Arrived in Cairns this morning - to a tropical storm - more rain... and my hot air balloon trip tomorrow is looking doubtful......

Yes.... my hot air balloon trip got cancelled late yesterday evening.... I was sort of half expecting it after all the rain yesterday and seemingly its been like this for the last week here in Cairns. Ah well - I'm disapointed as I was really looking forward to it and its unlikely to get reschueduled as its giving rain until Tuesday and then im ...

Happy St Patrick's Day to you all from Down Under. Well St Patrick must have been looking down on me today as this was the first day since I arrived in Cairns that the rain has stopped and the sun has come out to play. It was a gorgeous day after two days and nights of constant rain. However, as I am constantly reminded, this is the wet season i...

I would have to say that today was probably one of the most amzing days of my life.... never mind this trip. Woke up to another clinker of a day - which the locals say is hard to get two really good days of sunshine at this time of the year especially after all the rain - and left 7am this morning to go on a proper sailing boat, with masts and s...

On the 8th June we caught the Greyhound up to Cairns. For the first few nights we stayed at 'Calypso', which was quite loud & didn't have any proper cooking facilities, as they expected you to buy food from their bar. First couple pf days in Cairns we spent looking around rown, the Esplanade & shops. Cairns doesn't have a beach as such. ...

Ok, the posts are going to be noticeably shorter from here on in so you can all breathe a sigh of relief! We emerged from the internet cafe in Townsville in time to see some of the City's Sunday market - plenty of stalls covered in crafty, sparkly tat and edibles. We'd had a bit of a cock up with our Greyhound passes - we'd run out of kilometres...

We are now in Australia and are working our way down the East Coast quite quickly. We are spending just a couple of days at each stop, so the entries for Australia are likely to be short and sweet. Our flight from Fiji to Cairns involved a change of planes at Sydney and we very nearly missed our connecting flight! Our bags were the last to arriv...

So we made it to Cairns after a very brief stop over in Darwin. The second half of the flight was not so smooth as we caught the edge of a storm. This produced without a shadow of a doubt the worst turbulence we have ever been through. So safely back on land we head out the airport to be hit by a wall of humidity and heat (so thats why they call...

After some well deserved rest after all this exercise we have been doing, we thought hiring a car might be a novel way to see some more of the surrounding towns before heading off south. So we got a little red runabout and headed to Port Douglas for the day. Port Douglas was very nice but VERY expensive. So we had a little explore and look on th...

The drive from Townsville to Cairns much easier than expected with only and occasional cloud burst every now and then. We even had enough time to veer off the main highway to a little town called Mission Beach to see if we could spot a bird called a Cassowary. It's similar to a emu but more colourful. Unfortunately the elusive bird didn't appear...