After one last great day in Cairns, spent walking around the city and swimming in the Lagoon, we flew back to Sydney. Mark and John had a fun night out (courtesy of Fijian Bounty rum, of course), and then it was time to fly out on the 26th. Before our afternoon flight, we stopped on our way to the airport at Dan and Kate's place to help celebrate Australia Day - complete with festive hats and shirts. Then, at 5pm we were on our way to Singapore. Usually, ou...

Up early again Monday morning, we were at the marina by 7am to find our boat for the day. This time, we opted for a motor-powered boat so that we could visit the outer reef. Sailing was amazing but we just wouldn't go far enough out. We wanted the real deal - when we first started talking about where we would want to visit in the entire world, Mark's first response was the Great Barrier Reef. We had already visited a fringing reef in the Whitsundays but we ...

Although we were eager to spend more time in Cairns, we packed up Friday morning and decided to head into the rainforest for the weekend. The guy running the pool diving lesson gave us some great tips for places to visit on the way up to Cape Tribulation. Our first recommended stop was, of course, another swimming hole. Mossman gorge is located within the boundaries of the Daintree National Park, so our walk along this creek brought us into the heart of one ...

Tuesday, January 17th, we continued our trek north and drove to Townsville. We weren't terribly ambitious so it was a fairly short drive before we were ready for a break. Townsville is one of the bigger cities in Northern Queensland and a nice place to find refuge from the rain. It was dry when we arrived so we found ourselves a cheap room in a backpackers by the water, grabbed some take away curry for dinner and headed to see a cheap Tuesday movie at the lo...

Sunday the 15th, we woke up to a rainy day in Airlie Beach. Watching the weather in the morning, we saw the entire east coast being battered by storms and rain. Man, were we glad we decided to head north as quickly as we did - around Noosa there was flashflooding and such crazy surf that all the beaches were closed. What we didn't realize when we planned this leg of our trip is that the tropical northern areas of Queensland have their rainy season in January...