Matchman's Grand (Old) Adventures

Fraser Island is the world's largest sand island and is pretty remarkable in that it looks like a normal island with vegetation everywhere. It's pretty big too, measuring a whopping 1,630 square kilometres, and all travel is done by 4x4 vehicles with a few ferries that go back and forth from Hervey Bay and Rainbow Beach. Our trip included two free nights at Pippes hostel in Rainbow Beach - one before the trip and one after - and so at 5am on the 9th we got up, packed our stuff into the 4x4 and headed off for a brand new adventure.

There were 11 people in our group, crammed into the car with three in the front and 8 in the back on benches facing eaching other so it was going to be a cosy trip and we'd certainly get to know each other - fortunately we had a good group, mostly from the UK but an American girl too. The other group from the hostel were mainly German but with a couple of Swedes and two Irish girls. A quick comparison of the groups - the previous day each group was given 220 dollars to spend on food supplies; we spent 80 dollars on food for the two nights and spent the rest on goon (cheap wine). The German group spent 200 dollars on food and basically had to pay for their own alcohol, which didn't look like very much. We brought back 10 tea bags and half a box of rice crispies; they brought back more food than we took in the first place. Amateurs. We also had four iPods, two sets of speakers and an iTrip; they had nothing and apparently sat there in silence with the odd conversation muttered in German. We drove past them at one point with our music blaring out and everyone drinking goon, including the driver, banging on the roof of the car and singing along; they didn't look particularly fondly at us and in fact seemed to deliberately avoid us for the whole trip, apart from two of the German guys who were certainly up for a party. I had a hangover on both mornings and they were well earned, let me assure you.

The roads on Fraser Island are, of course, just sand tracks and beaches - it's made entirely of sand. It gets pretty bouncy at times and we got stuck on a few occasions and had to use the shovel to dig us - standard fair and nothing compared to some of the pictures you see of cars wrecked in the washes. There were five drivers amongst our group and I decided not to bother as I wanted to kick back and party in the back. Apparently driving the car was great fun but I had a fine old time in the back anyway so I've got no regrets. Jamie and a guy called Andy did most of the driving but Sarah had a go and Sam took it for a quick spin too. The speed limits on the island are generally 50mph on the beach and about 25mph on the inland tracks so it's all about control and timing to get up the steep inclines without throwing everyone in the back into a big pile. I've certainly enjoyed more comfortable rides before and a few of the girls were sporting some pretty hefty bruises on their sides.

Life on the island is pretty tough; it's difficult to get anywhere because of the terrain, it's cold at night (at the moment), you can't go in the sea for all sorts of reasons and sand gets everywhere; it's also difficult to wash it off and indeed wash your pans and plates etc. because there's really only the sea to use unless you're near some of the bigger creeks or freshwater lakes. Speaking of which, Lake Mackenzie and Lake Birrabeen are some of the most beautiful spots I've ever seen - pure freshwater lakes that dazzle the eye and are simply fantastic to swim in, and they're the best wash you're going to get on the island.

Fraser is pretty famous for its dingo population. In case you've never really read about dingoes or seen them, you have to watch a video before you leave on how to be 'Dingo Safe'; basically never approach them, don't leave any food or rubbish out and stand still if they approach. There have been lots of attacks on humans over the years and a young boy was killed by a dingo on the island a few years back resulting in a bit of a dingo cull. Of course after drinking a bit of goon we spotted one and chased it around the toilets near Lake Mackenzie - pretty stupid but it seemed like fun at the time. We saw five dingoes in total, one of them was on the beach when we drove past it and proceeded to chase the van down the beach for a fair distance. Another piece of Australian wildlife added to the list.

After two nights of drinking, smoking and eating sand-covered food we were back in Pippies on Rainbow Beach and, after some deliberation about how much we were going to drink, I bought a 70ml bottle of vodka and drank it to myself. The place was trashed; we were up until about 3am which is amazing considering how little sleep we had the few nights before, and everyone felt it in the morning. We were due to drive to Noosa in the evening and do the canoeing the next day but eventually decided to sack that off and called to delay it by a day, then did the honourable thing off finding some spare beds in the hostel and staying the night for free, using the showers in the morning and eating the free breakfast. Oh, and hogging the two computers all morning as well just for good measure.

Meet Spotto

On the 1st of May we stopped at Eungella National Park, where we saw a big carpet snake (tick 'see a big wild snake' off the to do list), and then on the 2nd we went to the small city of Mackay. Something unexpected happened there...

