Queensland coast: Cairns - Brisbane

Since leaving Cairns we have travelled 1700 km down the Queensland coast to Brisbane on the Greyhound bus. The bus journey takes about 30 hours if you do it all in one go, and is mostly used by backpackers half our age looking for the beaches and party scene! We quickly decided that we needed to break up the journey to make it as manageable as possible in the time we had.

The first stage was a short hop of two hours to Mission Beach, where we spent four days at The Sanctuary, a beautiful place at the top of a hill covered in rainforest and with its own private beach. The Sanctuary has small cabins set in the rainforest with walls made of screens so that you are surrounded by the sounds of the wildlife living there. The restaurant in the main building opens out on to a veranda with a breathtaking view of the coral sea. The walk down to the beach to the beach was an adventure every time, wondering whether you would meet a cassowary (enormous birds) or not. We spent our days there mostly relaxing on the beach, apart from the day we took the local ferry to Dunk island. There we did a 12 km walk in the rainforest round the island - a bit claustrophobic really, especially when we came face to face with a hand-sized spider hanging above the path, but with good views from the top of the mountain.

From Mission Beach we did a a 9 hour stint on the bus down to Airlie Beach. Airlie itself is very touristy and aimed at backpackers. However, it is the gateway to the beautiful Whitsunday islands, named by Captain Cook for the day on which he first saw them. Our lodgings this time were in a backpacker resort, but the kids were very friendly to a couple of oldies!



We took a day trip on a sailing boat out to a tiny island/reef in the Whitsundays with Reg, an interesting Dutch ex-colonial who has spent years sailing the Pacific ocean. There was only one other couple with us, and we had a fantastic relaxing day sailing the boat, snorkeling around the coral reef and swimming with turtles. Lunch on the beach was provided by Reg's wife.


From Airlie we took the bus down to Rockhampton, the beef capital of Australia, situated where the Tropic of Capricorn crosses the coast. Most people don't stop here as it's not much of a tourist attraction, but rather like a midwest town in the States. The Criterion hotel that we stayed in is one of the oldest buildings in Rockhampton built on the site of the original Bush hotel.

The hotel still has a look of faded glory and though haphazard attempts have been made to modernise it, it hadn't lost any of its charm. We spent the day wandering in the botanical gardens and trying to find shade from the blistering heat. It was Melbourne cup day and most of Australia stopped up to watch the horse race and celebrate afterwards.



We did the last stage of the trip down to Brisbane overnight, arriving at 06 in the morning to the first real rain we've seen for weeks. Brisbane is the state capital and a very pleasant city which manages to keep the laid-back Queensland feel to it despite being a very modern shopping and cultural centre. We spent a couple of days looking around the city, shopping (OK, it was raining!), cycling along the river banks and visiting a koala sanctuary.


Despite being in the city again we still managed to come face to face with the local wildlife - a few possums playing in the park in the evening near our hotel, half meter long lizards wandering by our table as we ate lunch and birds everywhere.

And so on to Sydney by plane for the weekend before heading south again.