28/9/9 Cairns (monday) We got up nice and early and were collected for our dive course. We got to the dive school and were shown round the building and into the classroom. Ater signing the obligatory forms we had our medical exam. The disclaimer forms we have had to sign in Australia are unbelievable . They all say you have no right to sue even if the company or staff are negligent!!!! A couple of health care assistants checked our breathing, BP, ears and weight...

26/9/9 Cape Tribulation Sat We had a well deserved relaxing break up to Cape Tribulation for the night. We were collected from our hostel early to drive the scenic ocean road towards Cape Tribulation. We were last on the bus so ended up with Phil sitting up the front and Liz tucked right down the back in a chair with no view...perfect!!! We stopped for a breakfast stop at a roadside cafe. We had toastie and egg sandwich there before setting off again. The cafe w...

24/9/9 Mission Beach to Cairns We woke up to a misty morning which turned out to be a thick dust cloud which had blown up from storms in Sydney and NSW mixed with smoke from inland fires!! It was the worst storms for 70 years and the dust had travelled 5000kms. The visibility was terrible and we were booked to do a sky dive and land on the beach. The reason to do a sky dive here was to see the amazing views over the barrier reef and the tropical islands too. We ...

22/9/9 Tuesday Magnetic island to Mission Beach Guido our driver joined us on the return ferry back over to Townsville to pick up the Oz bus to carry on North. We drove straight to Mission Beach only stopping briefly for lunch in Cardwell where we saw several dugongs swimming in the bay and you could see over to Hitchinbrook island from there which is the largest of the tropical islands. We made another brief stop at the golden gumboot in Tully. Tully is notorio...

20/9/9 Sunday Airlie Beach to Magnetic Island We were picked up by a new driver, Sonic, who looked very like Neil Morrisey. we left Airlie, drove through Bowen and stopped at a dodgy cafe for breakfast. we drove into Townsville but had only got 5 minutes before the ferry left so to avoid rushing we decided to get some tickets and catch the next one in an hours time. to kill the time we had a drive round Townsville and went to the supermarket for snacks. Townsvil...