Author: Sophie Dixon-Box

There And Back Again…Maybe #9

I can see the sea!!

We made it!! After a roadtrain-defying journey along the tar-sealed goat track between Tennant Creek and Townsville (I kid you not), we are now happily trundling our way down the East Coast of Australia. And, since school’s out, drunken 18 year olds are indeed included with the holiday package.

It was also a bit of a stressful time, as the conflicts between Rob ‘n’ I and Jen had gotten a lot worse – splitting up at night just wasn’t enough. I didn’t like appearing as though I was siding against one of my oldest friends all the time, but we now know just how different our ways of doing things are… and to cap that off there was a nasty personality clash between Jen and Rob. A rude awakening to the dangers of travelling with a friend, but thankfully the full separation has saved a good friendship and we bump into each other down the coast quite happily. Phew!

Between the Reef and the Rainforest

Cairns itself isn’t much to look at, unless of course you like the Blackpool vibe that can only be given off by a small tourist town with far too many neon lights for its own good. Then again, the Night Markets are really good fun to run around, as is the Esplanade, but after a few weeks travelling in the outback I really seem to have turned into an anti-urbanite again 🙂









Cape Trib

Cape Trib



Our time in the city wasn’t long though: like most others we headed northwards to the infamous Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation – beautiful as they come, though Captain Cook was a lil peeved when he named the latter cos he ran aground on the reef (silly lad). This region is part of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area and holds some of the rarest and most ancient plantlife in the world, not forgetting equally rare animals, and that’s not including the ones they haven’t discovered yet. Amazing stuff, and though we didn’t cruise along the Daintree River in search of crocs (I ain’t no Steve Irwin!) we did go on a night hike with a local mad scientist – fascinating, but just an ickle bit nervous when we put out the torches to listen to the surroundings. A lot of people like to take a trip to the reef (we chose to save that experience for the Whitsundays), but be warned of some current mis-advertising: ‘Dive the Great Barrier Reef for $60!’ they say, leaving out the initial $85 price tag for getting on the boat. Nasty people.

After a few chilled days in Cape Trib it was time to move on, so back to Cairns it was – via Mossman Gorge (very pretty, but bring your swimming togs!) and the ever so posh town of Port Douglas (try finding a sandwich under $10 and not made with foccacia bread and I’ll buy you a beer). We also took a trip up the mountains to Kuranda, though as usual we drove rather than taking the Skyrail or Scenic Railway option. Kuranda turned out to be a pretty little village that’s being overtaken by tourism – still nice, but the popularity of its markets is making them a bit too tacky – and close by are the rather dramatic Barron Falls (though much better in the Wet I’m told). By the way, look out for the huge ship-like house on the hill if you go to the waterfall – it looks so funny way up there in the mountains!!

Buzz buzz

Next stop on the Bruce (g’day Bruce, say g’day to Sheila!) Highway – single highway all the way, so we’re obviously not in civilisation yet! – was a trip back to Townsville, gateway to Magnetic Island.










Sophie on a scooter

Sophie’s OK on the straight road


As time and money (we’s now living off credit cards) were running short and rumours being that Maggie was yet another chilled, stay-just-a-bit-longer kind of place, we decided to do a day trip over there and hire a pair of scooters to see the sights. Oh yes. Fun fun fun fun fun!!! I haven’t done much on two-wheeled motorised things, but Rob looked down on his new getabout with scorn… sorry, but they ran out of trailbikes, babe! It’s a lovely place with tons of quiet blue bays, and definitely of the chilled variety, but if you want to see everything you’ll have to walk a bit – not so good on a hot hot summer’s day, but we gave it a bash. I have to admit to my shame, however… only a tiny lil scooter and I managed to FALL OFF. Doh! Trying to turn round too quickly, bloomin’ revs still climbing *mumble mumble*

South Pacific

From Townsville we headed southwards to Airlie Beach, landfall for the Whitsunday sailing boats, but not before stopping off at Rockhampton – Beef Capital of Aussie. During his years in Britain, Rob met an assortment of Aussies – including young Matty J in Rocky, whose lovely parents agreed to let us stay for a night and even cooked a wonderful roast dinner. A night in a proper house? We hadn’t done that for weeks – a thousand thank you’s!!

Anyway, across the Tropic of Capricorn we went – yay, temperate zone! can we lose the humidity now, please? – and off to Airlie. A warning to campers hoping to stay at Koalas though: don’t bother – their patch of dirt may be cheap, but it’s also on a slope and has no trees. The backpackers proved cheap enough anyway, Magnums costing the least at $12 or $15 with a feed.









SV Romance

SV Romance



Everyone in Airlie is looking for a trip round the Whitsundays and there are plenty on offer. You can take a one day ocean-raft trip for the highlights, catch a ferry to one of the resorts and work from there, take one of the many overnight sailing holidays – anything from one to three days and nights – or go on a dive boat if so inclined. For anyone booking about now, phone up and check if you’d like the Pride of Airlie: a ferry skipper failed to notice the huge catamaran in front of him and drove a big hole in her side, hence she is on the bottom until further notice…

Neither of us has a diving ticket (e.g. PADI or SSI), but we really fancied a trip to the Great Barrier Reef itself and a few nights on board the boat. Many of the cheaper packages only take you round the fringing reef of the Whitsunday Islands themselves, and as the ‘party’ boats take 50-60 passengers you stay ashore each night. And so we headed to Reef Dive and the SV Romance: three days and nights sailing, 17 passengers in total, a 50/50 split of divers and snorkellers, and the chance to do a sample dive for those who’d never done it before – woohoo! An amazing and wonderful trip with loads of gorgeous fishies to gape at (gurgle gurgle), happy happy sailing and beautiful desert islands… mmm… One night I slept on deck to watch a fantastic Leonid meteor shower (ooh, fancy name) – huge bright lights of all colours streaking across the sky like the world was about to end. Overall thoughts: I could stay there for years.

Party party party!!

The night we returned from our little sailing adventure there was the obligatory piss-up and Boat Olympics in Magnum’s pub – fun and games for all, don’t forget to bring your foreign coins, left shoe or G-string – plus a fun encounter with Mr Todd Traynor, the Stripteasing Buddha himself (who was a lil nervous about his impending skydive).










Rob, the old fart

The Old Fart



A really good laugh, fun meeting up with someone else writing to this ‘ere webbysite, but no Kilkenny on the table cos the pub wasn’t Irish enough 🙂

But then twas time to depart and head southwards once more, heading to Hervey Bay in time for my beloved’s 30th birthday (hehe, old fart!!). And to report on that, it was a surprisingly sedate affair – a few Bundys, then a nice Thai meal, followed by fun in the pub playing Sega Rally Championship (he beat me). Nice one!

Toodles for now…