Well the time had finally arrived to return our campervan 'Moose'

We arrived into Cairns-our final destination in the van early afternoon and settled into a camp site to enjoy our last evening with Moose. After spending a good few hours trying to fit all our belongings back into our backpacks (so hard!) we sat in our camp chairs and chatted with two of the girls we had met in the Whitsundays and watched a bit of Alan Partridge!

We returned the camper the next day, 5 days later than planned and managed to get away without paying any damages (broken kettle, chipped paintwork, warping the wood inside!) We were all very sad to let him go, although we probably wouldn't have coped sleeping in it for much longer as it has gradually got hotter and hotter (35c)! We have travelled an impressive 5700 KM in him and enjoyed every minute of it, its brilliant being able to go where ever you want when ever you want-Well done to B and R for doing all the driving!

After a couple of days relaxing by the hostel pool and the lagoon we headed out on a diving trip to the Great Barrier Reef! To confirm our geek status we hired an underwater camera for the trip- thought it would be more fun to take the piccys ourselves, and we were right! ;) The trip was amazing and we all had a wicked time, B and D are definitely now addicted to diving and want to do a PADI course asap so they can go and roam about on their own- felt the instructor held them back!! haha ;-) The reef was beautiful and we got to see some weird and wonderful things, for example, NEMO'S! Stingrays, parrotfish and lots of MASSIVE fish, including 'wally' who is by far the biggest fish we have ever seen, let alone swam beside! Round got very excited about the nemo's!

The highlight of the day was getting so close to the turtles and we are very proud of the photos we managed to get- have to give all credit to D on that one. The whole day was one of those pinch yourself moments where you take a step back and think 'oh my god, im diving on the Great Barrier Reef!', another perfect memory we can add to the list.

On the way back from our boat trip we were all feeling a bit childish and decided to use up some of the pics from our underwater camera before we gave it back! The box they gave us to protect the camera looked like something out of James Bond so.....Yes you have guessed it, we all pretended to be spies on a secret mission to deliver the 'package' safely back to the shop!!! Hope you find the pics entertaining, if not we still thought it was bloody hilarious and kept us occupied for at least an hour! yes our mental age is decreasing the longer we are away! must be all that sun! ;)

Cairns is basically the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef so once you have done that there isn't much else to do but we do think it is a lovely place and have definitely had a good few days! Flying out to Darwin tonight, cant even imagine the heat- have been told by different people that it is about 40c and pretty unbearable, yay!! ;)