Just how many travellers get to hang out with true blue Aussie locals? You know the ones I mean. People who live in small towns in glorious sunshine, sitting in their yards drinking VB wearing straw hats, driving utes drunk around town and shouting at 'sheilas' in a language unknown to the English speaking world. Well, that's what happened to us - meet Spotto.

We first met Spotto at our campsite in Mackay; we'd just arrived and were putting up our tents when a loud Aussie guy stopped his ute and shouted 'Hey, where are you from?'; that was swiftly followed by a reach into his esky (coolbox), from which he literally threw us all a VB and instructed us to drink them. Meet Spotto.

A few beers later we'd been invited to join this lewd Aussie - sporting a straw hat over some dirty looking dreads and torn, paint-stained shorts - at his unit in the campsite. About an hour later he was back, asking why we hadn't come over and sporting another handful of VBs. After an excellent didgeridoo demonstration, and an intriguing altercation with a 16 year old kid who was walking past, we'd once again been invited over to his unit. We told him we'd be round after we'd eaten dinner; apparently crab was on the menu at his, which we politely declined.

As you may have gathered, Spotto isn't the sort of person to take no for answer. Half way through our dinner he was back in his ute, steaming drunk and with a few mates in the back. We were being chauffered to his place - time to join the party.

It was a small gathering - Spotto, us four and three of his friends - and it was centered around a large fire that was being constantly lit with a petrol can that at one point caught fire itself. Spotto himself was a little annoyed that one of his crabs had escaped and run off; after watching him down endless VBs, goon (cheap wine) and half a litre of black sambuca we decided to call it a night and head off to bed.

In the morning Dave nearly trod on the missing crab on his way to the toilet. We told Spotto where it was as he drove past and he seemed genuinely excited - apparently these crabs are worth 50 dollars a piece and he caught them all himself. Five minutes later we were armed with a hand-drawn map giving directions to Spotto's house. We called round a few hours later before heading off to Rockhampton and within another hour we'd agreed to stay for the night. But just the one night as we had to get going. Meet Spotto.

It soon transpired that this local, unkept, loud, intense and alcoholic Aussie was a millionaire, and his dad owns a boat worth a few million dollars. In fact, they co-own the campsite we stayed in the night before. Never judge a book by its cover.

I wouldn't describe Spotto as a fantastic person. He's rude, intense, obscene, aggresive, has a severe temper problem (he sees many shrinks and told us so) and has been in so many fights that his knuckles are closer to his wrists than his fingers. But I'll say this for him - he was open, friendly, entertaining, honest and genuinely 'stoked' about having four backpackers with him in a small place like Mackay.

After seeing the spectacular views from the Eimeo hotel we went back to Spotto's and carried on drinking; we slept on the floor (he has no furniture) without any curtains and when I got up at 7am I found that Spotto had been up for 2 hours already and was chatting to an old man across the road with about 10 dogs. Spotto then drove off in his ute, leaving us four alone in his house with his laptop, Bose speakers and wakeboard, and returned half an hour later with his friend Paulie, who we met briefly on Friday night. The two remaining crabs were to be cooked, and we were about to learn how to pick them up, cook them and eat them.

Queensland mudcrabs are big. Very big. And their pincers look...well, they look sharp. These two tough local Aussie guys who see crocs every time they get their boat were being very careful around them - I'd guess they can do some serious damage if they're in the mood. To pick them up you slide your foot along the floor from behind, then press their shell down with your toes; now that they're pinned you pick them up by their back legs from under your foot and hey presto, you're holding a pretty dangerous crab. Keep them cold, in a freezer if possible, before cooking them as it makes them dopey, and then boil them in salt water (preferably sea water) for about 15 to 20 minutes. When they're done, throw them in some ice and leave them for 10 minutes. Take them out, turn them upside down, rip out the ass and then wash the guts out in water. Tear up, dish out and eat. Yum yum.

We visited Paulie's house and checked out all the things he'd made from empty bottles of Bundaberg rum - a bar, walls, lights by his pool, even his dog is called Bundy - and then went on to the Eimeo pub to buy Spotto a few bottles of red wine before heading off. We eventually got away at about 4pm after many, many struggles and several 'one more' drinks. It was an experience, but this guy was trying to make us stay a LONG time; promises of crabbing the day after, a trip to the reef on his dad's boat, jobs, beds in his house - and it was all getting a bit too intense for four sleepy travellers trying to get down the East coast. We all took a big sigh of relief as we left Mackay, and also looked back with good memories and talked about how we were going to buy a didgeridoo. Next main stop - Town of 1770.

