Our following days exploration of Hokitika took us around town and towards the mountains for a few short walks at Lake Kaniere, Dorothy Falls and Hokitika Gorge. Hokitika was easily the highlight of the day with its milky blue green waters and swing bridge backed by cliffs and fine rimu forest. We spent the evening in a place called Hari Hari, an area well known for police and its speed traps, needless to say we made it through unscathed. Continuing further south...

After an eight hour wait at Cairns airport, 3 planes and 2 taxi’s, we arrived at our guesthouse, Racecourse Backpackers Hostel in Christchurch. Our first impressions of N.Z. were that it reminded us of home, not solely because the guesthouse was on Epsom Road and next to a racecourse but everything else from the weather (tipping it down) to the landscape, however I’m sure this second similarity would soon change. Our new campervan – later to be dubbed Myrt...

North Coast – Townsville to Cairns After leaving the Whitsunday’s we made our first stop in Townsville- why, I don’t know. It was okay to be fair just quite run down. We drove up to castle hill and saw a pretty cool 360˚ panoramic view all around and out to magnetic island. Leaving Townsville we stayed in a rest area on the beach which was really nice. The next morning we set off early and drove to Paluma range national park. We went to Little Crystal cr...

After an hours drive we arrived in Airlie beach. We checked into our hotel and were told we would be sharing a dorm with Anouk and Sjoerd, they are stalking us. We went down to the lagoon and bumped into Sophie, so we spent the afternoon chilling out. We treated ourselves to our first McDonalds in 7 months, and then went to a bar for a few drinks before catching an early night for an early start in the morning. Meeting at the marina, we waited for the arrival of...

The next day we drove to Rainbow beach and through The Great Sandy National park. It was really beautiful here, and also very very hot. We had breakfast over looking the beach, it was really cool. We spent the morning on the beach and then drove to Carlos lookout and sand blow. You walk through a forest to begin with and then you’re suddenly confronted with this massive sand blow! It was quite spectacular and much more amazing than we had thought it would be. F...