We drove until 11pm, before we were both so tried we had to stop and sleep. We stayed overnight in Rockhampton above an Irish bar, of all places! By 9am, we were on the road again to Airlie Beach and 7 hours later we pulled into the small town, checked in for our cruise the next day and headed back to bed in our new hostel. The cruise didn't leave until 2pm on Thursday, so we had a nice relaxing morning by the Airlie Beach lagoon. You can't swim in the sea ...

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Our first port of call on our mammoth east coast road trip was Byron Bay, fairly close to the Queensland border. It is a small town, but very popular with travellers, surfers, hippies and the eternal backpacker (usually with a name like Vaughn, and really properly should know better!). It was so busy, in fact we sat in traffic to reach the beach and the campsite near by, only to discover it was already full. Luckily, we had spotted another campsite on the dri...