Did you ever see Bridge Over The River Kwai? If so, you might remember the scene where Alec Guinness, having given his Japanese captors a stiff talking too, gets stuffed in the Hot Box for his troubles. Poor wee Eck then suffers terribly under the blistering sun and tropical rains.

Well, and I'll get another doing for seeming to "moan", but this hopefully brings you, dear reader, the sensation of living this wondrous experience as if you are right here with us in FNQ, i.e. Far North Queensland, and if the rain doesn't stop soon, just plain 'effin Queensland.

Every day starts lovely. Clear skies, warm sunshine and twittering birds. As the heat builds in the afternoon it gets steamy hot and by late afternoon or early evening, the fluffy white clouds of earlier are replaced by giant black ones. Then all hell breaks loose. Thunder, lightning and torrential rain hits. In the van, when it was tipping down we couldn't open the doors or we'd get soaked. That and we had this vision of the local wildlife creeping in. As a result, after not very long, Booty Call felt like wee Eck's hot box.

Now, not that we've gone soft but when you wake up like Alec in his hot box, awash in perspiration and feeling vaguely like your being suffocated, the novelty wears off. So, the compact campervan trial was drawn to an early close and Booty Call is relegated to the car park and we enjoyed a few nights in a swanky AirBnb apartment in Cairns.

On Sunday morning we picked up ride number two, a Toyota Land Cruiser with a tent on the roof.

It only took 20 minutes to get it up, so to speak, but got something of a fright when, fiddling about inside, on the roof, the car started to roll slowly forward. Only an inch or two but enough to make me feel like Mr Bean on top of his Mini.

Wednesday lunchtime and 1,862 kms later, we're back in Brizzie, on Time Bandit and happy to be here.

Time for a break. Maybe we'll go for a wee sail.