Anita's last day was on Wednesday, she was leaving at 2.30pm for her flight so we wanted to do something nice in the morning. We found somewhere that hires out bikes for free - sadly it's Australian laws to wear helmets so off we went cycling around Cairns town looking like helmets, the Marina and the coastline. This cycling trip was a little different to LA, it was 35 degrees in Cairns so we was sweating like crazy, hour or so later, we had to give in and let the sun beat us. In our third week now and this months budget has taken a hard hit due to the trips we booked so were on the supermarket lunches, bread and the cheapest filling we can find - normally peanut butter, jam, tuna (not together though, although we have had peanut butter and salad wraps haha) And using a plastic knife! Things have been pretty busy the last week so after we waved Anita off, we had a chilled afternoon, I'm finally watching The Wire!! We needed the chill time though, we all got a tear in our eyes when Anita left. We've got free evening meals at this hostel, it sounds good but really it's not, bland and the same 4 options every night, were so bored of it. After dinner we went to the night market and had a look around, teasing ourselves with clothes and jewellery we can't buy, due to money and no where to fit it in our rucksacks!! String bracelets are our only treats. When back at the hostel, Kate and I got a special FaceTime treat with Ms Alex Scanlon and her little sleepy Oliver, we were so excited to see the little guy for the first time, he's so cute and has so much hair!!! Can't wait to give him a cuddle when were back. Thursday was our boat day trip out to the Great Barrier Reef, 6.30am start, had about 7 alarms set between us because we had no mums to wake us if we were late!! Luckily we did make it to the marina on time - no idea how! Especially because we was frantically walking around town trying to find somewhere that was open for breakfast before we got on the boat, needed to settle our stomachs from last nights drinking. Once we were settled on the boat, we started to get a briefing by an over enthusiastic Australian guy, as soon as he said 'hi, my name is..' I spluttered out, 'Bruce', and couldn't control my fit of laughter because all I could think of was the shark in Finding Nemo. Childish I know but I amused myself. We swam through two different areas of reef, some areas as deep as 15 metres so we had to snorkel dive which was good although the pressure of your ears is unbearable. We saw so many different fish - some were massive, the staff were throwing prawns in the sea so they were all swimming in between us. They also served up the best meal we've had in a long time, nom nom nom. Definitely had a food coma on the top deck afterwards. When we got to the second part of the reef, it was a little to close to lunch I think, I swallowed a chunk of seawater through my snorkel and our lovely lunch soon ended up back in the sea, I immediately headed back to the boat, Liv followed directly DIRECTLY behind me and ended up being followed by fishes, she was pretty amazed at first then... I told her I had been sick. She wasn't to pleased!! Minus this part, there is a massive difference between this and the other boat trips I've been on! (18-30 party boats) Even got a sophisticated glass of wine on the journey back.
I'm getting better at 'ring of fire' now, good drinking game to make the night cheaper, there's always a good bunch of 15 or so people drinking before we head out. We tried to mix up the drinking games yesterday, we 'borrowed' a board game from our hostel in Fiji, it's called Rumikub, we had to pair up because there was a group of us. Us 3 are addicted to it now, we've got an ongoing tally of our scores too haha. It's nice to use my brain for something other then travel stuff (and banks), it keeps our brains engaged a bit more, writing this blog helps to - as weird as it might sound. After another night out at the usual bar, we woke up the next day to find some of the boys had 'vandalised' our door with some interesting but typical stuff, we weren't to bothered about that, more that they were banging on our door constantly trying to wake us up for us to see it, I was passed out until 11am (my first lay in) so there scheming didn't work!
I watched a video of another girls Skydive the other day, which made me feel alot better about it, seeing the steps of how it goes I feel alot better so when I'm there hopefully it'll feel a bit familiar and will calm the nerves - but lets be honest 14,000 ft in the air, I'm going to be crying!!!
After my bank blocked my card twice, they have now decided to cancel my card completely, so I am without a cash card now, having to rely on the other two lovely girls paying for me and me transferring the money which is beyond annoying and I'm sure frustrating for them. I hate banks, I hate Lloyds TSB. I now have an Australian bank account, might just live here now, the bank here was so much more helpful. Everyone's so chilled and happy, hard to be stressed, now time to enjoy the rest of my trip. We've just booked to go to the Ministry Of Sound Full Moon Party on Magnetic Island on the 30th November, mini festival kinda thing on the beach - and with body paint, woo!!!
We had our best night out on Friday night, we went to a bar/club called Gilligan's in Cairns, it's pretty expensive in there that's why we've never bothered to go before. We had our usual pre drinks at the hostel, then went to the watershed, which was the usual bar we went to each night, and finally onto Gilligan's, we were queuing for the $10 entry when a group of people on another hostels bar crawl started to pile in past us, I grabbed Kate and told her to grab Livy, and joined the end of them whilst hiding our wrist because we didn't have the wrist bands, luckily the rest of our group followed and the trick worked, we got free entry!! We decided to treat ourselves to a few drinks with money we saved. The cheapest drinks were beer and cider on tap so we bought one each and split it between 3 cups with a splash of blackcurrant - homemade snakebites!! It was so nice to dance and listen to up to date music. On our way out of the club we bought a slice of pizza each for $5, we were so annoyed at ourselves the next day, not only for eating so late (doesn't help the bikini bods) but because we spent so much on one slice - earlier that day we had gone to the super market and was counting our pennies to pay for food so we really shouldn't have done it, we need to budget better!! Money is escaping us to quickly at the moment. There was a few funny things that happened on our journey home, if you want the details you'll have to ask me, I'm not writing it on here. The next day we checked out of our hostel and had to say goodbye to another group of friends and another place that was our home for the last week, now onto Mission Beach.
Mondays skydive is now soon approaching.
Just read everyone's comments as messages on the other blogs, so lovely to hear that you like them!! I'm just rambling on most of the time..