In Cairns

This article was written 17 years ago in 2006 when I was 21, so I ask you not to judge the writing too harshly! The text is as it was originally published.

So, this is it. The final full day of life in Australia for the time being. I'm sure I will be back here soon; there is far too much surfing to be done, and I still want to dive the GBR, so they haven't seen the last of me here.

Yesterday we took another early bus over to the cruise terminal and caught the boat to Hamilton Island. This large island resort is the biggest in the Pacific, and the only way to get around is by the golf buggies. The island has some stunning beaches and there was plenty of time to check out most of the island roads in the two hours we had before having a BBQ back on the boat and heading over to Whitehaven Beach. Whitehaven was voted Australia's best beach this year, and it's 6km of pure white silica sand squeaks underfoot. It's pretty impressive. We bathed, played ball and got buried before taking a sunset ride back to the mainland. A quick shower and we were back on the road in Eric, starting the final push to Cairns.

We stopped around 2am this morning to sleep in a free campsite (my usual night-time story provided), and woke at 9am to finish the journey into the town. We're currently doing a big CD swap of the five million photos we've taken between us. Tomorrow I fly; it's flown like no holiday I have ever taken before, and has (despite my preconceptions) left me with a really big thirst for more.

This post was first published on Sun Jul 09 2006 originally on justbeyondthebridge.co.uk, my former personal blog

The author

My name is Andy Higgs and I am a founder, product management & design leader, occassional surfer and travel enthusiast based in the UK.

More of my travel and business writing can be found here, or you can subscribe to the feed for these posts here.