Had very little to say about Townsville other than it was a scene from 28 days later an apocalyptic movie, expecting half dead zombies to be the only people we would see! At first we thought the city had been evacuated as despite it being a Saturday everywhere was shut and no-one was to be seen! The only place open was Subway and the cinema! So we came halfway around the world for a foot long and Alice in Wonderland in 3D!

We are now in Mission Beach, 2 hours south of Cairns. It's truly becoming a tropical wonderland where every insect appears as if seen under a magnifying glass; it's very much like the lost world (the novel not the sequel to Jurrasic Park!) On arriving at the hostel which is like a treehouse amongst the jungle we were immediately greeted by the rare and endangered largest moth in the world, the Hercules moth measuring 27cm in diameter, we thought it was a model and had to ask the receptionist if she was joking! Despite having a double room as usual we have many six legged room mates of gigantic proportions! On our 1st day we attempted a walk on a bush trail, however after wiping the 5th spider web out of our faces we decided it was too much like Indiana Jones so on our retreat we acquired a stick and swashbuckled our way back through contending with apple sized spiders as though they were Captain Black Beard. We thought we'd wind down from this adventure with a leisurely stroll along the palm tree lined beach only to find we were surrounded by a crocodile inhabited creek (which grow up to 5 metres in length!) We finally retreated to the sanctuary of a supermarket for the next 2 hours! The most dangerous thing in there was raw chicken!

Today brought further sunshine for our new adventure on Mission Beach, took a leisurely bike ride around the Mission Beach area and I spotted an endangered cassowary (like an emu) unfortuantely there was no photo as Rob had the camera and he had ridden off into the distance, you're not meant to get too close to these birds anyway as they can turn aggressive. Off to Cairns tommorrow!

In Cairns for 10 days in total. The hostel we've been staying in has been lovely, like a piece of jungle in the middle of the city but without the loud insects. It's a strange feeling to go from such wilderness to one of Queenslands biggest cities and find your eardrums can finally have some peace. It's almost an oximoron that the city is quieter than the jungle! So we went tubing down a low graded rapid river in Cairns which was great fun and beautiful scenery at the same time. Quite scary to start off with when walking through the jungle to get to the river as we had to make as much noise as we could to scare off deadly typan snakes! We also bumped into a ginormous golden orbe spider which was bigger than our palm! The next day we spent chilling out by the saltwater lagoon. The cyclone that had been sitting off the coast made landfall a few hundred km south at the Whitsundays (Airlie Beach) where we had been a week previous. Everyone had to be evacuated. A lady we met on our white water rafting trip told us that she went to check into her hotel at Airlie Beach and they told her to hire a car and make her way north as the hotel would probably not be there in the morning! We finally conquered our fears in Cairns and went white water rafting down the Barron River just north of Cairns in the mountains. There was a sense of pathetic fallacy as we paddled down the river as large misty clouds descended down the mountains onto our nervous selves in the raft sending down mighty cascades of rain down onto us! I (Rob) pictured myself as floating down the congo like in The Heart of Darkness. So the 2 hour course consisted of 14 grade 3 rapids which took quite a lot of skill and courage at times to navigate. Each time we reached one of the rapids we had to paddle for our lives then hold on tight. To our constant amusement a lady in our raft kept falling in the river head first despite being told to hold on! I (Trudi) was petrified of capsizing and held on for dear life despite continuous orders to paddle forward by the guide! We felt a great sense of achievement after the trip as we both thought it was something we wouldn't do but are very glad we did. Next grade 4 rapids!! Hehe! It was also crazy thinking that at the bottom of both the Barron River and the river we went tubing down awaited crocodiles waiting to eat us! Luckily we got out of the river before that section! Hopefully there are some good photos but we have to wait 2 weeks before we can see them as they are being posted to the UK.

Due to the recent terrible weather churning up the sea and the fact we did amazing snorkelling of the fringing barrier reef at the Whitsundays we've decided to give the reef here a miss and instead go on a scenic train ride to a little jungle village called Karunda tommorrow.....

The scenic train carriage dated to the beginning of last century which for Australia is the equivalent of 3000 years history! The history behind the construction of the railway was interesting as the tracks lead almost 700 metres up the mountain across vast crevices under huge waterfalls and through many hundreds of metres of tunneled rock, as you can imagine many died building it, who are buried in the cemetry (pictured). It was a slow old chug up the mountain, but worth it as the views and scenery were fantastic. You don't get many trains in the UK passing on the edge of a mountain under a beautiful waterfall. We even read in a newspaper article that Karunda was a source of inspiration for the breathtaking scenery in the recent Avatar movie. So the village itself perched within the jungle high on the mountain top was full of local art, craft and produce markets. We went into a gallery of Peter Jarver photography and both fell in love with a number of his work, you would have loved to have purchased one if it were not for its $2000 price tag! We went in there 3 times and came out with his business card cos it was the only thing that was free! However it has acted as inspiration to Rob as photography is becoming quite a hobbie for him now ( almost ironic having a blind man as a photographer!) says Rob, not Trudi! Rob just dictates what I write! I think Sharon and Kirsty have probably already guessed that! Also during our visit we watched the local kandy store do a demonstration making sweets which was amazing how they do it. It inspired me to buy some! They also gave us a free taster of the ones they had freshly made and they were still warm! Yummy! Some of their arts and crafts were really nice, we almost bought a finger puppet that looked like Robs "grinny granny"! Once again our hiking on one of their walks was cut brief due to warnings of leaches in wet weather as we were only in flip flops or "thongs" as the aussie's say! Tommorrow we leave Cairns via a plane for once to Darwin, which reminds us of what our bus driver told us as he dropped us off in Cairns, that his mileometre read 3.2 million kilometres! Gives you an idea of how far everywhere is!

