When traveling – avoid the 24 hour bus ride. It’s not worth it. Especially when it turns into 32 hours by the time you actually reach your destination.

The bus did afford me the interesting opportunity to see a tremendous amount of the countryside and see blue sky and sun for the first time since Sydney. It did give me a little hope that maybe, just maybe, the clouds might break on the coast.

I also got my first chance to actually view some of the southern constellations, though to be fair it was from the window of a bus. Nonetheless I got my first peek at the southern cross, or Crux, the smallest of the 88 constellations. Even better was seeing Orion upside down! Hopefully more viewing is to come.

I’ve arrived in Port Douglas, with thousands of kilometers and many adventures behind me and the biggest events yet to come – the Great Barrier Reef, the Daintree Rainforest, and of course, the eclipse!