After Townsville we headed north again, this time to tropical Mission Beach where the looong beaches are lined with palm trees, heaps of dense rainforest has just been left lying around left right and centre - and the insects are HUGE. The hostel we stayed at had a good pool so we spent most of our time in town (just two nights) hanging by it so that we could dowse ourselves whenever we felt we were in danger of combusting, which was quite frequently. We went fo...

The sailing trip after-party was awesome, mainly because if you spent $5 before 8pm you got half a large dominos pizza for free! Food is definitely the way to a backpackers heart. They're clever though as they make you wait an hour and a half for the pizza which means that of course you've drunk more than it's worth by the time it arrives! Still a good deal though. The next day we logged onto our internet banking to find out that somehow someone, somewhere, had ...

We got into Airlie Beach at 7am after our 14 hour bus journey and were surprised but pleased to be able to check into our room immediately. We went straight to bed until lunchtime then got up to look around town and have a swim in the manmade lagoon. Swimming in the sea without a stinger suit is not allowed here as there are lots of jelly fish so the only swimming you CAN do is in the lagoon or pools. It's a bit tame but you can see why. The next day we trekked ...

Hervey Bay is actually three seaside towns that have amalgamated into one over the years. This means that there are a few almost-towncentres but no real heart to the place. Most people come here for the reputably excellent whalewatching or to make the trip to Fraser Island. We did neither, seeing as we have done both before, and found that there was not a great deal else to do. Luckily this suited us just fine; after camping we were wiped and just glad to be bac...

Since the last blog entry we've been fairly busy. We've spent three nights in Brisbane, three nights in Rainbow Beach and two nights camping on Fraser Island. The highlight of Brisbane was definitely dinner with Sara, an Aussie I used to work with in London. She took us to an Italian restaurant where you order pizza by the metre and to a dessert restaurant where I ordered chocolate and cherry cheesecake with double clotted cream and ice cream AND chocolate sauce...