(Part of a series of articles by Fi trawling the archives for photos taken on the tiny compact camera way back when).

Well, there’s not really much that can be said about Cairn’s. The hostel we were staying at provided free evening meals but as with everything ‘free’ there is always a catch. Free Pizza was on offer for our final night in Cairns, except we had to meet at a bar with drinks offers on and wait a very long time for our food. It doesn’t really take much to encourage us and so followed a late, late night of table-dancing, gold fish racing, sandal theft and a tiny pizza. Oh yeah, and the guys in uniform? Not strippers, or a stag do but actual (very drunken) Sailors he-he!

After picking up our heap of junk campervans we headed north to visit Tom & Erin, a fantastic couple of divers we had met a month earlier in Bali. Being awesome an all they put us up for a fair few nights, took us diving and thoroughly looked after us.  I think we were having too much fun to remember to take any photos during our time in Port Douglas– sorry guys!!  Click on the pics of compact pics from Daintree, Cape Tribulation & a wrong turn in the sugar cane fields!

I spent my birthday in Townsville. Bit of funny old place and as we could find nowhere tempting enough to spend our hard earned cash eating out we opted to buy a trolley full of treats for a camping feast.  It was disgustingly good; dips, meats, breads, crisps, nuts, olives – all things yummy & of course cake & wine hurrah! We went to bed with stuffed bellies and continued to dine like backpacker kings for days afterwards.

Click the pics for Townsville and the Billabong Sanctuary….

Yachting in the Whitsundays? Sometimes it’s hard work being a backpacker!

We got lucky with the weather and with the company aboard our overnight home. The snorkelling was, ahem, a bit naff but Whitehaven beach more than made up for it. Breathtakingly beautiful with squeaky white, flour like sand.  We then blasted our way home quickly courtesy of Captain Oldfield.

The rest of the east coast is a bit of a blur. Lots of beaches except, where it was warm enough to swim it was dangerous (jellyfish roar!) and where there were no stingers, the water was freezing! We meandered between dramatic coast lines and inland roads with nothing but rolling cavernous green hills and still mirror-like water. Everywhere we looked at was postcard perfect. Everywhere we looked we also seemed to find our Yachting buddies, the lovely Julie and Colin!