Post Dave-o's

It was great spending time with Dave-o and post Xmas & NY we went to see day 4 of the test match (Karl went to day 5 too whilst I went to the Zoo!) between Oz and The Saffers where we met and got a picture taken with Shane Warne, a proud moment:). We then spent 3 days camping with some more of his good buddies at a lovely spot called Point Plomer, where all we did all day was drink beer, swim and play beach cricket!! I've always wanted to have a fire on the beach so on the last night we took the esky full of beer to a nice spot near the water and put the world to rights until the wee hours. The moon was in full swing and it was a gorgeous night full of stars, one we will always remember.

So after a great time relaxing at Dave's house (3 weeks, the longest time we have spent in one place for the whole of our travels!) it was time to hit the road again and see Australia.

We flew up to Cairns with the intention of buying a car and driving back down the East coast, past Brisbane and Sydney, then heading West past Melbourne and Adelaide, finishing in Perth and trying to sell the car on. The first problem was the lack of cars for sale, but we eventually found one that looked pretty straight from a local and did a deal, little did we know...

Once we had taken delivery of the car and got it registered the trouble began, to cut a long story short (I'm sure you'll get the full version when we get home!) the car was a lemon, it had to go to the mechanics 3 times before it was good to go.

In the meantime we had found the time to go diving on the Great Barrier Reef. We decided on a small sailing ship called the Vagabond with a crew of only 3 and a maximum of 11 passengers. We set off on our 2 day adventure and found that there was only 1 other passenger booked on for our sailing - private charter baby! The reef was fantastic, we did 5 dives over the 2 days including a night dive! We saw loads of different corals and all kinds of sea life including 4 turtles, some white tipped reef sharks and lots of little Nemo's!

Back on dry land our car was almost ready, having spent over a week and most of our remaining budget on it. We were both so happy to be back on the road, we got straight back to nature visiting waterfalls, national parks, lakes, beaches and anything else that wasn't a city. We had bought some camping equipment from a Danish couple who were leaving so the great outdoors was ours to explore!