that Australia is the 3rd largest raw sugar supplier in the world and that 80% of what it produces is exported, mostly to East Asia. The warm wet North Eastern region of Queensland is apparently ideal for sugarcane. After cutting it is mostly transported by rail which runs alongside the roads to one of the 24 mills. At the mills the cane is crushed cooked, spun rapidly and finally you get raw sugar together with various by-products, including molasses. The raw sugar must then go to a refinery to make it suitable for human consumption. The tour guide was quite enthusiastic and informative, having a small farm herself, I just wish I could remember all she told us.

After this we had lunch, a big lunch. The fridge had broken the day before and we had spent a day at the repair shop in Cairns, so we had a lot of hummus, avocado paste, yoghurt and fruit puree to eat.

Driving on, a Wallaby (still not sure what the difference is between Kangaroo and Wallaby, besides size) hopped across the road right in front of us (no wonder you see a lot of squashed ones). A bit later we saw a rather large reddish bird of prey with white head swoop down and grab a road kill snake off of the road right in front of us. Tasty!

We were heading to Townsville which has a museum we wanted to visited. The museum has displays relating to the HMS Pandora. For those who don’t know the HMS Pandora was sent to Australia after the return of Captain Blyth, to round up the mutineers and bring them and the HMS Bounty back to England. They managed to find 14 mutineers on Tahiti but the rest with Fletcher Christian had sailed off to a small island called Pitcairn and set fire to HMS Bounty. The Pandora searched the islands (not Pitcairn) and finally decided to head home but got stuck on the Great Barrier Reef and sunk. 10 of the mutineers and a lot of the crew survived and made their way to Dutch controlled Timor, in 4 longboats, and got a lift home. Several years later a whaling boat visited Pitcairn but by then all the mutineers had died or been killed.

The Pandora actually sunk far north of Townsville but some enterprising business men raised a lot of money to finance the exploration of the site after it was discovered and to build a museum to house the finds brought to the surface. It was a fascinating display of artefact's. I was especially impressed with the copper and brass fireplace from the Captain’s quarters.

Whilst in Townsville we popped into the Reef aquarium to see the fish. The colours are far more vivid and clear when you are looking through thinner glass.

Next day we visited the Billabong Wildlife Sanctuary. Peter wanted to see a crocodile move as so far all the ones we had seen were just lying perfectly still, so as they advertised crocodile feeding we thought this might be our chance (for about £50 you can feed one yourself, well dangle a bit of meat over its head). The Sanctuary has koalas, wombats and kangaroos, amongst other things. Most have been rescued and can’t be released back into the wild. The crocodiles were impressive and did move when a piece of kangaroo tail was waved over their heads. Several of them were over 4 metres long. Apparently a crocodile causing problems in a populated area is considered an Iconic croc if it is over 4 metres and has to be caught and placed in a zoo or sanctuary. Anything smaller may not have such a nice fate, including all female crocs which never reach 4 metres. Happy now he had seen a croc moving we drove onto our next destination.

Whilst at the sanctuary we also learnt something smelly about koalas. They survive entirely on Eucalyptus leaves because of a specific bacterium in their gut. These leaves are toxic to most other animals. Mother koalas, to make sure their babies have this bacteria, wipe some runny poo on the babies who lick it off and get the bacteria in their gut- poohy!

Of again, we got to Airlie Beach hoping to get out to the Whitsunday islands but all boats were booked for the next day so we had a day hanging around Airlie Beach. It was possibly the hottest day so far. I decided to get a swimming cosi, having left mine at home, but was so sticky I couldn’t get them on and had to get Peter into the changing room to help with a few strategic tugs. I’m not sure what the shop assistant must have thought.

We had chosen a traditional New England sailing ship but with little wind we did little sailing. The pristine white sandy beaches at Whitehaven Island are well known being photographed for many a publication. They are quite spectacular. The white sand, that has come from a nearby volcano, is so fine you can polish your jewelery and clean your teeth with it (I had no jewelery to clean and really didn’t fancy the second option). After this we went snorkelling at Dumbell island (me with my new cosi). It was almost as good as the Great Barrier Reef.

Next day we headed inland to catch a glimpse of some more Duck Billed Platypus in Eungella National park. It is at a higher altitude than the coast so I was praying for cooler temperature as I know the heat is getting to me when I had a conversation with Peter that ran - Navigator (me) ‘are we there yet?’ Driver ‘where?’ Navigator ‘I don’t know’.

Eungella National Park is claimed to be the place you are most likely to see Platypus. We camped wild by the river and waited. At 3.30 (Platypus appear from 3.00 to 8.00 but anything after 6.00 is impossible as its pitch dark) we headed out to the viewing spots, Peter looking very much the tourist with trousers tucked in socks, as he seems to be a magnet for biting insects. Almost straight away we caught our first glimpse of a Platypus followed by around 5 more sightings in various locations along a short stretch of the river. It was so thrilling to see them swimming and diving. I was quite overcome.

After all this excitement we realised we hadn’t defrosted our dinner so cobbled together a meal which, despite a very unappealing look, did taste quite good, consisting of tomatoes, refried beans and Quorn fajita pieces.