3rd Dec 2010 – 6th Dec 2010 
Cairns to Airlie Beach

After an eventful & long journey we finally made it to Cairns. We checked in to The Heritage Cairns Motel, & were greeted by Rosemary, the owner who made us feel very welcome. The room was lovely & had a balcony & large king sized bed.After showering we went for a walk in to the main town. Carins is very cosmopolitan & very expensive!! We walked down to the harbour & round the town & then stopped off for a bite to eat before heading back to the hotel & being tucked up in bed by 8:30!!!

Friday 4th Dec. Cairns

We both slept for nearly 12 hours we headed back to the town for breakfast before getting on a boat bound for the outer Barrier Reef.
We briefly stopped at Fitzroy Island to drop off a few guests & to drop off provisions. We then headed out to the reef which took us in total about 90mins. Once there we could snorkle, take a glass bottom boat trip & go under water in a submersible. The snorkling was amazing & the variety of fish & coral we saw was mind blowing.

We headed back to the hotel for a shower & ended up getting so much help from Sarah the receptionist who sorted out our new mobile phone for us & got it registered all online. Rosemary & Sarah couldn’t do enough for us & it was a shame we weren’t staying there longer. Visitors to Cairns The Heritage Carins Motel is the only place to stay.

Saturday 5th Dec. The mission to find the little man!!!

We packed up & left our stuff at the motel & headed off to pick up our camer van, our cosy home for the next 3 weeks!! After stocking up on food, wine & BEER we picked up our stuff & set off for a 4 hour journey to Townsville.

We sadly didn’t arrive until later than we wanted to but it was a nice suprise to find we’d been given an ensuite site so we have a seperate bathroom all to ourselves. We sorted out as much of the van as possible but will wait till we reach our next destination before unpacking properly.We had a walk round the site after we’d eaten & then headed back to the van for a nice drink & to read …….. the mission to find the little man started!! Ian’s bookmark is a a little WBA man who went missing & after he spent ages going through back he suddenly found him hiding under his hanky!!! Obviously I got the blame for him going missing!!

It’s been a hot hot day today!Tomorrow we head for Airlie Beach & 2 nights stay there & a chance to organise ourselves a bit better (i.e get more alochol in the fridge!!!

Sunday 5th Dec …. Airlie Beach.

OMG the islands were amazing, we set off from Airlie Beach & headed for Whitehaven Island where we spent 90mins swimming (in very sexy sting suits!) well I did Ian decided not to!! & walking on the whitest, coolest sand, the main base is silica & doesn’t get hot, it’s really wierd it sort of sqeaks under foot as you walk. We then re-boarded the boat & headed off for Hook Island where yet again the sting suits came back out & we were able to snorkle, this was in it’s own very disappointing compared to Cairns as it felt manufactered as they fed the fish to make sure they swam round us.
After watching a bit of cricket we headed off for Daydream Island. Which was a lovely exclusive resort that got invaded by a boat load of tourists!!
We met a lovely couple on the boat Kaye & Brian who we then met up with in the evening & had an extreemly enjoyable evening with & hope to meet up with in Melbourne & Sydney.Today we head off to Mackay.