Kangabarberoobeque

By the time we arrived in Cairns we were running very low on funds, but after a week of jobhunting we finally accepted that there were no jobs. We spent a few drunken nights at the Dreamtime hostel, where we drank lots of goon and Graeme discovered the delights of kangaroo barbecues (kangabarberoobeques, or barberoos for short). Goon is really cheap wine that comes in 4 litre boxes and results in killer hangovers. The lesson - never to drink anything that says it 'may contain fish products' on the label. Despite being broke we also managed to afford a dive on the great barrier reef, which was amazing. Debbie poked a giant clam which slammed shut when she touched it, and we both swam with a sea-turtle.

We decided to head down to Brisbane and try to get jobs there, funding the trip with money borrowed from our savings for South East Asia and the bank of Graeme's mum. We bumped into a guy called Jonny who we had met before at Ayer's Rock and who also wanted to head down to Brisbane on the cheap. Between us, we managed to find the most battered rental car in Cairns, complete with two broken tents and half a sleeping bag, and, after loading up the boot with Coles' own brand pasta twirls we set off on the great road trip south. First we drove up to Cape Tribulation, a remote area of beaches which back onto tropical rainforest. To get there you have to take possibly the world's shortest ferry crossing, across a river no wider than the Thames; we have no idea why they don't just build a bridge. The river is teeming with crocodiles, which added a bit of excitement to help pass the long four minute journey. Safely on the other side, we stopped at a local 'family fun day' which consisted of a lot of bogans getting drunk at three in the afternoon while their children participated in a fish-throwing competition, where they took turns to chuck a rapidly disintegrating dead fish as far as possible, presumably gaining bonus points whenever they landed it on the head of one of the spectators.

Next we headed south and inland to the Atherton Tablelands and Lake Eacham, where we went on an evening walk along a riverbank and saw a platypus swimming around. We made our way back to the coast and caught another (considerably longer) ferry crossing to Magnetic Island where we spent some time lazing on the beach, and shared our food and our tent with a gang of possums. Graeme was also set upon by some very pretty multicoloured birds that he tried to feed who landed on his head and pecked at his ears instead.

We continued south down the coast to Airlie Beach where we embarked on a sailing trip to the Whitsunday Islands. On the first day we stopped at an island to go for a walk through the bush, where we were encouraged to lick a green ant on its arse. We were surprised to find out that the ant's backside tasted of intensely concentrated limes; apparently they are very high in vitamin C and the Aboriginal people used to eat them all the time, but we will probably stick with orange juice. Graeme also ate some termites, which less surprisingly tasted of wood. After a night spent sleeping on the boat, we sailed to Whitehaven beach, which has the softest whitest sand you can imagine and the bluest sea: in fact it looks exactly how a tropical beach is supposed to look. The only downside was that box jellyfish are a real danger here and everyone had to wear a rather unflattering 'stinger suit' whenever they went in the sea. Every 100 metres or so there are 'vinegar stations', where bottles of vinegar are provided in case someone gets stung.

Despite only camping in the cheapest places, we were always trying to save money wherever we could. We employed various tricks such as trying to hide from the park ranger to avoid paying, camping in a in car park, and pretending that there were only two of us in the car so we didn't have to pay for the third person. This succeeded once, but the second time we tried it the owner rode up behind on us on his bike and caught all three of us eating lunch together.

After a while we decided to head inland again to try to get off the beaten track. We visited the Gemfields area, where the towns have names like Emerald, Sapphire and Rubyvale, and you can go 'fossicking' – searching through bags of dirt to find precious stones. We found some small sapphires and bits of zircon – sadly not enough to pay off our debts. Other notable local attractions included a piano in a tree at Clermont, the world's largest Van Gogh sunflower painting in Emerald, a giant mango in Bowen and our favourite, a lifesize statue of a dingo in the town of Dingo, which was hidden behind a hedge and smelt of piss.

We travelled back to the coast and on a trip to Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island. Our hostel organised us into a group to rent a 4wd truck to explore the island together. This consisted of the three of us, four other Brits, three Americans and a German guy. The Americans were a bunch of stoners who lived up to every stereotype of their nation, and were known to everyone else on the trip as 'Team America'. There are no roads on the island, only bumpy 4wd tracks and beaches; driving on the dirt tracks was fun but scary, and the sound of everyone in the back screaming whenever we went over a big bump added to the fun. By comparison, driving along the beach was easy and much faster, although we did get stuck in some deeper dry sand a couple of times and had to enlist some passers by to help get us out. The first day was really beautiful and we saw a lot of the island and had a couple of good swims in lakes (you can't swim in the sea as it is teeming with tiger sharks.) However, after dinner we felt a few drops of rain which quickly turned into a torrential downpour. Everyone headed for the nearest shelter, and the storm quickly got worse with lightning bolts and thunder every few seconds.

The next morning we woke to blue skies. The atmosphere in the group was a little sour as lots of people's tents had collapsed and/or flooded in the night so they had spent a sleepless night trying to sleep in the truck. Matters weren't helped by the discovery that during the night, Team America had fed the rest of the group's meat rations to some dingoes that had been hanging around, so there was nothing for lunch. Miraculously our tent had survived the storm, despite us not having any tent pegs, although we must have blown about a bit as in the morning Graeme woke up lying on his shoes, which had somehow found their way underneath the tent.

Later that day we arrived back in Hervey Bay, had our first night's sleep in a bed for a fortnight, then took the coastal route down towards Brisbane, real life and jobs.