Magnetic Island 1st - 6th August Day 2 on the Oz Experience was much less eventful, due to the smaller crowd and less chatty driver. We got down to Townsville, where we caught the ferry across to Magnetic Island and had a go at sea kayaking before we left the Oz crew's hostel for our much nicer hostel (Maggies Beach House), located at the picturesque Horseshoe Bay. It turned out to be our favourite place in Oz so far, there was lots to do, met lots of n...

Mission Beach 28th - 31st July We left Cairns for Mission Beach on the Oz Experience Bus, which turned out to be an action packed day! Our driver, "Cosmic" Dave, had verbal diahorrea, with his favourite phrase at the end of every sentence "It's all good!" and a chuckle. The first song he played was "Come to Australia, you might accidentally get Killed"! The bus was full of Brits, with a few Germans, French, Danish and a Canadian thrown into the mix. We ...

Cairns and Port Douglas 24th-27th July We got to Cairns silly early, even before the hostel opened! So we sat out on the Esplanade with our bags and watched the sunrise over the sea! Cairns was nice but small, no beach and full of tour operators after your money. So we planned to get away to Port Douglas about 40 miles north of Cairns to chill out on '4 mile beach'. Port Douglas was really nice, quite an upmarket area with spas, golf courses and several f...