Cairns to Sydney (Part 2)

Next stop on the journey was Rockhampton, the 'beef capital' of Australia. After 600km of driving (stopping only for a Mrs Mac's pie) we were looking forward to beef-overload with our hard-earned steak dinners. We chose a convenient camping ground on the banks of the Fitzroy River and were slightly concerned by the relaxed attitude of the sign next to our plot warning of crocodiles nearby.

The next morning we continued South to Hervey Bay where we hoped to spot a whale. Humpback whales migrate from Antarctica to the sub-tropical coastal waters of eastern Australia to give birth and mate between July and November each year. We set off in search of Moby Dick in our boat captained by an energetic man with only one tooth. It was not quite Captain Ahab with his one leg, but it was close enough for us! The sea was very rough, visibility was poor and we needed to wear sunglasses just to keep the driving rain out of our eyes.

After one hour of fruitlessly scanning the horizon in search of a leviathan we were beginning to lose hope when our captain scared and delighted us by shouting "there she blows" and changing his direction to follow a pair of humpbacks. For an hour we continued to spot the whales as they swam nearby and were amazed when one leapt out of the water and fully breached less than 50 metres from our boat.

En route to Brisbane we stopped over in the stylish resort town of Noosa for a night and treated ourselves by checking in to the 'luxury' of a backpacker hostel. And after covering 2000km in 10 days we arrived into the relatively cosmopolitan city of Brisbane (i.e. some people don't have a mullet haircut) where we intended to do a little sightseeing, look around the shops and go out for dinner.