We finally got to Cairns after a mammoth journey. We flew from Singapore at 10.00pm on 2nd January. We arrived into Darwin at 4.30am local time and had to wait for a couple of hours and change plane. We left Darwin at 6.30am and flew to Gove for 45 minutes, we then boarded again and flew into Cairns at 10.25am, slightly earlier than scheduled. We arranged transport into the centre of Cairns and to our hostel. Our room is nice and I was glad we had opted for a private double room rather than a dorm as I was sooo tired I just wanted to crash for a couple of hours. After catching up on some sleep we ventured out and grabbed something to eat.

We planned on seeing Kuranda and take the scenic railway up and the skyrail down, so I got some leaflets to look through. I was curious to see how much it would be to do yourself, so we took a trip to the train station and checked out the prices, it was a lot cheaper so we bought our tickets there and then for the next day. It was a great day out, we left on the train at 9.15am and took the 2 hour journey to Kuranda. The scenery was beautiful on the way up, and the train stopped at Baron Falls for 10 minutes to take photos. We arrived in Kuranda at 11am. We spent some time there and looked around, went on a rainforest walk and had some lunch. We left late afternoon and caught the sky train (cable car) back to Cairns. I was a little scared as it was soooo high, and when I looked down I got a real sick feeling in my stomach, I think I maybe scared of heights, not sure if I could do a skydive now. It was beautiful slowly riding over the tops of the rainforest, fantastic views. The pictures do not do it justice, it was spectacular and the height you are is unreal. Fantastic time.

The next day was spent organising our reef trip. We decided to do a one day boat tour to Green Island. It seemed to be a good price for what you got. When we left Cairns in the morning it was cloudy and started to rain, they assured us it would be sunny over in Green island and sure enough it was. It was so rough going though, and the catamaran was rocking from side to side alot. Thank god I remembered to take a travel sick pill just incase, it worked as I managed not to throw up. Once on the island it was great, sun was shining, we got our snorkle gear on and off we went, Col went futher out than I, as I'm still not so confident in the water. I did see fish, coral and turtles which was amazing but I missed the black tip reef shark that Col saw. We took a 30 minute trip on the glass bottom boat which was good and got to see alot of marine life, it was very rough but I felt fine. Afterwards we went straight onto the semi sub, which was brilliant for viewing fish and coral but I felt so ill, it was rocking alot and because you are under the sea level you can't watch the horizon to make you feel better, I was so glad to get off the boat. It took me a while to feel ok again, but I wasn't the only one as a kid was being sick on the sub. I took another travel sick pill before getting back on the cat to go back to Cairns, but the ride back was alot smoother and I felt great and even fell asleep. It was a brilliant day out.

Cairns was a great place to go, our hostel was great and the people there were fab.

Next stop Mission Beach.