This week saw us continuing our campervan-cruise down the East coast. After Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays we carried on down towards the ever-approaching Sydney, and the end of our journey. Some more highlights included:

St. Lawrence Wetlands – we only decided to stay here because it was free, but were gobsmacked when we turned up to find an almost 360 degree panorama of the flat wetlands with silhouetted mountains in the far distance. We sat and watched the sun go down whilst kangaroos hopped around not 100 yards away and birds of prey wheeled and swooped over the plain.

Fraser Island – this is another must-see on the travelling circuit, and was possibly the highlight of our trip. We did a 2 night 4-wheel-drive self-drive trip to the island, the largest sand island in the world, just off of the coast of Hervey Bay. In our group were an Ozzie couple – who we ended up getting on with famously – and 4 Japanese, only one of whom could speak a word of English; so we communicated through the age-old media of smiles and charades. Fraser Island is basically one big 4WD track which interlinks beautiful freshwater lakes, rangy beaches, unique rock formations, shifting sand dunes, a rusting skeletal shipwreck, and the only pure-bred Dingoes (wild dogs) left in Australia.
The 74k beach doubled up as a road, with ordinary road rules applying. The only difference was that small planes simultaneously used it as a landing strip! Elsewhere on the island the roads were completely unmade which meant the journeys were bone-rattling rides, but the destinations were delightful. The best of which was Lake Mackenzie, a marvellous freshwater lake with unimaginably clear water that was a deep turquoise for the first 20 yards, then fell away into a rich navy blue. It was good enough to drink; like a swimming pool without the chlorine or the sea without the salt.

We also met a British couple – Jamie & Heather – who were not in our group but were staying at the same hostel on Fraser. Jamie was a lawyer, writer, and borderline alcoholic! We all met up back on the mainland and the next two days were lost in a beery haze.

Noosa – a chic little town at the mouth of the Noosa river where the well-to-do launch their yachts from riverside dwellings and power-walking, for some reason, is inexplicably popular. Despite being a patent rip-off of a French Riviera town, it’s not without its charms; boutique designer stores and flash restaurants are en vogue, and there’s a national park with a stunning coastal walk where we saw a koala, a goanna (big lizard) and several – dozen – power-walkers!

Surfer’s Paradise – although not exactly a paradise in the traditional sense – an array of monolithic high-rise blocks and hotels leave it looking more Manhattan than Malibu – the Gold Coast City is still impressive. It boasts the highest residential tower block in the world, with each one being built incrementally taller than the last so as to obtain the lucrative ‘sea-view’. The beach is slightly more paradisical and obviously the waves are ‘gnarly’ enough to attract the eponymous surfers.

We also stopped in Brisbane to meet our friend Becky who had just flown over from England. As anyone who lives in Brisbane will tell you, there’s not much to do. But we went out for a night on the tiles and woke up in a flat inhabited by three Irishmen, about 2 hours away from our campervan! Less said about that the better. Anyway, Becky has been travelling in our ‘van with us for the past few days…

Nimbin – we had absolutely no idea what to expect from Nimbin, a small mountain town 60k inland from the coast, other than it was the site of the launch of hippy culture in Australia. It was perhaps the strangest town any of us had ever been to, inhabited entirely by aged hippies who probably hadn’t been home since the ’60s (or indeed washed!). They would sit outside their rainbow-painted shop fronts, staring into space, grinning, or wandering round in a state of stoned perplexity. Any conversation with them was at best slurred and at worst nonsenical. But – that said – they were really friendly people, and we ended up having a drink with two, River and Frank, who could have been a comedy double-act they were so unintentionally funny. Frank, for instance, was trying to get his guitar out of his car to play us a song. He’d tried every door in the car, including the boot, and was staring befuddled at his key, turning it round in his hands, before someone pointed out that it wasn’t his car! We were in stitches.

Sitting now in an internet cafe in Byron Bay but have only just arrived…to be continued!

