Carins
9th June: Flew to Carins today and collected our Van near the airport we where an hour or so sorting out the details and then we were off.

We headed north and along the way we stocked up on groceries we took it easy as Clare was getting used to the driving we got as far as Newell Beach and booked in a caravan park. The owner was very friendly and helpful and we settled in for the night. All the caravan parks here are well set up with toilets, showers, laundery facilities, pools and BBQ come kitchen areas so you are far from roughing it!. We put a few steaks on the Barbie and settled into some wine and cheese this is the life! 10th:After breaky we went into the town called Mossman and bought ourselves our own BBQ for the nights we would not be staying in the parks. There is a lovely Gorge here called the Mossman Gorge that has walking trails through the tropical forrests we took the 4km route and i had a swim in the creek along the way it was absolutely freezing!

CAPE TRIBULATION
11th: We headed up to Cape Tribulation early this morning you have to get a cable driven ferry over the Daintree river and in total its about a 2hr drive we didnt get all the way as we stopped at some of the board walks along the way these are walkways that ramble through the forrests taking in the tropical lowland forrests, creeks, swamps, mangroves and beachs it gives you a great view of the range of natural envoirments they have here and all so close to each other. We walked the Dubuja and Marrdja board walks and had lunch here as well. It was getting late so we started to head back and along the way we visited the Daintree ice-cream company and tasted thereSoursop, Rasberry, Jackfruit and Wattle fruit flavours all were very nice the Wattle fruit tasted like Mocha! Back to Newell beach for the night.

AHERTON TABLELANDS
12th: We had to go back to the van hire office as the gas cooker was not working it was not that far and we were heading south anyway, once the cooker was sorted we were off to the Aherton Tablelands this takes you on a scenic route inland around Carins. Along the way we stopped to check out some of the famous Curtain Fig Trees. These fig trees are like parasites they use other trees as there support and as they grow they smoother the host tree and take over, sometimes as the host tree dies it falls over and comes to rest leaning against a neighbour tree the fig tree grows roots that grow from the upper branchs down to the ground and since it is lying at an angle now the roots look like a curtain its pretty mad looking.

The roads wind up around the mountains and the views are breath taking. We visited the Crater lakes Eacham and Barrine these formed after volcanic activity years ago and surrounded by forrest they are really beautiful, we had a swim in Eacham the water was cold but refreshing. There were loads of turtles swiming here aswell. We headed to lake Tinabarru and stayed the night here on the lake side the owner of the park was Irish but had been living in OZ for the last 40 years, we had just checked in and she was quizing Clare on being ready for marraige and having kids this girl had spent a wee bit to much time in the OZ sun!!!
13th: Today we did the waterfall circuit taking in Elliunja,Zille, Milla Milla and Mungali even thou it was not the wet season the falls were pretty amazing and worth the visit.We headed back to the coast to Mission Beach the beaches hear were OK we were a bit spoilt on the islands in Malaysia and it would take alot to beat them for beauty. We continued on to Tully and as it was getting late here we booked into the Greenway caravan park. Friendly staff here and great amenities there is a gorge not for from here but we gave it a miss as we had just been to one!

Tuesday 14th: Clares birthday today!!! After breakie we strolled into town lovely character. Tully is famous for being the wettest state in Oz (12meters one year). We took a spin out to the coast gaurd station and i went fishing for a few hours while Clare chilled out with a mag, no fish again! That night we had hamburgers for dinner and to celebrate Clares Birthday we had hot chocalate muffins with cream with a few candles on top!

15th: Drove to Townsville and stayed the night in Bowling Green National park we both went for a dip in the creek. As it got dark the Kangaroos and Wallabies were out and about i got a lovely picture of a mother with her young sticking its head out of her pouch. The set up in the national parks are great some of them have toilets,showers,BBQ and all the walking trails are well marked out it only costs 4A$ pp per night.

16th: Took a trip into Townsville to stock up supplies then we went to the Billabong Sancutary, they have Wallabies,Wombats,Casories,Kangaroos,Crocs and many other animals here. Throughout the day there is guided talks about all the different animals and you can have your picture taken with all of them with your own camera at no cost! The highlight was the Koalas they have to be the cutest things you will ever see, the young ones were just bundles of fur with these huge eyes.