Town Of 1770/Hervey Bay

A lot of people we met on the East Coast that were heading in the opposite direction said that Town Of 1770 - yes, that's a strange place name - was worth a visit as there are a few pretty funky things to do there. Top of my own list was paying 50 bucks to fly a plane for a while; unfortunately we couldn't find any info on that so we decided to do the other main activity instead - riding around the town on 'scooteroos'.

For 50 dollars you get your own bike but as Dave and Sam were short on funds we paid 33 dollars each to share two bikes between the four of us. Amusingly the South African guy who runs the place asked me and Dave why we were sharing bikes and when we told him we couldn't afford one each he let us both have one anyway; mine also happened to be an uberbike that went faster than everyone elses, and we got given food at the end even though we didn't pay for it. All good. I'd never ridden a bike before but I really enjoyed it, you just cruise around the town for a few hours following him and he opens up on a lot of the roads to let you floor the bikes. Mine had a top speed of about 50mph which doesn't sound that fast but certainly feels it. At the end you watch the sunset - one of the only ones on the East Coast - and then ride back in the dark and get two free drinks at the local bar. A great day all round really, great weather and loads of freebies.

On to Hervey Bay next, where things took a turn for the worse. We went through Bundaberg and took a quick look at the rum factory (we didn't do the tour as it was expensive) and while we were there I snuck out and bought Dave a few DVDs for his birthday from the three of us and a card too. We wrapped them up and put them in my rucksack and in the campsite we nipped round the corner to cook some food, got fairly drunk and hit the sack ready for Dave's birthday; I got up in the morning to give him his presents but couldn't find my bag (a common occurrence when you're living out of a car). We searched around for it but came to the conclusion that someone had stolen it from the car the night before while we were cooking as the car doors had been open - the bag had my passport, my camera, my birth certificate, my drivers license, Dave's presents and the birthday card. Ouch. A bit of a downer on someone's birthday and pretty disappointing for me too.

After some breakfast I went to the police station and reported my bag stolen and was pretty pleased to see someone appear with it in their hand. Someone had obviously walked past the campsite, seen the open doors, tiptoed to the car and grabbed the first bag they could find before running off with it. They went a long way down the road, tipped the contents onto the floor and grabbed anything valuable they could see - the only thing missing from the bag was my camera and camera bag. Fortunately I'd put all my pictures onto my laptop earlier so really everything was replaceable, and we also still had Dave's presents and the card (which they'd opened to see if there was any money it). Not the end of the world but I won't have particularly fond memories of Hervey Bay.

Onto Fraser Island next - with no camera.

Apparently the cost of our package tour, which consisted of four separate activities, went solely towards the Whitsundays sailing cruise; all the other bits were free except for taxes, stinger suit hire etc. I can safely say that the Whitsundays were worth the money alone - we had an absolute blast, the new highlight of the trip so far.

The people you're with make a big difference when you're on a package like this, and we got really lucky - 23 people all getting along and partying for 2 days. The crew were laid back and let everything go, the weather was fantastic and the reef was incredible - see some of the photos that I've stolen from Jamie as evidence to that.

Our boat was called the Habibi, one of the cheaper options for the Whitsundays but it only holds about 23 passengers - a good comfortable number - and you tend to get the more down-to-earth and fun people as a result. And as an added bonus you can help out at time to time as it's a somewhat old boat with sails if the wind's up.

Pictured above is Whitehaven Beach, the only part of the islands that we actually stepped foot on. Coincidentally it's allegedly the most photographed beach in the world - 10km of beautiful white sand that's so fine it's ridiculous; you can clean silver ust by rubbing it with the sand, and when you brush some off your skin it feels baby soft.

The annoyance about the sea her is having to wear stinger suits, which cost 15 dollars to hire and are a pain to put on. It's worth it though - Box jellyfish and tiny Irikandji roam the water and even the little sea lice you swim past leave a little sting on your face. One thing I didn't realise is that the stinger suits don't just protect your body - jellyfish are attracted to humans by the electric pulses our bodies give out, and the stinger suits stop those being transmitted through the water. You've still got to watch for trailing tentacles though!

