Highlights of the Jucy Tour

Despite our reservations about living in such a small space, we had a great time in the Jucy discovering the wonders of tropical and northern Queensland. What a fabulous place!

The highlights included Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island, roughly 150 miles long and 15 miles wide at its widest point. Everything underfoot is sand, and only four wheel drive vehicles are allowed on the island, so we booked ourselves on a day trip. The main road on the island is the beach, with a speed limit of 80k. Only in Australia!

Although Australia has lovely warm sunshine, and wonderful sandy beaches bordered by the sparkling blue ocean, so many perils lurk in the water that swimming in the sea is not a sensible option. Tiny jelly fish (only 12mm) known as 'stingers' for the obvious reason, like the tropical waters as much as we do, not to mention box jelly fish, which have a toxic sting; poisonous stone fish; barbed stingrays; and the pretty but deadly blue-ringed octopus. Then there are the sharks and crocodiles to consider.

For this reason, I was delighted to discover Lake McKenzie on Fraser Island - a lake consisting entirely of pure, crystal clear rainwater, on a bed of white sand and surrounded by a powder soft, thick white sand beach. Nothing here to bite, sting or devour you, not even a harmless fishy swimming by, just other tourists enjoying the experience.

We felt special spending the night at a campsite on the beach where Captain Cook first landed in Queensland on 24 May 1770, and will remember in particular the inky sky full of twinkling stars we didn't recognise (why does Australia have so many more stars than we've got in the northern hemisphere?)

One day we took an 80 km detour inland, up into the mountains in search of the elusive platypus, which to our disappointment we saw only fleetingly. What we hadn't expected was the pleasure of unexpectedly happening upon a possum unhurriedly eating his evening meal, totally unconcerned by our presence. You win some, you lose some.

As I recall, this was also the day I called in at a roadside toilet for a quick pee. When I flushed and glanced in the bowl I saw a startled bright green and red tree frog blinking up at me. Aaaargh!!! (Public toilets throughout Australia leave something to be desired, and the one with the tree frog was by far preferable to the one which had a bowl studded with mosquitoes. Oh, and don't even get me started on the 'pan lavs' which are alive and well in the Oz national parks, and which brought back distant memories of the 'ten o' clock hosses' that roamed my early childhood in the Fifties.)

Our most special experience was the day we took a trip on a seaplane to several of the Whitsunday Islands, including Whitehaven Beach, another tempting expanse of beautiful white silica sand and turquoise ocean that you would risk life and limb to swim in. We continued on our seaplane to the Great Barrier Reef and snorkelled from a semi-submersible boat while while the seaplane bobbed at anchor nearby - very James Bond. Taking off and landing on the sea in this small ten seat aircraft was brilliant fun, and as we sipped our sparkling wine and nibbled our canapes on the deck of the boat we wondered if life could get any better than this.

Once again, wildlife featured in our highlights, from kangaroos wandering round one campsite and flexing their muscles on the beach at dawn, to cute wombats, fierce cassowaries, evil crocodiles and (best of all) koalas with babies at a sanctuary for rescued animals.

We made it all the way from Brisbane to Cape Tribulation, where the paved road ends and only four wheel drive vehicles can continue to Cooktown. We had intended to camp in Cape Trib after a very long journey that day. However, a short but intense tropical downpour brought out the mozzies and the spiders and the campsite amenities were too daunting to contemplate, so we turned around and drove south to the civilized comforts of Port Douglas, where we unashamedly booked into a Best Western for our last two nights before handing back the Jucy at Cairns. Linen sheets, fluffly white towels, a BATH, bliss!