I arrived in Brisbane in mid-afternoon and found my hostel quite easily, it was in the heart of the city. I spent the rest of the day organising my flight home in March as I'd been putting it off for so long and it was only going to get more expensive. I then organised a trip to Australia Zoo for the following day. The zoo is about an hours drive outside the city near a place called Noosa. I arrived at about 10am and spent the next 6 hours or so flying round the ...

I travelled south from Cairns to a stop off point for the Whitsunday islands called Airlie Beach. It was a nice little backpacker spot which had a respectable beach but it rained the two days I was there so I didn't have much hope for the weather for my sailing trip. On the morning of the first day I met a couple of Canadians at my hostel who were on my sailing boat so we walked down to the marina to await the trip. Our boat was really impressive, it was called A...

After Dan's unfortunate departure back to the UK, I continued by flying up to North Queensland and starting in Cairns. The wet season had unfortunately started early in Cairns so the first couple of days were a bit damp. However, I stayed at a hostel quite near the centre of the city so it was easy to get to the main attractions. The first couple of days I took in the esplanade and famous lagoon by the sea. It was a great place to chill out and it went on for mil...