BOWEN
After lunch we got on the road to Bowen which is an hour north of Airlee beach! Found a nice park and had a look around some of the small beaches they were lovely here i had a quick swim and snorkel at Horse shoe bay nice coral and plenty of sea life.

17th: Spent the day at the beach chilling, swimming and snorkelling!!! Tried for a fish but naddaaa!
18th: There is a lovely scenic walk around cape Edgecumbe taking in all the bays you get some great views, had lunch at the beach and did the same as yesterday including catching bugger all FISH!
19th: We liked it so much here in Bowen we decided to stay another day or so! Went to the sunday market today lots of local fruit and homemade stuff, we bought some jam, fruit, veg, cookies and a KG of tiger prawns. Chilled out for the rest of the day in Rose bay. That night we shelled the prawns and sauteed them in loads of garlic in the pan what a feast we were licking our fingers for the rest of the night!!

20th: We are getting lazyier by the day chilled, read, did some emails. I tried a new fishing spot but got nothing but bites!
21st: Caught my first fish today he was pretty small but he went straight to the barbie and OH was he tasty!!!

AIRLEE BEACH
22nd: Travelled down to Airlee beach this is the main departure point to the Whitsunday Islands. We booked into the Flametree park it was not the best a bit run down! Checked out the town and had some lunch. I heard there were catching some nice Golden Treveille(fish) down at shute harbour so we went down to try our luck spent 2hrs here and you can probably guess what i caught? There were a few nice ones being caught. There was a huge resident Groper hanging around the pier he must have been 30kg, a local was telling me that sometimes theres another one and its around 100kg!!
23rd: Went for a walk in Campoon National park, it was a nice 6km hike up to Mount Rooper, the views were great of the islands off shore. After lunch we went down to the pier to try our luck again. There were a couple of young fellows there and they had live bait. they pulled in a few nice Treveille and to add insult to injury they hated the taste of fish and only caught the fish so they could lure in the huge groper, they tied some rope around the tail of the treveille and let him off as he was tied up he couldnt go far and pretty soon along came the groper and ate the fish whole. The kids had a great time trying to pull the bugger up but after a bit of a struggle he just spat out the tail of the bait and swam off. I was sorely tempted to jump in myself and fight the groper for the fish!!

TOM&MARGARET
24th: We travelled south for the day today so we could collect Tom and Margeret(Clares friends on there honeymoon) at Rockhampton. They were flying in from Brisbane on the 26th. It was a good eight hours drive down, we pulled into a rest place on the side of the highway for the night.
25th: Carried on to Yepoon this is a lovely seaside town 40mins east of Rockhampton on the coast we booked into a quaint little caravan park and went for a wounder around town. We gave the van a good clean could'nt have Margaret and Tom thinking we were dis-organised all the time!
26th: Collected Mags&Tom at the airport and back on the road to Airlee Beach we arrived in at 5.30pm. We booked into the Island gate park as we not impressed with the last park we stayed in. Clare had a cold for the last few days but it had cleared up now so we decided to go for a dive out on the Whitsundays we booked a two dive package and Mags&Tom would be going as well snorkling. Cooked up some steaks on the BBQ and set up the tent for the Guests!
27th: We were collect at 8.00am, there were not many on the trip 9 total so we had loads of room. The weather was not the best and rain was forecast. Our destination was Hook Island and our first dive was at Lunchon Bay. there was only 4 of us diving the rest went snorkling. The viz was not the best the coral was ok but very little fish life. After we came up we went snorkling and the fish and coral was much better in closer to shore. We then headed to Mantraray bay for the second dive, Slightly more fish life but viz was bad and strong currents over all the diving was pretty poor compared to Dives we did in Malaysia!!. Snorkling was not bad and much better then the diving i think this was due too the amount of boats that anchor when visiting the bays, in the last few years anchoring has been banned and permanent buoys have been set up in some bays but once the damage is done it takes forever to recover if at all!! Had lunch onboard fresh fish, chicken and salad we stopped of at one more bay and we all went snorkling some lovely corals hard and soft but little fish life. Overall it was an OK day but we were'nt impressed with the diving! That night it rained like hell so we dined in the van.
28th: We decided to head to the Carnavon Gorge National Park so we travelled west to Clermont, Clare drove half the way and then Tom took over she was delighted with the break! We stayed here for the night and cooked up some stew for dinner.
29th:On the road early heading towards Rolleston, When we got there we found out that because of the heavy rains the road to the Gorge was flooded and would be for a few days!! This was a disaster as we had travelled 2 days to get here and Tom&Mags had only a few days it was such a waste. We had few options as we were a day from anywhere, we decided to head to Boyne near Bunderburg for the night. We booked into a park for the night and cooked up some dinner. That night in rain so bad that Mags&Tom were getting wet in there tent and had to jump in with us in the van!!