Believe it or not, all the pictures below bar the last one were taken by Jamie on his normal digital camera using an underwater camera case, which cost above £25. Good, huh?

Lots of good times, memories and photographic evidence; superb stuff. But don't stop reading yet - more adventures to come after eventually leaving Airlie Beach...

Roadtrip Begins

A quick update on our roadtrip. There'll be four of us for a good part of the journey, if not all of it, as we're taking a Welsh girl called Sam with us. We've pre-booked a package for about 200 pounds each that gives us three days sailing round the beautiful Whitsunday islands, three days and two nights canoeing in Noosa, three days and two nights on Fraser Island, two nights in Rainbow Beach and a day at an aboriginal workshop where we get a didgeridoo lesson and a free boomerang to paint, which is a great deal. We have to do the Whitsundays on Monday 27th but the rest is an open booking (most of the other activities are much further south), and we can't wait.

Most of our food consists of pasta and tins so we'll need to make the most of the bigger towns and cities when we come across them. We have 2 tents and are hoping to camp for free as much as possible - not sure how that'll work out but we'll see.

Some sightseeing from the Friday on our initial slightly inland route: the Barron Falls, Lake Barrine and Lake Eacham, where we decided to camp up alongside some of the most annoying animals known to man. Ducks, dogs, cockerels, cows and singing birds galore to keep us awake; one of the ducks took a great big messy poo outside our tents, the cockerels woke us up at dawn and then an enormous trail of caterpillars took a walk straight towards our tents in the morning.

On Saturday we took in yet more waterfalls; Malanda Falls followed by Millaa Millaa Falls, and then we stopped by a creek for some mosquito-assisted camping. The next day would be the beginning of our coastal adventure after our inland start...

Come on, where's the good weather?

Our first stop was Mission Beach, quite a popular stopping point for travellers and holiday-makers alike. After a quick stroll through the local carboot sale we took a look at the beach but the weather sucked; after entertaining ourselves by trying to crack a coconut with a swiss army knife (and succeeding) we went to the tourist information centre where David Bellamy's twin Australian brother confirmed there was nothing (interesting) to do in the area, particularly if the weather was bad. So, lacking in ideas we decided to abandon Mission Beach and carry on down to our next port of call - the Murray Falls.

The Murray Falls are just south of the Tully River, where we did our white water rafting the previous week. Unfortunately on of the two lookout points was closed and there are only so many waterfalls you can find interesting after a while. We decided that we making good progress towards the Whitsundays and took a group vote to set up camp for free, had a long game poker and then pretty much exhausted our supply of games to playing the dark; any suggestions are welcome.

So, what could we possibly do the next day to better the last one? More waterfalls of course! Our Lonely Planet book insisted that we visited the Paluma Range National Park where we found several swimming holes and big boulders to jump in from. We also found a free campsite there, which was nice; it wasn't free of course but once again we got away without paying. What rebels.

Next stop - civilisation.

Townsville

Townsville is the capital of North Queensland, if such a place actually exists, and is also the gateway to the attractive looking and sounding Magnetic Island which we all wanted to go to. After a quick look around Townsville we decided to stay there for the night - and after a look at the island ferry prices we decided not to go to Magnetic Island at all and stayed in Townsville for a few days.

Sydney was cold when I left; it's nearly winter there now and although it's not the same as a UK winter it's still not great at all. Cairns is always hot, but as it's a tropical rainforest area it's often cloudy, humid and wet. Townsville, however, is just the answer to my recent weather woes and fast fading tan. It's hot and sunny most days and there's a nice little artificial swimming pool by the coast looking out on Magnetic Island. The pool is salt water and extremely dirty but the area is nice enough, and given that the sea is full of jellyfish it'll do very nicely indeed.

It's nice to stay at a proper campsite for once; hot water in the showers, lights, power points to charge things, stoves and barbeques, soft grass underneath your tent; all the little thing s you completely take for granted back at home. The downside of decent campsites is of course that you have to pay for them - just over 4 pounds a night each to be precise. That might not sound like much but Dave and Sam are both on a pretty tight budn the Spanishget so we're living as cheap as possible, something Jamie and I don't have a problem with either. As we've already paid for a lot of stuff further down the coast we're not expecting to spend a lot in the near future.

I'm still debating what to do when we get to Sydney, which will probably be towards the end of May. If I work then I'll need to find a 3 month contract - since I'll need a bit of time to find one that'll probably take me through to the end of August, and I can then do stuff like New Zealand, Fiji, New Guinea, Singapore and Thailand. The alternative is to spend more time in those places; like I said, I'm still thinking.

