Remarkably I was able to book the campsite over the phone at about 5.45pm. The woman answered the phone "Queensland government" (can you imagine anyone answering at that time in the UK?) and proceeded to deal with my request without needing to put me through to anyone else, taking my payment and taking emergency contact details from me in case we went missing whilst in the bush. This and the fast approaching darkness started to make us nervous, not help...

It was only a short stint to Townsville in theory but once again it seemed to take forever. We had to drive through an area called the Burdekin which was very agricultural but very red neck. We read a disturbing article about a man from the Burdekin who had been arrested for fondling backpackers in their sleep so we drove through with the doors locked. The highlight of the day turned out to be our brief stop at the Big Mango – our first encounter with large fib...

Airlie beach was a welcome relief. Very pretty, quite lively and more touristy than our previous two stops. We chose a Big4 campsite which gave us a large pitch in amongst the trees which was quite private and felt less like we were living in someone's back yard. Here we got a chance to feed more birds - rainbow lorikeets that came down to the swimming pool area each morning. They sat on our heads and arms to feed. Oliver saw his second wild kangaroo by the toile...

It has been so long since we wrote I can’t remember what I last said so I will just write an inane stream of conscious (see if you can spot the difference to the other rubbish I have written!). Brisbane is a sprawling city based around a bend in the river so we spent a lot of time crossing and re crossing rivers to get anywhere. We did catch a river bus to a free comedy evening (about the only thing that we have found in this whole country that is free or eve...

The least said about Mcakay the better. We drove in at night. We played cards, we went to bed. This was the night we slept with three of us in the roof compartment and Oliver was woken by people on their veranda chatting from 5am. We packed and left.