Well we are finally back on the road again but with one small difference, this time we are ENGAGED!!!

We left Sydney on the 27th September on our journey up the east coast of Australia, stopping at various towns along the way until we reached Cairns. After a lot of thought and more budgeting than either of us would have liked to do we finally decided to go with the cheapest possible way of seeing the east cost rather than what might possibly have been a more enjoyable way, Greyhound!

Ideally driving up in a campervan would probably have been more entertaining but with the cost of fuel, insurance and van hire we decided the cheap and cheerful Greyhound coach service would do us fine, after all it worked out ok for us in America and their service is notoriously bad in comparison!

Our first taste of Greyhound Australia was a 13.5 hour journey up to Byron Bay, we decided to make this journey an overnight trip to save on accommodation costs and so we could sleep through most of the journey and wake up at our destination.

Once in Byron Bay we quickly realised it was a bit of a hippie town and everyone seemed to be a couple of cans short of a six pack for some reason!

As would turn out to be the case with most of the places we visited there really isn't that much going on in Byron Bay, its a nice little town based around a beach. The only thing we went to see whilst in Byron was the lighthouse, it looked fairly close but without asking for any advice we set of following all the signpost and boardwalks and spent the best part of 1.5hrs getting up there! We managed to walk back in about 45mins along the beach front but it gave us something to do!

After Byron we travelled up to Surfers paradise for 3 nights and spent almost the whole time on the beach trying to catch a tan! One thing we found about sunbathing on the east coast beaches, at this time of year, is that you are constantly flicking sand out your ears as it is so bloody windy!

We left Surfers and journeyed up to Brisbane for a couple of days, having originally thought about spending the majority of our time in Brisbane working rather than Sydney it came as a nice surprise that we both thought Sydney was a much nicer place to have stayed for as long as we did! Brisbane just seemed like any other city, overcrowded and with nothing much to offer, a big contrast to Sydney (in our opinion anyway).

From Brisbane we made our way up to Mooloolaba, although we didn't know it before we arrived there this used to be Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter's, home town! We spent 5 nights here and found it quite pleasant. Its not a big place and again it is based around the beach although there is a nice wharf full of yachts that we walked along.

Without realising the significance we had already paid for tickets to the Australia zoo, the Irwin's family zoo, and we got picked up from town one day and dropped off. It was a nice day and we saw the usual zoo animals along with plenty of crocodiles, feeding some kangaroos, wallabies and getting our photo taken holding a koala.

The worst part of our stay here was when some little *#@*# stole our last two Almond Magnums out of the freezer!

From Mooloo we made the 5hr journey up to Hervey Ba,y where we spent only one night and didn't get to see very much as it rained for the duration of our stay. There isn't very much to be seen so we didn't miss out really but most people stop here and get the ferry across to Fraser Island. We decided that all the Fraser tours were over priced and having heard a few stories of people being stuck on tours full of Americans and other idiots our best bet would be to keep on travelling.

We made a brief 2 night stop in Rockhampton (beef capital of Australia apparently) with nothing much to report. This was only another stop to break up the journey to Airlie Beach /the Whitsunday Islands.

After an additional 7.5hr coach journey we pulled into Airlie Beach mid afternoon Monday 13th October, we only stayed here for one night to begin with as we booked a 3 night and 3 day trip sailing around the Whitsundays.

The boat we stayed/sailed on was advertised as one of the more luxury boats available to do the trip on but having spent three nights crammed into our tiny cabin fighting off the creepy crawlies we began to wonder how bad the other boats must have been!

The trip itself was good fun tho and the weather was on our side so as we sailed between the islands we could lay out on deck sunbathing. We ventured out to Bait reef, one of the many reefs making up the great barrier reef, for a bit of snorkeling amongst the colourful fish and corals, unfortunately it is close to jellyfish season so we had to where 'stinger'suits or wet suits to everyone else! We also got to check out some corals closer to various beaches throughout the Whitsundays but jumping into the sea when your miles from any land took a bit of a push!

Despite the good weather the sea did turn a bit rough on one afternoon and we were both left feeling a bit green! Nobody wanted to see their lunch again but unfortunately for Jean having held herself together all afternoon just a few minutes before we stopped sailing for the day she couldn't keep it down any longer!

At the end of our three days on board 'Anaconda III' we were pleased to be back on dry land and spent a further 2 nights in Airlie Beach as it is a pretty nice place to stay and looks to be an up and coming holiday town.

From Airlie we made our way up the coast to Townsville where we hopped straight on a ferry across to Magnetic Island. We only decided to give this place a look as the agent we booked a lot of our accommodation and travel thru had a cheap 2 night deal going. The Island itself doesn't really offer anything special and having hoped to spend some time in the sea and on the beach we were rather disappointed to find notes up all over the hostel saying the beach was out of bounds as a 3.5m crocodile had been spotted in the area!

Pleased to be leaving Magnetic Island behind we got the ferry back over to Townsville and caught the coach up to Mission Beach where we spent the best part of three days relaxing on what seemed like our own private beach.

The last stop on our east coast journey was Cairns, we stayed for 5 nights as we had a few loose ends to tie up before we leave the country.

After closing our Aussie bank accounts and filing our tax returns with an agent we spent the rest or our time relaxing by the man made lagoon and taking what few sights Cairns has to offer.

On the whole we found our time spent on east coast was a bit disappointing really. This was possibly down to having previously experienced a lot of the same things earlier in our trip tho.

NEXT STOP: Perth