Sitting north of the tropic of Capricorn, Emu Park was where the climate changed. We left “winter” in the south and drove into the dry season in the north. I put winter in inverted commas because the Australian winter is better than any summer I’ve ever experienced. Forget what I said about the bugs in Australia not being that bad, in the tropics they are big. Huge. And they look like bugs I’ve never ever seen before.

At Airlie Beach we went on a day cruise around the Whitsunday Islands. A tropical paradise where the water is a shade of blue that you only ever see in postcards. We spent the afternoon on Whitehaven beach where the sand is 98.5% silicon. It’s so pure. It felt more like baking soda than it did sand. Because it has so much silicon in it, it reflects all the heat so it’s perfect for walking on. No feet burning on this beach. We just had to be careful not to drop our cameras here. The pureness of the sand would make it almost impossible to get it out of anything we dropped.

We continued up the coast. Another 700 km or so to Cairns. It’s a lot of driving but we’re seeing so much. Cairns is an interesting town. Like many of the towns we’ve stopped in, tourism seems to be Cairns only industry. And tourists only head to Cairns because of its proximity with the Great Barrier Reef.

We only had a day in Cairns and we spent it on a Great Barrier Reef cruise. Early in the morning, just after the sun had risen we boarded the Ocean Freedom, a 20ft catamaran skippered by a Glaswegian called Gordo. He realised he was a fellow Scot before we did because Emma was wearing her Aberdeen Uni hoodie.

We headed about an hour out, around 20 miles off the shore, where we dawned wet suits, snorkel masks and fins and entered the relatively warm 25 degree C water. As we swam around following the brightly coloured fish and turtles we suddenly realised what a privileged position we were in. Sure lots of people have swam the Great Barrier Reef before, but lots of people haven’t. And never will. This area is slowly dying and it wont be around forever. A shame as it is beautiful, a totally different world and I urge anyone to see it before it is too late.

The crew of the Ocean Freedom were amazing. They did guided snorkel tours which allowed us to see parts of the reef we’d never see on our own. We held sea cucumbers, found Nemo and even saw a reef shark. It was out of this world, an experience we will never ever forget and will probably bore you with for years to come.

We went another 100km north of Cairns to Cape Tribulation. Situated in one of the oldest rain forests in the world, our camp site was a haven for wildlife. Sitting outside our camper van we watched a lace monitor lizard slowly moving around as it tried to bask in the sun for 30 minutes. This lizard must have been about 4 ft long. There’s lots of rain forest walks in this area, but there’s also a lot of crocodiles. A fine line is needed between experiencing this world and not getting eaten.

This was as far north as we could go on our road trip. Any further would take us onto unsealed roads where we’d need a 4×4. Lots of our camping neighbours were preparing their vehicles to head up to Cape York but sadly that would be too much for poor Sheila to handle. After leaving Cape Tribulation we headed south again saying goodbye to the ocean.

That’s the first part of our journey over. 3500 km done in 2 weeks. The next stage will see us drive through the outback. It will be the most gruelling part but also the part that will probably be the most exciting and the most different to anything we’ve ever experienced or likely to experience again.

Stay tuned. And follow our map to see how we’re getting on, that’s if there’s even any mobile phone signal in the outback for it to update