We decided to have a little bit of luxury for our last couple of nights in Oz so we booked into the Pullman Reef Hotel and Casino which is out by the harbour but close to the town centre. We had a wander through the casino but never bothered with any gambling. There was a big Japanese cruise ship in the harbour so the town was full of Japanese tourists and there was also loads of Chinese and Koreans in the city. There was loads of decorations for the Chinese New Year which must be round about now.

There was quiet a few day trips that we wanted to do while we were in Cairns. There's loads of travel agents and tour companies in town providing trips to the Barrier Reef, the Daintree Rainforest, Cape Tribulation and loads of other stuff to do. In the end we decided to go white water rafting on the Tully River with a company called Raging Thunder. It looked pretty extreme and Vanessa was a bit nervous but it was absolutely amazing and the scenery was stunning as its all through the Tully Gorge National Park.

The bus picked us up at 6:30 so it was an early start for us. The bus takes about 2 hours from Cairns with a stop off for some breakfast. There was 9 rafts on the river and we were in a group of 5 with a Kiwi guide / instructor who was excellent. It was much harder work than we had expected as your on the river for about 5 hours and there's loads of paddling involved and jumping about the raft as the instructor is constantly shouting out instructions. Just trying to stay in the raft is hard work! It was brilliant fun though and we got in for a swim a few times to cool off! Had an excellent BBQ lunch at the side of the river. We've got a load of professional pictures from the day so will need to try and get some of them loaded up when we can.

We had an early start the next day as our flight to Bali was at 05:45 so got picked up from the hotel at about 04:00. We had a bit of a stressful time at the airport as we were told that we needed to have onward travel from Bali booked before we could fly, which we didn't have! We had to use one of the airport computers to get online and book a flight from Bali and only just made the check in. We now have a flight booked from Bali to KL.

So we are now in Bali for a couple of weeks after a 2 hour flight from Cairns to Brisbane and a 6 hour flight to Denpasar. The hotel we are staying at in Bali is in a good central location but to say it's basic would be an understatement! We will definitely need to find somewhere a bit nicer before Rebecca arrives!!