1770
30th: Travelled to the Town of 1770 this is were Captain Cook first stepped onto OZ soil in "1770"! We checked into a park and got a great site right on the beach. Tom and myself went fishing and the girls went for a walk i wont bother telling you how the fishing went! That evening we put a few steaks on the BBQ and Tom gathered up some wood and lit a fire on the beach we chilled out for the rest of the night!
1st: Yesterday we had booked a tour for a trip to Lady Musgrove Island which is out on the Great Barrier Reef it took us 2hrs to get to it.It was pretty rough going and at least half if not more of the passengers got sick and there were at least 160 onboard!!!.They had plenty of sick bags on board and seemed to be well used to this. Clare and Tom were among the Casualities! What a place the island is quite small maybe 1/2 a mile across but its the reef that surronds it the makes it spectaculiar the island is total surrounded and there is one gap in the reef that you can get a boat through. We spent the day snorkling and Tom and myself went on a trip out side the reef to have a go fishing DONT ASK! The snorkling was pretty good lots of coral and small fish loads of sea horses and green Turtles. You could walk around the island and you can camp out here if you want. We had lunch on the boat, while tom and myself were out fishing Clare and Mags met George the resident Groper who comes over to the boat for feed who looked about 60kg, They also went out on the glass bottomed boat which gave them an exellent view of the corals and fish.

We arrived back on land at 5.00pm and decided to head further south towards Hervey Bay we got as far as Bunderburg and booked into Apollo park we all stayed in a 2 bedroom cabin for the night these are a good option as they come with a fully equiped kitchen and all the linen. You can get these from 40-80A$. We ordered in some pizza and watched tv for the night!

HERVEY BAY
2nd: On to Hervey Bay this is a real touristy town its one of the main depture points to Fraser Island this is the biggest sand island in the world! We would liked to have gone out but the budget would'nt stretch that far!
We had lunch in town and Tom organised a hire car for the next day so they could make they way down to Brisbane.That night we went to the RSL club for dinner, These culbs are in every town and you can good meals at reasonable prices and the beer is a bit cheaper as well. There was a band playing so we stayed for a while.
3rd: Tom &Mags left us today and are of to Brisbane for a few days and then on to LA. Myself and clare stocked up on supplies, emailed and chilled for the rest of the day. Bought a cooked chicken for dinner it reminded us of sunday roasts at home!
4th: Chilled out for the day, walked on the beach and took in the local sights.

RAINBOW BEACH
5th: Traveled to Rainbow beach, lovely great big sand dunes along miles of beach, Went for a walk aqnd after lunch drove to Tin Can bay we booked into park by the marina and after we had settled in i went to try my luck at the fishing "aaaaargh"!
6th: We got up at dawn and went down to the marina were a family of Indo-Pacific Dolphins come in every morning, only the Male was there today. A few locals are there every morning with a bucket fish , I took one of the fish and paddled out upto my knees were the Dolphin took the fish out of my hand it was amazing to be so close to him!

Back on the road we headed to Mundi were they is a big market on wensdays we had a stroll around here and then headed on to further to Yandina to a Ginger factory, we took tour around the plant and afterwards got to try some of they produce all very tasty! We got back on the road to Kilcoy(we were taking a route inland around Brisbane). Kilcoy is home to the OZ "Bigfoot" called a "Yowie" there were hundreds of sightings in the late 70th's but none in recent years. We stayed the night in Summerset park a bit basic, i think its quite popular in the summer but quite this time of year.

BUNYA MOUNTAINS
7th: Drove to the Bunya mountains national park and arrive d at 3.30pm. Went for a 1 1/2 hr walk in the woods. It was freezing that night, no power here so read for a while and in bed early!
8th: Up early and went on a 10km walk in the mountains, we got some amazing views and saw some amazing flora! The mtns are named after the Bunya trees that grow here(they dont grow any were else something to do with the volcanic activity here years ago that gave the soil certain properties) the nuts they produce were a source of food and celebration for the Aborignals that collected them, the nuts were only produced every 4 years.

