But we've only been to one state so far and already Oz is proving such a different place. For a start - it is bloomin' massive - it took us 3 hours to fly from Sydney to Cairns on our connecting flight, neither of which are anywhere near the most southerly and northerly tips respectively! In that time we could have easily flown to Scotland and back. As a result, the towns seem to be a lot 'shorter' - there are very few tall buildings around - but then when you have so much space, why build up?! Plus, it has two time zones - Queensland and the west are 9 hours ahead of GMT whilst the rest of the east and south (we think) is 10 hours ahead (no idea what happens at end of BST next week!).
More startlingly there is so much more interesting wildlife here - a kookaburra sang its heart out before we'd even checked in to our first hotel, we've already been on a croc cruise and spotted a 3m long croc and a small 8 month old croc, and we've seen plenty of other critters lining the routes we've taken.
We checked in to Dreamtime Travellers Rest, and soon found our dorm beds. Another difference here - for half the price of 2 dorm beds for the night here, you can get a pretty decent double room with ensuite (plus breakfast and wifi) in Asia - its safe to say that we've had to adjust the daily budget a little bit! Not unexpectedly - everyone we'd spoken to who had been or lived here, had said that this place was expensive - not surprising when the minimum wage is more than double the UK's.
Any who, after checking in we explored our new home for the next 10 days - Cairns is a relaxed party place (if there is such a thing) with plenty to offer. There aren't any beaches in the city, so locals/tourists use the pool on the esplanade or head north to the beaches along the coast (more later).
Our hostel runs different themed nights and we had arrived on barbie night - Bonza! So with a tin of VB in hand (pineapple juice for Fiz!), we got some tucker, which included some 'Roo steak, and was followed by a fire show - the type we'd come accustomed to on the beaches of Thailand. No worries!
Day 2 we'd got the local bus to the Flecker botanic gardens; the bus driver's parting words of advice were to not get too close to the water! Enough to raise eyebrows, but unfortunately we only saw lizards of a much smaller variety on that day.
Day 3 and we were up early for a day tour to the Great Barrier Reef, another one of our wedding presents. Despite the fact that it had been 30 degrees and mostly blue skies for the first couple of days, the weather wasn't great for our reef tour, so the water was choppy and the reef wasn't as colourful, but it was still an incredible place to be - there are so many different species of coral and other sealife at the reef, which stretches for 1000s of km along the north east coast, it's no wonder that it's one of the 7 wonders of the world, our 2nd on our travels.
On Saturday, we hired the smallest car in the world, a Hyundai Getz - the clue was in the name of the company, 'Mini Car Rentals', but what we got still surprised us - for a DIY trip north along the coast through the Daintree rainforest (yet another world heritage site), along the Captain Cook Highway (named after the guy who found the place), to Cape Tribulation (also named by Captain Cook - it's where he had a great deal of tribulation!).
Along the way we stopped for our croc cruise on the Daintree River - we were very much at a safe distance from the wild crocs that we saw, but the boat we were in, donned war wounds from a recent encounter with a 4.5m croc known as Fat Albert!
Further up the coast we stopped at a couple of lookouts to see some spectacular beaches, nestled in cover between the mountains.
At Cape Trib, we parked ourselves at the Cape Trib Beach house for the night, a hostel in the jungle. We cooked ourselves a feast (pasta with cheese sauce - we've forgotten how to cook anything else!), and we were up very early the next morning to catch the sun rise.
The rest of the day we spent making our way south back along the coast, stopping at each of the many boardwalks through the rainforest, most, if not all, are still owned by the aboriginal people. Again filled with wildlife, these are incredibly diverse beautiful places. We also found time to cool down with some home-made ice cream, at Daintree Ice Cream company, the flavours on offer being Blueberry, Banana, Wattleseed and Soursop - no, I'd not heard of the last 2 before either, but it was delicious.
We eventually arrived at Port Douglas and found a bed for the night at a place called Dougies - a hostel with all sorts of accommodation - dorms, private rooms, powered sites for campers. Port Douglas is a little more upmarket, and the dorms were all full, so our budget only stretched to a tent! We'd been to some dodgy places in Asia but never had to stay in a tent!
Yesterday we travelled south again back towards Cairns, donned our swimmers and thongs (swimming costume and flip flops) and stopped at some of the beaches that the locals use, including Palm Cove and a beach called Yorkey's Knob! These beaches are stunning and huge, especially when the sun's out and with the backdrop of the mountains, but even with the warnings of crocs and stingers (jellyfish), it's hard to understand why so few people were using them... until I realised that it was Monday and there is a (western) five day working week here as well - something I'd forgotten being in Asia where no-one seems to shut up shop.
Today, we've been travelling on the Bruce Highway from Cairns to Airlie Beach (a journey that's only taken 11 hours)- as tomorrow we go on a 1 night cruise to the Whitsunday islands.
This British colony does seem familiar in ways, but also foreign in others. Luckily we've gone some way to learning the lingo, but I have a feeling that in 6 weeks we will only scratch the surface of this huge country.
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