Hi All!!

This is the first blog for our east coast trip (sorry its late!!). We arrived into Cairns on the 28th November 2009, and got to our hostel which was slightly out of the main town. When we first arrived we were shocked at how muggy it was up there - not as hot as Alice Springs, but had humidity of around 70%! Our first couple of days were spent relaxing and exploring the town itself. As you cant swim in the sea (due to Stinger season - sooooo many jellyfish!), we spent our time by "the lagoon". This is basically a larger, more glorified, swimming pool lol! Was so nice to recover!

On the Tuesday we went on a day trip to the Great Barrier reef. The boat we went on was lovely, called ocean freedom. The provided you with all meals and free snorkelling around the reef. We went to two locations on the reef, the first was where Amy did her dive and got to see a turtle up close, and the second was on a sand bank in the middle of the ocean (literally a lump of sand which protruded out of the ocean and had to wade into the water from with our snorkels!). We couldnt have asked for a better day!

On the Wed - Thurs we went on a two day one night trip to Cape Tribulation (supposedly the oldest rainforest in the world). On the way up we went on a boat cruise over the Daintree river and got to see a Crocodile! (it was a small one, but it still counts!) We also went on a forest boardwalk and saw lots of bugs and spiders - Clare was pretty scared at this point! The afternoon of the Wed was spent Jungle Surfing. This involved swinging from tree to tree on giant zip wires - we even had to do one upside down! On the way back from Cape Trib we stopped off at Mosman Gorge and went for a swim in the beautiful clear water, so refreshing in the high humidity.

We then left Cairns on the Friday to start our Oz experience bus down to Magnetic Island. The night we arrived it was the full moon party, so VERY busy - no where near as good as the one in Thailand! We then had a day chilling by the pool overlooking the sea, before then continuing our Oz experience journey down to Airlie Beach on Sun 6th December.

We will write a blog about Airlie Beach separate as we did our Whitsundays trip there and have lots to tell you!! Hope everyone is well and had a great Christmas and New Years - Happy 2010 people!!

Lots of Love Amy and Clare X x x