Back at the camp grounds we had lunch and after we drove to Dalby. The scenery along the way down from the mountains was great! Booked into a park in the town centre. Clare was suffering from a kidney infection so went to the doctor and got a prescription for some meds! We did some groceries and treated ourselves to coffee and cake. Took it easy for the night and watched the MTV awards!
9th: Traveled to Toowooba, arrived at lunch time booked into park and after lunch had a stroll around town and caught up on some emails. It felt really weird here as it is a city but as we were walking around we saw hardly any people and it was a Saturday! Freaky, it felt so weird, ghost town like!
10th: Chilled out for the day, That night we went to the cinema to watch "War Of The Worlds" which was a bit disappointing.

BRISBANE
11th: Travelled to Manley which is east of Brisbane city on the coast. Booked into park and went into town for walks ,eats and info. Lovely sea side town with abig emphasis on sailing.
12th: Discovered our fridge battery was leaking as the smell would make you sick, so we had to make a few calls to organise a new one, we sorted it so that we could collect one on the way to the next town we visited. Into town went for a walk along the promenade and had lunch here. Later went for coffe in Gloria Jeans "Yum"!
13th: We got the Train into Brisbane from town. We did a walking tour of the city talking in City Hall, Clock Tower and Queen street mall crossed over Victoria Bridge and went to the Queensland Museum which is well worth a trip! We strolled down the promenade and had lunch at one of the Deli's here. Further on we came across a man made beach on the side of the river its got sand, life guard and all the rest its pretty cool you dont have to leave the city to go to the beach!! Crossed back over the river on the Goodwill bridge and took a walk in the batonical gardens.

14th: Travelled to Balina a nice little town, i fished for awhile on the wharf and Clare caught up with the gossip in the magazines. That night we stayed in the Bicentinial Gardens park. There where 3 resident geese here that were pretty nosy!

COFFS HARBOUR
15th: This morning we went for a short stroll around the park before we left. We then headed towards Coffs Harbour when we got there it was fairly busy so we went on to the next village called Sawtell only 3km past Coffs. Lovely small village on the beach. We booked into the Sawtell beach park and went for a stroll on the beach the scenery is lovely here the sand has built up so that when the tide goes out there is a lagoon left! Loads of Pelicans here, I went fishing while Clare tackled the laundry!
16th: Did some grocery shopping and i went fishing while Clare went into the village and caught up on some emails. My fishing skills were showing there true colours as usual! Clare met me down by the lagoon and we watched the sun go down!

17th: Went down to the Coffs Harbour pier at 7.30am to go Humpback Whale watching. We boarded a 50ft catamaran with about 20 other people and were off. We had not gone far when the whales were spotted. You find them by looking out for the blast of air from they blow holes which you can see from a good distance! Once we spotted them we corrected our direction to catch up with them as we were catching up with them one of them he came completely out of the water, what a sight!
We got on the same track as the whales and followed them for an hour. There were 2 of them and they travel always in straight lines and average about 4 knots. They surface every 4 minutes are so it was easy to stay with them. Sometimes they surfaced only a foot or so from the boat, the skipper told us all to shout really loudly when they surface to get there attention as they are curious animals, so when they surfaced we all hollered and would you believe the whale turned around and came up to the boat, he rolled to his side so that one eye gave us a good look over before he turned away and got back on his original course this was so cool! We were so glad we did this trip and Coffs harbour was the cheapest place we found to do it! When we go to the Pacific islands you can do the same trip but you can get out of the boat and swim with the whales!

Back on shore we headed for the Upper hunter Valley region, the scenery as you drive here is excellent.We pulled into a rest lay-by for the night.

HUNTER VALLEY REGION
18th: We called to the Rosemount Estate Winery and had a taste of a selection of wines all very nice! Back on the road and we headed south to the Lower Hunter Valley, we arrived in Cessnock and then drove to to Neath to a park for the night.

19th: Early start today so many wineries and so little time!, called to Lindermans first staff very frosty so did'nt bother staying. We then called to the Hunter Valley Cheese Factory for some sampling as well as cheese they sell everything else that goes with it and you can sample the lot we left with a lovely Brie and a jar of red wine jelly. Next we called to Maguigins Cellars and had a tour of the winery and the procedure was explained by a very helpful guide!

