Cairns itself did little to impress us, with street after street packed full of tacky gift shops. We didnt have long to spend there though, as we spent a whole day out on the Great Barrier Reef. We took a cruise out to the reef early in the morning, so avoided the heat for a while. The last few days have seen quite stormy weather so we were a bit worried about the sea being rough but it wasnt too bad. It took us 2 hours to reach our first stop off point, during which time the instructor went over the equipment for our free introductory dive. Neither Ben nor I had dived before so we were nervously excited. I stupidly asked Ben how we got down under the surface...as soon as I had my dive gear on, including numerous weights and a huge air tank, i fully understood! The dive instructor was really good, knowing that most of us had never dived it before. I was a bit scared under the water to begin with, but once you adapt to using the breathing equipment it was much better. The guide took four of us together, with our arms linked, and showed us the best coral and fish. We stopped for a while on the ocean floor beside a huuuuuge clam and we were shown a sea cucumber which was pretty cool. We also had our photos taken but they werent the most attractive poses ever!

Later on the afternoon we also had the chance to go snorkelling, which wasnt as interesting as the dive but gave us more freedom to explore ourselves. The expanse of coral was endless, and we saw lots of cool fish including nemo :) I have to say though, the snorkelling wasnt as good as when we went around Whitsunday Islands which is the outer edge of the reef. I think maybe the fish have had the sense to move slightly further away from where the main drag of boats go! The sea was also a lot more choppy witha strong tide so we swallowed quite a bit of salt water...yum!

I think the Great Barrier Reef and Cape Tribulation was a good way to end our time in Australia. Some of the east coast is very busy and over run with tourism, so it was nice to have a few days chilling out before the next leg of our journey. We are both very excited about Asia now...although New Zealand and Australia are beautiful places to visit, we're both looking forward to going somewhere completely different from home. And I'm sure Asia will be just that! The adventure begins...