The final section in our Spaceship was about to come, starting with Magnetic Island. The island was originally a lookout used in WW1 so there wasn't much to do apart from walk up to some of the hideouts and get great views of the ocean and the rest of the island. We hired a topless car for the day, which looked similar to something Barbie and Ken would drive around in, to drive around the island. There are only 30km of road, so we mainly sunbathed on a couple of beaches. Sadly you cant swim in the ocean from this point due to the large amount of jellyfish that can possible kill you! There are really dangerous ones that look pretty evil if you were to see them when swimming so we just dipped our feet in and paddled ankle deep.

The main reason for our visit to the island was for the full moon party on December 4th so we covered ourselves in luminous paint and partied the night away! We had a couple of nice Dutch guys in our room, Matthew and Tom, so we roped them into the action and painted them up with handprints over their faces and arms. It was a brilliant night; the hostel was literally right on the beach so had some great views and danced on the beach for a bit. People were running naked into the water…with jellyfish and sharks lurking around…rather them than me! After a couple of hours sleep we had to hit the road up to Cairns and give the Spaceship back. The scenery was fantastic and it was a shame we had to rush the drive to get the car back; huge mountains, banana trees, flowing rivers. It had been our home for 5 weeks and we had had some real adventures in it so was quite sad to say goodbye. I would definitely recommend to anyone doing the east coast to drive one…we had the time of our lives!

After dropping the car we headed to our hostel and what a hostel it was. Gilligan's backpacker hotel was the most luxurious accommodation we had had - spacious rooms, pool, and didn't feel like we were roughing it anymore. We chilled out at the hostel the first night as the next morning we had extreme white water rafting adventures on the Tully River and extreme it was! I'd actually go as far to say it was bloody terrifying….I literally nearly died twice! Now I know your probably thinking I'm exaggerating but I got trapped under water twice and thankfully got plucked up by the guide as I was choking underwater. Then the next time I got trapped under the raft, somehow got out, sprained my thumb, and then thought I saw a crocodile and freaked out! Wasn't a crocodile but just frothing foamy water!!!! I had to sit on the side of the raft for the rest of the trip as my thumb hurt so much I couldn't hold the oar. All in all the trip was fun but after 4 white water rafting trips across the world I don't think ill be getting back onto another one for some time. The people on our raft were pretty cool so when we got back to Cairns we had a few drinks which turned into a pretty crazy night out! Not good when you have to get up for 7am to go on an overnight trip to Cape Tribulation L

So the next morning we headed up towards Cape Tribulation via a zoo/habitat, the Daintree rainforest (where it chucked it down with rain the whole time), a river cruise to search for crocodiles (we saw none) and a splitting hangover. The lodge we staying in though was gorgeous and right in the centre of the rainforest so you felt like you were living with all the animals. We thought we would be a little adventurous while we were there and gave Jungle Surfing a try - where you are on a zip line in the rainforest and zip from tree canopy to canopy. I managed to do it even with a bout of tonsillitis, could feel it coming on the night before and was pretty severe. Not a good feeling but think that as I was beginning to wind down from the action packed 5 weeks we had had that my body had a meltdown.

Well that puts an end to my travels around Australia. What an amazing time I have spent there, will definitely be coming back and would love to see the west coast where a couple of my friends live. Onto the next journey I suppose…New Zealand!