Judy & Brian Tour Oz

We had planned to get up at 720 am, pack up and go straight to the ferry for the 9 o’clock crossing. But as I always do, I was awake an hour early so we had time for breakfast and then pack ups and then slide out. As it transpired we turned up at the gate at 2 minutes to eight and were surprised when the lady took our ticket and said drive straight on! An hour ahead of schedule, bonus start to the day, should only be a simple matter of a straight forward run, cross-country, from Sorrento to Bairnsdale Straight forward run across Victoria? As straight forward as any trip across Victoria can be! The trouble with Victoria is that all roads radiate out from Melbourne. All other road seems to have been scattered at random. Getting from A to B isn't as straight forward as picking a road and going for it. No, you have to work your way around, double back, go down, come up and basically it’s pretty tedious. And don't think you can just put ‘B’ into your trusty GPS and expect to be tak...

We started out today with a visit to the markets at Mossman. A pretty sad affair I’m afraid to report, so we didn’t stay long and headed off to the Daintree. It’s been ten years since we were here last so we expected some changes: Daintree village itself seems pretty much the same, as did the vehicular ferry across the river. We elected not to do the river cruise, they are just too focussed on finding crocodiles and we are a bit over them, to tell the truth. Next stop was the Discovery Centre and we enjoyed our second visit, maybe even appreciated the rainforest more this time round. It doesn’t seem to have changed much, but it’s a good attraction and worth the effort and the price. We had a sandwich here and while eating lunch, Judy finally found a real live piece of fauna, a small turtle in the creek below our lunchtime perch. We called into Cow Bay for a look at the beach and then made our way up to Cape Tribulation, which neither of us could remember much about, except...

We were pleased to wake to sunshine as we were going on a jazz cruise up the Clarence River at 11am for 4 hours. The Yamba jetty was chockers with a mob waiting for the ferry to arrive, so Judy was a little apprehensive about how it would be - would we get on, will there be a seat, will the boat sink? We decided the top deck was the place to be as the seating was in pairs whereas downstairs was seating at tables for 8. There was a large group of ladies of a 'certain age' that had reserved 4 of the 8 tables downstairs and with the band in one corner it was also pretty full. We stayed upstairs until Iluka where another mob was waiting, but it was windy cold and you couldn't hear the band.  Fortunately, a big bunch got off at Iluka to go to the market, but Judy quite rightly suggested that I nick downstairs and grab some of the food before it all went. After I bought some sandwiches and ordered a nibbles platter, I noticed two great seats up for grabs, so I grabbed 'em...