Like many other students we like traveling, so when we decided come to study English at CCEB we started to plan which cities we could visit during our English course and which cities we could visit after the course.

Our first idea was to travel after finishing the course (in December) from Cairns to Brisbane, stopping in some cities between. But, suddenly our plans changed due to one relocation car that we took (rental companies often need to transport cars from less popular destinations and to popular ones! To avoid shipping vehicles across the country, they allowing travelers to drive them back for them). Basically we had one week to organize the whole trip, so we started to think about the return flight, in which city we could sleep and which tours and cities we simply had to do.

We believe that the first and most important thing to do is to talk with Helen to postpone the course for the duration of your trip in order to keep your attendance at a good level. The second thing to do is talk with the guys from Lake 67. They helped us to organize the tours and suggested one wonderful dive in Ayr, so finally after disturbing Carolina a lot we came to a final itinerary!

We left Cairns on a Saturday and traveled to the Atherton Tablelands Region, visiting 2 beautiful waterfalls and the Curtain Fig Tree. First, Milla Milla Falls, second the Curtain Fig Tree which is a fig more than 600 years old. It’s something that you can’t see every day. Finally, we spent a few hours at Josephine Falls.

The next day we went diving at the SS Yongala, which is a wreck located near the city of Ayr. It was our first dive at a wreck! And we started with one of the best in the world (thanks Carolina for the advice!). We saw a lot of marine life and many types of fishes for the first time.

On the third day, we visited the Whitsundays, which is a group of 74 islands near Airlie Beach. We visited two islands, first Hook Island where we snorkeled in two different spots and second Whitsunday Island where we sunbathed in the Inlet. We did a bushwalk at the Hill Inlet to enjoy the magical views!

During the fourth day we just drove, from Airlie Beach to Hervey Bay, it is a long drive (more than 860 km). On the next day we did a tour to watch the Humpback Whales at Hervey Bay. They are such a beautiful animals.

The next two days we spent on Fraser Island where we visited different places. During the first day of the tour we visited two lakes, McKenzie and Basin. We also did a bushwalk to visit the Wanggoolba Creek and learn about the history of the island at Pile Valley. On the second day, we visited 75 Mile Beach, the Pinnacles Coloured Sands, the Maheno Wreck, The Champagne Pools and finally Eli Creek.

The last day was just driving from Hervey Bay to Brisbane and taking the flight to come back to Cairns.

The trip was important not just to visit different places but to improve our English too. We made friends from the USA, the Netherlands, England, Germany, Norway, Australia and France. We would like to thank the staff of Lake 67 for the help booking the tours, organizing the trip and getting great discounts! You rock, guys!!!

Ubaldo (Upper-Intermediate B) & Maria