Great Barrier Reef/Diving, Australia (25th Feb 2008) Courtesy of Pro Dive Cairns (one of the best dive schools in the world), we both now proudly possess a PADI Gold Standard Open Water certification and all the goodies that come with it including: a 250 page diver's handbook (which, being certified, we ostensibly know from cover-to-cover, kind of…), a diver's logbook, no decompression dive tables, and a temporary 90 day PADI membership card; our proper p...

Innisfail Crocodile Farm, Australia (23rd Feb 2008) En route to Cairns, our final voyage on the Oz Bus, we had the opportunity to stop off at a place called, The Johnson River Crocodile Farm, which is one of the only reason that any backer packers stop off at Innisfail. As soon as we arrived at the croc farm we realise that we're the only visitors, so before we had a chance to open the doors on the mini bus, one of the guys that worked there (a proper crocodil...

Magnetic Island, Australia (20th Feb 2008) After a relatively short bus ride from Airlie Beach we arrived in Townsville. Not many people who we have talked to have rated the place very much including the drivers but from what we saw it seemed like a nice enough town. Anyway the reason we were in Townsville was to catch the ferry over to Magnetic Island. We said goodbye to Claire as she was only staying in Townsville the one night and off we went to board the f...

Airlie Beach, Australia (17th Feb 2008) On our way into Airlie Beach it was clear why the area had been so unreachable the previous few days. Driving through Mackay, which was hit the hardest by the floods, we saw all kinds of objects scattered by the roadside, the most bizarre being fridges that had most likely been washed away from nearby businesses. We saw parts of roads that had collapsed under the pressure of the water and railway lines that were piled wi...

Rockhampton, Australia (15th Feb 2008) This entry shouldn't exist, we had never planned to stop off in Rockhampton, but the worst weather Australia has seen in 50 years had other plans. We managed to drive 150 kilometres north to the beef capital of Australia (everywhere seems to have some claim to fame) before being told that the roads have been closed due to torrential downpours and a cyclone that was hovering over the Whitsunday Islands (our intended destin...