...and further up the coast...

Airlie Beach has a nice beach, but apart from that it's basically a strip of bars playing awful dance music, packed full of beautiful young party people in very few clothes. Maybe I'm just too old to appreciate it, but I thought it was one of the most frightful places we've been in Australia! Fortunately we didn't have to spend a long time there, and got ourselves booked onto a day trip to the Whitsunday islands which made up for our miserable night spent trying to find a decent pub in Airlie beach (which didn't exist).

The Whitsundays were beautiful, and the whole boat trip was really nice and scenic and relaxing. We went out to a reef very close to the Great Barrier Reef (unfortunately we didn't make it to the real thing) and did some pretty good snorkeling there.



Then we went onto Whitsunday, the main island, and spent some time on Whitehaven beach which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. It was beautiful, but one of the annoying things about Australia is that there are a lot of dangerous jellyfish and stingrays and things in the water so it's not possible to swim in many places. Then we went onto a smaller island and had a round of mini golf before heading back to the boat.




From Airlie beach we continued up the coast. I really can't remember all the places now, but the weather has been so nice and hot (FINALLY!) that we've spent a lot of time lounging on beaches and by the campsite pools. One of the highlights was the Atherton Tablelands which is a rainforest area just outside of Cairns, full of narrow winding roads, nice waterfalls and walks.



We treated ourselves to a proper bed that night, since the mattresses our van are not the greatest, and stayed in a kind of eco-hostel in a town called Yungaburra. The hostel staff run free platypus-spotting tours by the river in the village so we went along on that- didn't spot anything, but it was a nice walk all the same.

When we got up to Cairns we met up with Emma and Phil once again, who have now been tempted into camping after hearing our camping tales. They now have a brand new sparkly Jucy campervan with TV, fridge, etc. It put Ivan to shame, but we had the last laugh when Phil went to start the car and the battery was completely dead! We spent a couple of days not doing very much in the city and then went a little further up the coast to Cape Tribulation which is a really pretty area with beaches, gorges and rainforest walks.






That's as far north as we got though, as we had to return Ivan in Cairns today. Now we have just two more days left in Australia before we head off to Singapore. From there we'll make our way in Malaysia and have a few weeks of beach fun and relaxation before we head... HOME!!! Yes, it has come to that time; we have booked ourselves a flight from Kuala Lumpur to London Stansted on May 20th. In some ways we're really looking forward to going home, but now it's so close we're not so sure anymore. It's going to be fantastic to see everyone again, to sleep in a decent bad and not be living out of a backpack all the time. But I'm a bit worried that once we're settled with a house and steady jobs then the monotony is going to set in and we'll wish we were travelling again! We're already thinking about our next trip... And the one after that!