After a couple of nights in Cairns (pleasant enough town, with a big outdoor swimming pool and green area; someone stole all our food out of the fridge) we picked up our Wicked Campervan.

We were visited by another stroke of good fortune when we went to the depot. The receptionist ran through our booking: bog standard campervan, with no air-con or power steering. Now, we don’t know if it was because the depot was particularly busy that morning and perhaps the receptionist was getting flustered or something, but we were inadvertently given someone else’s van - with air-con and power steering! Laughing, as we power-steered our way up the twisting Captain Cook Highway, through tropical Queensland, air-con blasting, in the middle of our 6-month tour around the world, with the turquoise expanse of the Pacific Ocean stretched out on our right, we felt like the luckiest people in the world.

Our campervan is definitely more van than camper. It’s just a beaten old VW workman’s van, completely gutted and re-fitted with a table which folds into a bed at night, and a kitchen area at the back. We love it! Which is just as well, as it’s our home for the next four weeks. Embarrasingly though – and bear in mind that we didn’t get to choose the van – it has pictures of magic mushrooms sprayed up the side and the slogan ‘We take drugs to make the world seem normal’ on the back! It draws some funny glances.

Camping in Oz is a great experience. There is so much you can do for free. Such is the uniqeness and diversity of its landscape, there are thousands of national parks; with well signposted walks, view points, picnic areas, toilets and showers, campfires, even gas barbecues – all for free! They even give out free coffee along the highway, as a ‘driver reviver’!

It would take to long to type out all that we’ve done so far, so here are some of the highlights:

Cape Tribulation – this was our first port of call after Cairns, about 3 hours North of the city, in the Daintree Rainforest national park. Our campsite was set in a large clearing in the rainforest, about 20 metres away from which the dense forest abrubtly stopped and the white sand of Myall beach began. The beach was almost deserted and completely undeveloped, there was hardly a soul walking along its 3k length and not so much as a boat in sight. At night you could hear the whisper of the foamy swell as it broke upon it. Cape Tribulation beach itself is a small cove of white sand and crystal clear waters set in the rainforest….This was Amy’s favourite beach to date!

Danbulla State Forest (Lake Tinaroo) – this was pretty special too. Camped on the bank of the great lake, a wall of pine forest on the far bank and with pointed hills as the backdrop. The birdlife around us was an unexpected boon; species of such variety fluttering and splashing about, their chirps and song playing an overture to the ambient serenity. At night we sat under a canopy of stars and gazed at the mountains reflected in the moonlit surface of the lake.

Mission Beach – camped 10 yds from the beach, so that when we opened the back door of the van we could see the the white crested surf rolling in. We met a British couple on our last night and got so drunk on Goon (very cheap wine, about 7 pounds for a 4 litre box!) that we fell asleep on the beach at 3am. One of those fleeting travelling relationships – we’ll probably never see them again!

The Whitsunday Islands – these are one of the main attractions of Oz, and a must-do on the travellers itinerary. We stayed in nearby Airlie Beach and took a day cruise around them. Naturally, as soon as we set out to sea we were blighted by bilious clouds, slashing rain, high waves and heavy winds, which made for a vomit-inducing ride to Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island, the largest of the 74 that make up the Whitsundays. Thankfully the rain had let off by the time we got there, and not even the weather could denigrate the scene – turquoise sea against snowblinding sand, daubed by the wavy white lines of the water breaking in the mouth of the bay. Truly spectacular.
Afterwards we went snorkelling in the inner Barrier Reef where we saw a kaleidoscope of sealife, chief of which was a [/i]huge[i] blue Maori Wrasse that came right up close, regarding us with one-eyed curiousity. But best of all was that Amy conquered her life long phobia of the sea, and got in snorkelling! With easily the biggest fishes that I’ve ever seen swimming around her!

That’s as far as we’ve come to date. The road has changed from a precipitous rainforest track to plummeting country lanes through roller-coaster dales, to a tediously long and flat highway which shimmers in the distant heat – and we’re not even halfway to Sydney yet.