A quick update on the Spanish front - I've ditched the cheap book I bought and have downloaded an 83 track CD by a guy called Michael Thomas onto my iPod. I've only listened to the first 5 tracks but I can already say some basic sentences without trying hard to remember, and I have a pretty good understanding of how to pronounce all the combinations of letters and accents. Apparently at the end of it I'll know almost 2,000 words; in a single edition of the New York Times only 600 or so different words are used throughout it. Maybe a trip to South America next?

Rendezvous Point

This is my last new Oz adventure as I'll be finishing in Sydney, but I've saved the best 'til last. The East Coast of Australia is a long and seemingly never-ending trail of sights, activities and glorious weather and isn't something to be done in a hurry; myself, Jamie and Dave are going to take about 6 to 8 weeks to travel down it.

So, goodbye Sydney - again - and hello to my sixth and final Australian state, Queensland. For once I haven't started in the capital city (Brisbane) and have instead flown straight to the far north of Queensland to the city of Cairns.

Queensland is the home of Australia's rainforests, the Great Barrier Reef, beautiful island beaches such as Fraser Island and the Whitsundays and also rivers suitable for all sorts of extreme activities. No pleasure without pain of course - it's also home to Australia's most dangerous animals; crocodiles, cassowaries, some of the most deadly snakes in the world (including several varieties of Taipan, the most dangerous), and of course an abundance of spiders of all shapes and sizes. There's even some nasty flying things too - wasps, mosquitos that carry Dengue fever and even the flies in Queensland pack a nasty punch (e.g. the Mayfly). And if that's not enough, jump in the water and you might bump into the odd shark or two; take a swim in the sea between the months of November and May and you're almost certain to encounter some unfriendly jellyfish, including the lethal Box jellyfish.

No wonder it's such a popular place. It's also unsurprising that Australia Zoo (formerly of Steve Irwin fame) is based here.

Some good news - we have an old banger to take us down the coast to Sydney. We need to spend about 400 bucks to fix a few problems but in all it's only costing us about £700 between the three of us and it's a V6 estate that's pretty quick. And the cruise control works too - very handy on Australia's long and dull roads. Let's see how far it gets us, and how much we get back for it in Sydney.

Right, time to get moving...

White Water Rafting

No rest for the wicked. On Friday, two days after arriving in Cairns, we took a two hour bus ride south to the Tully River for some white water rafting. The rapids for our booking were grade 4 which is smack in the middle between 1 (a swimming pool) and 7 (certain death). It was awesome, the best thing I've done since arriving in Oz and I can't wait to do it again sometime, hopefully on grade 5 rapids and with a smaller group of people so that there's less waiting around. Amazingly I survived this water adventure intact and didn't even fall out of the boat once, which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. It's actually pretty easy - the instructor does all the work at the back of the boat - but it's still amazing how many people fall into the water and have to be saved with a rope. That's where the slowness comes in - every time you finish a rapid you stop, park up on a rock or a bank and set up safety ropes in case anyone slips through the nets. Safety first I guess.

So, an excellent but tiring day. Next update should be good...

The Great Barrier Reef

After the white water rafting on Friday we went out big time in the evening and took a day's well earned rest before jumping on our boat to the number one attraction in Queensland - the Great Barrier Reef. No introduction needed I think.

Dave and Jamie had been staying in a cosy little hostel called Rosie's and one of the useful snippets of info the manager gave them was to book a day tour on a little boat called the Falla. Most Reef tours are big cruiser boats rammed with tourists and little if any outside seatingg; ours, however, contained seven passengers and three crew - the guy who owns (and partly built) the boat, the dive instructor (a guy from Derby) and a girl who volunteers to help on the boat in order to get free diving experience. The boat itself was old school - mostly sails all the way - but it was very personal and everyone chipped in with the sails and you could even steer the boat if you fancied it. Unfortunately it was a bit too old school for Jamie who found it a bit 'sickening' and spent most of the 4 hour round journey to the Reef lying by the side of the boat.

You get two Reef areas on any boat trip; our first was an innocuous looking coral area and the second was called Upolu Cay, an amazing little sand island in the middle of the coral sea. Really spectacular. After donning the dive gear and going under I quickly realised that I wasn't ready for a dive and surfaced to swap into some snorkelling gear - for some reason I couldn't sort out the breathing and decided to give it a miss.

