Andrew Betts

Today was to be our first organised tour. We had to be ready for 8 am, and in our ignorance decided to have breakfast in the hostel restaurant, not knowing that took over 40 minutes to get served a cooked breakfast. We got it about 30-40 seconds before the bus turned up.

The tour, however, was excellent - one of the best I was to take while in Australia. Our tour guide had a good sense of humour and an absolutely enormous ego, so even the long periods of driving between pockets of interesting stuff were not boring.

C'mon guys! Hug some treeees

We visited four sites, where we admired spectacular waterfalls, learned the history of the rainforest and its ecosystem, and had the opportunity to swim in the plunge pools at the base of the waterfalls. Bit cold - I wimped out and took photos instead. Our tour also included a great deal of information about the current status of the area as a World Heritage site and the changing focus of the North Queensland industries from logging to tourism, although one of the primary industries, sugar cane farming, has remained vitally important.

Our accommodation is a 'holiday village' which translates roughly as a motel/hostel. The facilities are very good - we have a triple share apartment with en-suite bathroom, TV, fridge, kettle, and of course air conditioning. Everything you could need, really. I got 11 hours sleep and was pretty much over my jet-lag.

We hadn't booked anything yet, so we decided to rent some bikes and go explore the area. The bike hire place was very close to the city library. First we headed back to the Esplanade, and cycled along the coast, heading north towards the botanic gardens. After a while, the coast road ran out and we pressed on along the Captain Cook Highway.

We were stopped in our tracks by the sight of a hang-glider being prepared on the side of a hill, on a platform next to a wire, which I assumed to be a chairlift of some kind. To my amazement, hand-glider and pilot were attached to the wire and shot off down the it like a zip line. It seems that it was some kind of hang-glider training facility. Intrigued, we followed the path at the base of the hill, and found it to be a really fantastic riverside route with ample shade and superb scenery. This path eventually led to a large lawned area, where we were directed by various signs to a saltwater lake, a freshwater lake or a rainforest boardwalk. We opted for the boardwalk, and set off once again. The boardwalk was a wooden walkway over wet, marshy ground dense with vegetation.

Eventually we arrived at the botanic gardens proper, and with no bikes allowed, I gladly locked mine up, for I was becoming very sore anyway. The gardens were quite good, although nothing special compared with the boardwalk, which was excellent, but the café there was a very good choice for lunch.

On our way back we briefly visited the freshwater lake, and on arriving back at the town centre realised that none of us could remember where we had hired the bikes from. We split up to try and find it, and typically I managed to be the furthest from the place when David found it.

Our first day in Australia does not start well. All my own fault, of course - I just can't sleep on planes. 3am finds us in Darwin - the right country at least - waiting to board new passengers before continuing to our final destination, and starting point: Cairns. In order to do this, everyone is required to leave the plane. This seems faintly ridiculous, but I'm far beyond any ability to complain, and so obligingly trudge off the plane, only to trudge back on again 30 minutes later. I suddenly realise that this is day 3, and we're not actually there yet.

Once again I'd told where the door is - entirely unnecessary as I've now walked through it three times, and we take off once again for Cairns. Finally at 8am we arrive unceremoniously, and once again disembark, this time with the enthusiasm that accompanies the knowledge that we will not have to re-board again. It was shortly after this that I discovered that my baggage, which had accompanied me for most of my journey, had decided to pip me at the post and go to Brisbane. In Australian terms, that's probably described as 'close'. I received an apology and was told that it would arrive by 11am, and would thereafter be delivered to my accommodation. Which was great, except that the accommodation we had booked in the UK had not received our booking and was now full. We were taken to an alternative place, which was nice enough, and phoned the airline to let them know where to send my bag.

Finally, we managed to get into town, and wandered down the Esplanade. I was surprised to find that Cairns had no beach - only mud flats. I'm told this is down to the Great Barrier Reef catching all the fine silt and sand. By 6pm I'd been awake and in the same clothes for 37 hours, so when we got back to the hostel it was quite a relief to discover that my bag had arrived. For the first time, I felt, so had I.

As the second movie was coming to an end, I looked around the cabin, which was in darkness. In our section of the plane, I could see more than a hundred people, and all of them were asleep.

I stumbled from the plane in Singapore in a delirious half-awake-half-alive trance, to find one of the nicest airports I'd ever seen. Spotlessly clean, and an eerily calm atmosphere it seemed more like a shopping complex than an airport - nobody was in a hurry today. We had about four hours to kill until our next flight, so I found an information desk and asked whether there were any internet terminals available to transit passengers, which I seriously doubted. As I was to discover, Singapore's airport is also one of the most well-appointed, having not only numerous internet terminals, but also a news/current affairs area worthy of a first class lounge, and, bizarrely, even a cactus garden. This was very unusual indeed - it was an outdoor area accessible by transit passengers, absolutely full of various species of weird and wonderful cacti. Making it even more odd was a yellow line painted down the centre of the tiny garden, on one side of which you could smoke. On the other side, you could not, but since the garden was no larger than the average living room, it didn't really make a great deal of difference.

After stopping off in the food court for some much needed soup (the first food I'd had all day that was not served in a plastic box), we headed for the gate to continue our journey. The departure lounge was definitely the most uncomfortable part of the airport. Once I'd boarded the plane and been adequately informed of the location of the door through which I had just walked, I began the second phase of my jet-lag avoidance program - sleep. I had never been able to sleep on a plane before, so I came prepared: eye mask, earplugs, blanket, pillow, seat reclined.

I spent the following four hours entirely failing to go to sleep.

One of the biggest draws Australia has as a holiday destination is simply the fact that it is a very, very long way away. It is actually about as far away as you can get from London unless you have around £14m and are willing to let the Russians blast you into space. This is one of the main reasons I chose it. The other was the fact that David had suggested it some weeks before. In fact, now I think about it, it was probably his idea. Nevertheless, the hugeness of the distance involved is often underestimated, which is why, sitting on a QANTAS flight from London Heathrow to Singapore, I wondered for the sixth or seventh time why I was not blessed with the ability to spontaneously fall asleep whenever convienient. We may be travelling across twelve time zones, but dammit, it's dark outside and I want to sleep. Essentially, when travelling from the UK to Australia, you get roughly two shorter-than-normal days, depending on what time you leave. On the way back, you get just one monster one. Staying awake, it seemed, was going to be more unpleasant than I had thought.

Oh well, only eleven hours to go.

Was born today. Bizarre feeling - like nothing I've experienced before. Not one I'll be repeating in a hurry, that's for sure. Was given a small blue rabbit, which seemed rather incongruous in such a plain white spartan hospital.

Everything seems quite exciting and new, though I was briefly held in front of a mirror and discovered that I am extremely small and very ugly. Oddly most people around me seem to think I'm the most amazing, beautiful thing in the world. This is not true, and is one of many things that I find difficult to understand.

I attempted to ask people to explain things to me, but I only succeeded in making a kind of gurgling sound, which was most unsatisfactory. Resolved to work on speaking coherently. My wardrobe also seems very limited, currently comprising only one item which appears to be little more than a towel.

Most definitely things need to change. There is work to be done here.