Cairns, North Queensland, Australia. Gateway to the Great Barrier Reef.

Journal by Adam Burgess

We finally made it to Cairns, a city I had always imagined as rather large because it’s the only one that appears on political maps of Australia and I always hear the name. It’s actually quite tranquil. Not small, but far from a business centre. So far, Australia has turned out to be more sparsely populated than I imagined, and from talking to the people, I have been proven wrong that only Americans don’t know about the rest of the World that surrounds them. So far I’ve managed to find oodles of Ozzies that have a hard time with world geography. At a BBQ, I met a police sergeant who asked me if California was near the coast, I replied, “Yes,” and with a moment’s thought, he then asked, “Which one?” I gave him a thorough description, and then with a slight “Hmmm...” he then fired off another question in his philosophical tone. “Hmm, I see; now, are there beaches in California?” Bless the poor guys heart, although I have the opportunity to travel the globe, it appears that he missed his free lessons in California geography when the bombardment of “Baywatch” episodes hit the Australian coastline a few years back.

Help support our cause: The LONGITUDE Expedition is the longest journey ever attempted with a focus on Parkinson's Disease. The Drive Around the World team aims to raise money for Parkinson’s Disease research by driving four certified pre-owned Land Rover Discoverys around the globe following lines of longitude. Readers are encouraged to pledge small amounts of money per expedition-kilometer via a pledge form that can be found on our Parkinson’s page by clicking here. 100% of donations received go directly to Parkinson's research and all who donate $10 or more will be entered into a raffle to win an expedition-equipped Land Rover Discovery.