The snorkelling was great, as you'd expect - I saw loads of different types of fish, some very strange looking creatures on the seabed, a few stingrays and a couple of turtles. A nice lunch was put on by the cap'n along with cheese and wine on the way back, and then he sat down and told us about the history of the boat and how he rebuilt it after it sank 5 years ago. And a good job he did too.

So, another water experience survived - next up a trip to the tropical rainforests in the north of Queensland to see if we can encounter any crocodiles and cassowaries.

Cape Tribulation & The Daintree Rainforest

A brief summary of our two night trip to the tropical north of Queensland:

See crocodiles - no.
See cassowaries - yes.
Put the tent up correctly - yes.
Get the gas dual burner to work - yes but only one night out of two.
Get savaged by mosquitoes - yes.
Stay alive - just about.

It's quite surprising to find a big rainforest in Australia but, sure enough, the Daintree exists and is a popular tourist attraction all year round. We decided to spend two nights up there to test out our camping equipment and suicidally try to spot a few crocs in their natural habitat.

After filling up the car in the morning with camping equipment (and spending quite a lot of cash) we set off towards the Daintree via Port Douglas. No spectacular sights on the way - the weather wasn't exactly great either - and we decided to set up our tent at 6pm before it got dark. We asked a couple in a cottage where a good spot might be and they pointed us towards a small enclosure nearby, marked as 'No Camping' but apparently safe to use. After ignoring their warnings about mosquitos we drove over to it and stepped outside to be greeted by literally hundreds and thousands of blood-sucking insects. On with the repellant - but to no avail. I have about 10 bites to show for it but Dave is sporting at least a hundred - ouchy.

We couldn't get our gas stove to work so we had to eat cheese sandwiches, the tent was on an annoying slope and was too small for three people, and the cows in the nearby field mooed all night. And some mozzies managed to get into the tent too. All in all, not a great start to our camping experience.

The next day we took the ferry across to Cape Kimberley and then took the road up to Cape Tribulation. Despite trying our hardest to get eaten by wandering around some particularly dangerous looking places we failed to see a crocodile in the wild, although we did see a cassowary which casually strolled straight past us while we were putting our tent up. Slightly more success with the camping - we got the stove to work after buying a pair of pliers, had a flat pitch for the tent and didn't have too many mozzies to contend with (although I seem to have picked up just as many bites as the night before).

Some bad news on the way back from Cape Trib - I got caught speeding, doing 58mph in a 50 zone, a mistake that cost me 150 bucks (about 70 quid). Ouch. Next time I'll be sure to use the cruise control.

Hartley's Crocodile Farm

Having failed to get eaten by a crocodile in the Daintree Rainforest we decided to pay to see some at Hartley's Crocodile Farm, about 45 minutes north of Cairns, before heading off south on our road trip. It costs less than 15 pounds and lasts all day, very good value for money and I'd recommend it if you're ever in the area.

Lots of crocodiles and feeding sessions, a boat trip around the swamp, lizards, big spiders, cassowarys, a snake show, koala feeding and a crocodile attack show where a guy steps into a shallow pool with a croc and gets it to chase him around and do death rolls. Good work if you can get it I guess.

There's some big crocs there, some of them almost 4 metres long. One of the reasons they've survived so long (60 million years) is that they're perfect at what they do - their ears, nose and eyes are all at the same level and so by having their heads just above water they can see, hear and smell everything without being seen. They're not too dangerous on land as they can only move at a human's jogging pace but encounter one in the water and you're dead meat.

The main part of the farm is, as the name might suggest, a farm where they rear crocs for leather. Not something I knew existed but apparently crocodile leather is the best in the world and is VERY expensive. There's loads of little crocs in a big area, all being grown for slaughtering. Not particularly nice but the guide seemed very proud of it all.

They also have cassowary feeding sessions, previously mentioned in my diary as being the most dangerous bird in the world. There are only 1,500 left alive (estimated) but that's not the only reason they're so protected as a species - believe it or not their poo is vital to the continuation of the rainforests. They eat fruit whole and poo out the seeds, spreading the fruit all over the forest along with some manure to help it grow.

Having seen the world's most deadly lizards, birds and snakes (a taipan in the snake show) we drove down to Ellis Beach, just north of Cairns, and camped up for the night before stocking up on food in Cairns and heading off on our journey.