G'Day!! So we finally get to pick our camper van up "Deluxe samantha" is her name but this bears no resemblance to the artwork on the side (see pics!!) Its very basic but we have everything we need in there! We headed straight up to cooktown in north queensland which is about a 200 mile drive from cairns.The landscape was amazing, endless outback territory, termite mounds and plenty of wild kangaroos and wallabies. It was great to see them in the wild. The roads here have no fences which can be quite a problem as there is alot of cattle here! They stand in the middle of the road and dont move when you drive up to them so we had to be very careful not to hit them. Thankfully we managed to make it to cooktown around 7pm without any roo's or cattle stuck to the front of the van!! The town is very small and isolated from the rest of australia (it gets cut off during the wet season) we only stayed for one night as there is not alot to do here but there are some great views. We went up to a lookout point called 'grassy hill' which is the first place where captain cook stood when assessing this new land he had discovered in 1770. There is a 360 degree view here and it is amazing - well worth the drive just to see this!! Apparently a man has been missing for a week now in cooktown, believed to have been eaten by a resident crocodile!!!!!!

By about 11am we headed back down land to Cape Tribulation in the Daintree national rainforrest. We took a ferry crossing across the Daintree River, the guy who came to take our money was origionally from woodlands, doncaster! How coincidental is that. He moved out in 1970 on the assisted passage scheme due to unemployment in the uk and now he owns a b&b in the daintree and works on the beautiful river! The drive across the range is very exciting. small windy roads on the edge of the cliff side and up through the jungle. We found an amazing look out so we stopped in the lay-by and cooked some sausage sandwiches while enjoying the view, heavenly. We arrived at cape trib camping ground just before sunset. but only stayed there 1 night as it was quite expensive. But in the morning while I was having a shower Daryl shouted me outside and there were two really BIG lace monitor lizards about 1.5m just walking around in between everyones tents !!! We got right up close to them and took some photos but they appeared to be a little shy and ran into the woods if we got too close. apparently they can run at you quite fast if they feel threatened but me and daryl didnt know that at the time, so we were lucky lol.

We then headed upto PKs jungle village but while looking out for the sign for the campsite and for Cassowaries I hit a speed bump at about 40kmph and the van took off like evil kneivel and all the cuttlery and plates went everywhere, Daryl was not too happy!! PKs jungle village was really nice, right next to cape trib beach and right next to a great lagoon style pool and bar so we had a walk down the beach during the day to a look out point and tooks some pics and in the evening we sank a couple of cold pitchers next to the lagoon.

The next day we headed back south to port douglas stopping off at Mossman gorge on the way which is a beautiful river that runs through the jungle and has some great swimming holes to cool off in, the water was cold but was really refreshing and I nearly got swept downstream with the current but managed to cling on to darls legs lol. we found some great boulders in the middle of the river to sun bathe on.

At dinner time we headed off to our next campsite where we knew some friends we'd met in cairns were staying. so at the moment we're in tropic breeze van village right next to 4 mile beach in port douglas, its really nice and relaxed here and the beach is amazing. Weather is so tropical and hot right now we are loving it! Anyway the beach is calling us now, we need to have a dip in the ocean to cool down, so take a look at the new pictures! Untill next time catch ya later x x x