Leaving Japan was a bit of a shock to the system to be honest - we were quite getting into the perfectionist nature of the culture (well I was anyway!).
We arrived in Cairns at silly o'clock in the morning and decided to take a stroll around, and find a nice big Aussie (actualy English, but we'll let them think they invented it!) Breakfast!! We had baked beans, and were both in heaven, if only for a minute or so!!
Cairns wasn't really what we were expecting - a very small town really. Lots of Brits there though, definitely in 'backpacker country' now! hehe! The sea was boootiful at that time in the morning though! We only had a day there, didn't really do much, caught a bit of sun and had fish n' chips in the evening (yes, it WAS a very healthy day!). It was a shame we couldn't do some diving in the Gt Barrier Reef, but time just wouldn't allow it!
We then literally flew to Brisbane the next day! Brisbane is such a great city - modern, but with the odd old bit of architecture thrown in for good measure! We stayed in a beautiful old wooden Australian house, with verandas - shame it was a backpackers place, and not as great as it could have been!
James was in Surfer's Paradise a few years back, so we decided to hire a car and head down that way for a couple of days! The place is literally a spit of Miami! We went to the Springbook National Park as well, which was very pretty (and difficult to find!)...well worth heading West of the Gold Coast to the 'bush' rather than just staying at the beach resorts! We also re-lived some memories for James and ate a very expensive (for us backpackers - gbp50!!!) meal on 'The Spit', by the Marina!
The fun was only just beginning though - with the car hire taking up our whole budget for the days we were there, we had to sleep in Hotel Hyundai Getz at night! People obviously do it a lot (in their Camper Vans) because it took us literally an hour to find somewhere that didn't have a 'Camping Prohibited, this includes sleeping in vehicles' sign! We eventually ended up in the Suburbs, on William St on our first night and outside some REALLY posh houses at Hope Valley on our second! We didn't really get much sleep.....it was freezing!! PLus every time someone drove past we were scared they would see us and call the police! Was an interesting tale, though probably best to do it in the summer!
That was about it for our first mini-trip to Oz....