Once the tour was over we tried a couple of they reds and then headed to the Vinden Estate Winery this is a small winery that only produce a small quantity that they sell locally, we were drowned in wine here they was no holding back. We had a tour of the Winery and we were given samples of the wine from various stages in the process she gave me a sample that was only 1 month old and asked me what it was like, it tasted pretty good to me a little like the stuff Austin and myself made but i thick thats a sign of the "excellent" quality we were producing!! We bought a Chardonay here and got on our way. We then called to a local Chocolate factory again we got some freebie tastes and decided on the chocolate covered almonds. Stayed in a park in Cessnock that night. What a feast we had, roll on the Gout!!
There is a bus that loops the wineries doing a hop on hop off servive so you can spend the day doing wine tastings and getting rat arsed for free most of the wineries have a bar as well so if you find a wine you like you can settle into a bottle of it and chill for the evening! I can honestly say that we will never see something like this in Ireland!

BLUE MOUNTAINS
20th:Travelled all day down to Richmond on our way to the Blue mountains the scenery was great!.
21st: Drove to Katoomba in the Blue mountains, this would be the main town for all activities in the area. The mountains are called the Blue Mountains due to the blue look they have from a distance this is from the fine oil mist given of by the Euculyptus trees growing on the mountains. From Echo point you get a panoramic view of the mountains. You also have the Three sisters here these are a formation on an out cropping near Echo point, there name derives from Aboriginal forklore. From Echo point we took the 1000 steps down towards the valley floor, they is a walkway you can follow for miles, we walked a section of it as far as the old coal mining area and got a cable car back to the top.

The area is great for hiking especially if you enjoy hikes for a day are two! We had a late lunch and got on the road to Sydney. We stayed in Parklea for the night this is west of sydney city,we arrived at 7.00pm and after a nose around the park we came across the jacuzzi so we got into our swim gear and chilled out in this for awhile. Tomorrow we would be visting my Grandads niece Winnie in Baulkham Hills.

SYDNEY
22nd: Drove to meet Winne she was only 30 minutes away, picked up some flowers on the way. Its lovely to meet relations you have never met before and Winne was really friendly and looked after us for the day. After we had tea and caught up she took us on a tour of the north Sydney coast. We stopped of at the "Famous" Home and Away beach really called Palm Beach but the Surf Club is there and so is the light house on the hill! The coastal scenery is beautiful here and the sun was out in force we got to see some dolphins surfing the waves. We took a walk up to the light house and after we had a picnic lunch. We visited a few more coastal towns and took a walk out to one of the heads there were a few guys paragliding up here and you got a great view of the coast. When we got back to the house Winne cooked us a lovely dinner, we had a lovely day and we were so glad we got to meet Winne. After we said our goodbyes we headed back to the caravan park for the night.

23rd: Drove to Terry's Hill this is near were we had to drop the Campervan off it is in north Sydney. Went out to the local restuarant for dinner and a pint!
24th: Dropped the van to Church Point it is beautiful here lovely quaint marinas.
The couple who own the company were lovely, we would miss the van we had such a great time and no trouble after speaking with other van renters we know we got a great deal on our van. We would highly recommend touring anywere in OZ with a campervan. The company we used were called
www. campahomes.com.au and give great deals.
We got the bus back to the city centre and booked back into the Boomerang Backpackers. We headed into the Batonical Gardens for a walk the place is really well laid out, the peninsula is lovely and you get some great views of Sydney harbour. Took it easy for the rest of the night.
25th: Spent the day shopping looking for some warmer clothes for NZ!!
That night we went on the tear in Scruffy Murphy's on George street, Both of us were well demented by the end of the night! Met a couple of guys from Carrigaline who had just come from NZ and could'nt stop raving about it.
26th: Both of us pretty seedy today after breaky we hopped on a bus to Bondi junction, had a walk around town and Clare found a lovely Ski Jacket for a bargin! Had lunch here and headed back to Kings Croos to catch up on emails. That night we went across the harbour on the ferry to Manly to meet up with James and his partner Elina. James is an old friend from Cobh, they met us at the wharf and went to the Blue Water restuarant for dinner and later had a few beers at Ivan Hoe, it was great to catch up and we both had a good Craic!

Tomorrow we travel to NZ, we had a great time in OZ and travelled a total of 7500 km, we would love to try and get back sometime in the future!