Australia: North Queensland- Cairns to Rockhampton

Southerners in the North: The long road home.

Our main draw to the north of Queensland was, obviously, the Whitsundays, and visiting family in Rockhampton. We actually flew to Cairns because it was so damn cheap and as we no longer had any wheels, used the Greyhound buses for the first time.

Cairns didn't inspire us much and we didn't actually do a lot other than visit the lagoon in the city centre, browse the stalls in the famed night market and fruit stands in the day market, mainly because we were pretty poor at this point and also because we had a difficult Air BnB experience. We'd considered visiting Port Douglas as we'd heard it was beautiful but decided to leave it for another occasion.

Our first Greyhound journey was a mere 11 hour drive down the east coast to Airlie Beach. I rather liked it there: it had a similarly chilled feel about it like we found in Byron, and while I wouldn't say it had much of a beach and you certainly couldn't get in the water without suiting yourself up with stinger protection, it was quaint and very pretty.

Our Whitsundays trip was a 3 day, 3 night excursion on a reasonably sized yacht to the islands and outer barrier reef. The islands were pretty; the sand was indeed cool on Whitehaven beach as it's made of silicon; the coral is sadly mostly bleached; the sharks were reefy; and we saw several turtles from aboard the boat. It made for a lovely last "trip" on our travels. That being said, being one of the main tourist draws to Australia, it was on occasions uncomfortable on the beaches and lookouts as every man and his dog sought out the same "classic Whitsundays" photos and we'd actually visited some equally, if not more, stunning spots in New South Wales.

We travelled south for another 7 hours to the town of Rockhampton to spend some time with my cousin before our departure back to the UK. I "enjoyed" beers on the beach, sharing our tequila knowledge and finding a new love for artichoke? Who knew! It has been a nice addition to our time away to be able to spend time with both of our families.

Rockhampton marked the last stop before making our way back to Brisbane and ended our time in Australia for our first working holiday. There's plenty of unfinished business there, so bye for now!