With our bags packed once again, a few leaving do's and the arrival of Caroline's brother Chris, we left Brisbane and flew up to Cairns in Northern Queensland. We were last in this tropical town 7 years ago just after we'd met, so it held alot of fond memories for us.

Being part of a tour group is never on the agenda, so we hired a campervan for a week giving us the chance to explore this huge area. Always a pleasure not being told when you get off the bus, we had the freedom to stop at all of those perfect views for photo opportunities (hence the amount of photos!) and pull up at campsites wherever we liked.

Like most countries, the Aussies claim to have 'the old rainforest in the World', although we've been to several of these! However the Daintree Forest leading to Cape Tribulation - where the rainforest meets the ocean - is truly stunning. Dense jungle, amazing views and crystal clear blue waters lapping on to soft sand. Unfortunately the threat of taking a sting from one of Irukandji's tenticles or a box-jellyfish was enough to put us off taking a dip. Even sunbathing becomes pretty extreme, this is the land of the saltwater crocodile after all!

So from the top of the East Coast we decided to take on a mammoth trip in a short space of time which would see us end up in Melbourne....oh how we love road trips!! We managed to jump off in Townsville for some relaxation on Magnetic Island - a cute koala-infested island within the Great Barrier Reef. It's definitely a tropical paradise, but again we missed out on some great snorkelling opportunities with it being stinger-season. Jim however did hook in to a few fish off Picnic Bay jetty and watched an old hippy bird hand-line a gummy shark!

We were lucky enough to spot koalas in the wild on a random bush-walk. Living on a highly-toxic diet of eucalyptus leaves you can understand why these cute furballs don't have much energy, they are only awake for 4 hours a day and we were lucky enough to see them munching in the gum trees. Very hard to spot but well worth the effort!

Back on the road after our beach get-away, we headed to Airlie Beach, the gateway to the beautiful Whitsunday Islands. This was amazing, perfect weather, calm waters and Whitehaven Beach......check out the photos, need we say any more!

Dumping Chris en-route (his own choice!) we then endured a 19 hour bus ride back to our old home Bris-vegas for a brief pit-stop before heading South again. With the famous 'Melbourne Cup' nearing, time was of the essence and a lucky break with a relocation campervan at $1 a day would see us on our way very cheaply down the coast through Sydney to Melbourne.

With Jim at the wheel most of the time (Caroline managed about 2 hours in total!) time flew as we travelled through amazing scenery, an abundance of road-kill and crossed the states of Queensland, New South Wales and in to Victoria. Driving in Australia is the only way to appreciate how the UK fits into it 25 times!!