It's getting warmer....

Well we are now in Cairns and we are really loving far North Queensland so far, can't believe we are still in our own state, this country is big man. Townsville was fun, and then we drove to this cute little place called Balgal Beach which was so small but had a free camp ground right where the river met the sea. This little place, right next to the camp called Fishermans Landing was a highlight. Basically a seafood cafe/bar in a little hut that played the most romantic music and you ate your dinner (from butchers paper) on tables on the water. We loved it. The next day we drove up to Tully (Australia's wettest place - in 1950 they recorded 8m of rainfall! It rained the whole 2 days we were there and we thankfully got Morrison a little cleaner), also a very cute town. They have an annual festival "The golden gumboot", sadly we will miss it, and they even have this big golden gumboot in town (8m tall to mark the height of the most rain they ever had, you got it, in 1950). About 50km inland from Tully was where we stayed for a couple of nights in the national park next to Tully gorge. The river was raging and is popular for white water rafters and the rapids were beautiful. It was a great stay, outdoor cold showers, very a la naturale !! Scotty got 2 leeches and we had many bugs at night. So peaceful though and again had the place to ourselves. We were going to do some walks but it was a bit wet so we watched heaps of Dexter instead (very scary at night, no light, no-one around and watching a serial killer series but hey..). It's also worth mentioning that the Tully pub has something called 'visual viagra' on a Friday night. Sadly, we decided not to stay around for that either. Then it was on to Innisfail for a quick stop (Scotty ran into an ex work mate from Integrated, John Valmadre, how funny is that!?) and then to Cairns. Cairns is great for bike riding, nice and flat so the bikes got a work-out today. We are in a caravan park right in town and last night we wandered down to the night markets, very touristy and kind of reminded me of Thailand. Even had people trying to grab us for chinese massage, very cheap, just for us!!! However, love all the healthfood stores here and healthy cafes and stuff. Also a visit to the Birkenstock boutique (OMG) resulted in an early b'day pressie for me (i know, very early), I couldn't resist and they were on sale!! Going to be here for a couple more nights and then to Port Douglas! Woohoo!! We have down graded our feather doona to a light bed throw. We have definitely left the cold behind now, Love Leash and Scott xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Well, its been nearly 4 weeks on the road and its been very fun so far......just feels like holidays though rather than our new life. Guess it will sink in eventually. Where to start...we love Morrison and are very happy with the organisation of the small space that we have going now. It’s funny how you need a whole routine to get dressed, cook, wash up etc. so you don’t have world war 3 breaking out. Outside of van living, we have been so lucky with the weather, not a speck of rain and the sunny days make living in the outdoors so much nicer. We are currently staying in Townsville, have had 2 nights here as it is really nice, The Strand is an area along the beach where we have been hanging out and its got man made rock pools to swim in along the beach that have new water pumped into them every 2 hours and so you can swim without worrying about the box jellyfish! Also, massive screen on a grassy hill showing the Olympics so we have been very horizontal there and catching up on the games. Today we are off to Reef HQ which is the largest living reef in captivity with all the life a good reef entails so we get to see big sharks being fed today and other cool guff – apparently the whole thing is massive so that should be good. We will leave you with some highlights and lowlights of the trip so far.

HIGHLIGHTS

*3 glorious nights on Hamilton Island – after 3 weeks in a van, all the space in a reef view room was weird (good but weird), got room service and had about 20 baths, also went kayaking, got whipped at tennis by Scott (again) and lazed around the pool (I had my first fruit tingle cocktail since highschool at happy hour! This one was purple, I remember them as being blue??)

*Whale watching at Hervey Bay, saw about 8 whales very close up, i nearly touched!!! Wished I had go go gadget arms this day. We were on a small catamaran with only 11 others so it was really lovely.

*30km bike ride in Hervey Bay - best bike track ever

*Bumping into friends of friends Amy and Aaron (from Sydney) while bush walking in Rainbow beach and then catching up for drinks at the surf club that evening....so nice to have an unexpected social rendezvous!!!

*Visiting Hayley, Ben and Clare in Bargara (just near Bundaberg) and their gorgeous new baby Nate.

*Finding isolated beaches in 1770 and having them all to ourselves, actually pretty much all of our stay at 1770/Agnes Waters was a highlight

*All the markets we have been at (Eumundi, 1770, Airlie Beach especially) and getting bargain priced and organic locally grown fruit and veg

*Watching a magpie attack Scotty as he tried to eat his cereal under a tree (i laughed so hard and pointed out that the tree had a rather large nest full of chirping babies in it)

*Ending the nights watching tv show episodes on dvd in bed. We have watched all of the last season of scrubs and re-watched all episodes of Entourage and now on to Dexter (thanks Indie – you are a legend)

*Seeing platypuses (platypi?) in the wild at Broken River in Eungella National Park (100km west of Mackay), also Finch Hatton Gorge and the amazing walks in this Park.

*Cracker night at Airlie Beach!! We were lucky to be there for their annual cracker night that precedes this big boat race week and the fireworks were amazing and put Brissie to shame (BTW – Marty and Ad, you must get yourselves to Airlie Beach for a week or so – trust us)

*Watching a movie at the cinema, such a treat!! If you haven’t seen Tropical Thunder yet, turn off your computer now and go (soooo funny)

*Eating in a restaurant in Townsville on Bargain Thursdays - ½ kg of prawns for $11.50! And a dozen Kilpatrick oysters for, wait for it, $6!

LOWLIGHTS

*Day after 30km bike ride in Hervey Bay (extremely sore behinds)

*Receiving wrong information from a brochure that said a free camp spot was accessible by car, later when we both were thankful to be alive and the van in one piece, we found more correct info stating that the track was only accessible to 4WD's and even then, quite perilous. It was a horrendous experience and Scott managed the van like a trooper while I had to do some deep breathing.

*Scott being attacked by magpie

*Nearly getting bogged in some soft sand at Carmila beach (not on the beach-we aren’t that stupid)

*The toilet always seeming so far away in the middle of the night when it is sooo cold and you can't find your clothes/torch

*Scotty still has not caught a fish after many attempts (luckily we are not counting on him to feed us)

*We missed Morrie while we were on Hamilton, we felt guilt at abandoning our beloved van in a parking lot for 3 nights and wondered if he was ok

*Trying to sleep in a van in Townsville (Hoon city), if you weren’t kept awake by screeching tyres, you were kept awake by very loud engines, extremely loud doof doof music or cretins yelling “Wakey Wakey” as they zoomed past

Ok, that’s it for now, till next time, Leash and Scott xxxxxxx