Heading south down the coastline, I arrived at the beautiful spot of Mission Beach, where the main attraction involved sky diving and white water rafting. I booked a package to do both. The sky dive was supposed to be first but as the weather was bad they postponed it until after the rafting. The rafting was quality- 5 hours paddling through white water on the Tully River. However, on one grade 4 rapid (ie dangerous, Grade 5 is a waterfall, Grade 6 is Niagra Fal...

North of Cairns is Cape Tribulation- where rainforest meets ocean. I headed there on a 2 day trip to explore this stunning area. Breaking up the long drive there, we stopped to walk through the rainforest. In ignorance I hadn't realised Australia had a rainforest. Winding through was a lazy river with gigantic boulders lying in the middle. The water was so clear you could see the fish swimming around from up above and all surrounded by rainforest foliage. It wa...

Finally leaving Asia, I began the next chapter of my journey with an ridicuously long flight to Darwin then connecting to Cairns. Interestingly we had exactly the same plane and crew that took us from Singapore to Darwin as we did from Darwin to Cairns but for some unknown reason they decided that we had to take everything from the plane and wait in an airport lounge in Darwin for 5 hours before reboarding to exactly the same seat. The oddity of Australian travel...

I left Pai to travel back to Bangkok before flying onto Singapore. A journey which consisted of leaving Pai by bus at 2.30pm, changing in Chiang Mai and getting a new bus at 6.30pm before an overnight bus ride to Bangkok to arrive at 6.30am the next day. I had 12 hours to kill in Bangkok before my flight so spent it usefully by having a Thai massage (fully recommend) and shopping! Finally I was able to tootle off to the airport for a flight at 6.15pm only to get ...

Leaving adventure behind, I headed further north into Thailand to visit the beautiful Pai region. The drive was stunning as we wound our way up the forested mountains and then down again into Pai. A small town, based a long the river but surrounded by green mountains, it is the place of easy-living and being at one with nature. I met up again with Eefje and this time Ash who had been rafting with us. They had hired motorbikes and driven from Chiang Mai to Pai. D...