At Darwin aiport we picked up a local paper with the front page spread being that the day after we went on the scenic train to Karunda it hit into a landslide on the mountain. No-one was killed or seriously injured, but it may be the last time it runs which is a shame. We flew into Darwin which is a hot and steamy tropical city, west of the Gulf in the Northern Territory. Once again we were greeted by news headlines and talk of yet another cyclone warning, this time off the northern coast. However the weather was hot and sunny at the time. Darwin is famous for its weather dramas; typically bright blue skies with hot sun reacgig the high 30s each day, followed by tremendous thunder and lightning storms at night with terrential rain to cool down the air. Our first day in Darwin was spent walking around the town and down onto the waterfront. We immediately fell in love with Darwin as it had all the mod cons of Sydney but the quaint and quiet back drop of a rural town with a big mix of asian ethnics. The sky is totally different here as as the sun goes down you are treated to a calidascope of colours, which made the David Bailey come out of Rob trying to capture the perfect sunset. We have a few pictures but are unable to upload at the minute. As we said earlier every night is an electrical theatre with the soundtrack of the Blitz Kireg, we've never seen fork and sheet lightning like it! It would be terribley scary if out in the open or at sea, but we felt somewhat comforted being surrounded by cyclone proof Darwin! So we spent the majority of our time in Darwin learning about its history. Apparently it had a major role in WWII as the frontline of defence against the japanese in Australia. We also went to a museum dedicated towards cyclone Tracey of 1974 which desinated the city Christmas Eve. There was a walk through exhibition where you could here recordings at full volume of the cyclone and see pictures and accounts of the 300km/ph winds. It was as though you were looking at pictures of Hiroshama and Nagasaki, unbelievable to think wind can blow away a city. There was also a stuffed crocodile which was caught in Darwin being 70ft in length and 880 pounds in weight, it's stomach could easily fit an entire family! When they cut the croc open they found a zebra, multiple turtles, a dingo and another croc! One other highlight was the waterfront wave pool, not like your average UK pool, it was as if they'd created a real live tempest within the pool with massive swells and breaking waves bigger enough and powerful enough to surf which we witnessed someone do on their bodyboard! I guess they were making up for you not being able to venture in the croc and deadly box jellyfish infested sea!

So our final day can be considered as one of the most tiring day/48hrs in our lives! So we got up at 5am and checked out at 6am to be picked up for our day trip to Kakadu National Park, which is one of Australias most treasured areas; housing 1/5 of all Australian wildlife and being rich in aborigine culture as there are still 3 tribes still living there. It is also vital for Australias booming economy as it is the site of multiple uranium, diamond, gold and base metal deposits for mining; Rio Tinto being the major share holder in this multi-billion dollar investment. As a result the park has so far recieved 400 million dollars in royalties from the mining for its upkeep. It was about a 2 hr drive to the park and as we entered the gates we were all woken by what we thought a terrential downpour hitting the windscreen of the bus, but it was actually a swarm of bees getting squashed! We firstly visited an aborigine heritage centre and learnt about there culture and how "white fella" are pushing out "black fella" according to them. After the museum, we drove past a hotel in Jabarui which was designed to be a replica of a crocodile! It's head was the entrance through the mouth, it's body the restaurant and it's tail the accommodation! It looked amazing, but a little pricey at 200 pounds a night. We then went on a boat cruise down the river, the yellow billabong and luckily we immediately found a 2m croc in the river, which swam right next to us for ages! They can grow up to 7m in length but 2m is considered dangerous. Crazy seeing it knowing you're in their natural habitat. We were also lucky to see Australias only native heron, the 1m tall Jabbarui. There was also multitude of tropical birds, kites and even a kingfisher. In the afternoon we walked up the escarpement for a view over the canopy and viewed ancient cave aborigine artwork dating back to 22 thousand yrs ago (aborigine are thought to be 55 thousand yrs old) there was also work from about 150yrs ago depicting 1st contact with white colonists in the area. The heavens then opened and we made a quick dash for the bus! We returned back to Darwin in the evening only to grab our bags to then dart off to the airport, our flight didn't take off til 1am and due to the flight only being 4 1/2hrs Quantas feeding you every 5 mins and great turbulence, sleep was minimal to none! We then had a 10 hr wait in Sydney before our flight to Singapore....time can drag in an airport! We finally boarded our 7hr flight to Singapore landing that night, checked in and fell asleep for the first time in 48hrs!