The rains started our last afternoon in Byron Bay and followed us for four days and 450kms. Not pleasant trying to cook dinner in lay-bys and tramping off to public toilets at 1am in a thunderstorm... We saved some more money parking up at 'rest areas' overnight at the side of the road and as a result looked and smelled like something the cat dragged in. Highlights of the four days drive included: 1) Waterfalls and rainforest scenery near Coffs Harbour 2) Watc...

Hunter Valley - the home of Aussie wine! We were looking forward to sampling a few wines - just to see how they compared to our tasting in South Africa - a purely scientific and clinical comparison you understand! We booked a wine tour with 'James' Wine Tours' only to find out that James is an English guy from Stevenage...its a small world! We visited 5 'boutique vineyards' and pretended to look sophisticated and knowledgeable at the first establishment as we w...

We said a sad farewell to Phil and to our 'Wizard of Oz' campervan and picked up our new van...the much smaller and much ruder 'Wicked' van (it has graffiti on the sides - you'll see from the photo's!) Heading down to Byron Bay we stopped briefly at Surfers Paradise, a high-rise beach resort, to admire the stunning views from the Q Tower, the tallest building in Australia. In our effort to save money we spent the night parked up in a carpark overlooking the beac...

En route to Brisbane we stoppped off at Tin Can Bay to hand feed wild dolphins with fish which we loved! This time Kim actually managed to get a photo of her with a dolphin...our last encounter (in the Dominican Republic in 2006) Mark managed to cut her head off while taking a similar photo of a dolphin encounter! Brisbane was a chance to kick back and chill out. Phil treated us to two nights in a very nice 'loft apartment' due to his fear of dorms - pure luxury...

It was a good few miles between Rockhampton and Hervey Bay so we broke the journey staying in our first free campsite, much to Phils disgust as this meant we had no air con or hot showers. In Hervey Bay we hired a 4WD truck and camping gear and headed over to Fraser Island for 3 days to enjoy 'paradise on one of the worlds only sand islands'. Hmmm....paradise? The island was really beautiful - forests inland and stunning beaches but our camping trip could possi...