The next day I flew to Cairns as I had booked a live aboard trip scuba trip to the Great Barrier Reef. I had also, by chance, booked into a backpackers that Marcie & Arron had booked into. They are a couple that did the Vietnam trip with me. It was great to catch up and we spent the following day together. My trip started that evening. I boarded the Taka boat and was greeted by a very friendly bunch of staff members. We went through the routine of getting dive kit sorted before having dinner and getting to know one another. We sailed overnight and so were at our dive spot early that morning. We had a wake–up call at 06:30am and were in the water by 07:30am. The diving was good but not as great as it was in Thailand. After 6 dives I had a problem equalizing and so decided to miss an afternoon and evening dive to help my ear clear the water inside. The Aqua drops that I used worked a treat as I managed to do my last 2 dives. I think the highlight of the trip was seeing the Dive instructor feeding the Giant Potatoe Cod. They’re pretty big fish. My scuba partner was a bit of a nightmare as he tended to b***** off and do his own thing and not really be too fussed that I was down to 50 bar and wanted to do a safety stop before surfacing. Oh well better luck next time. The diving was good but not awesome, but the live aboard was great. Also diving on Nitrox did not make me feel tired at all, which is a definite plus for multi day multi dives. After returning to Cairns I met up with Marcie & Arron and some of the scuba divers I met and we had a good night out. I had 2 days left and so decided to do a trip to the rainforest area around Cairns. I arranged for an organised trip. Our tour leader was Bart and he was a hoot, with lots of useful information and a great sense of humour. We swam in one of the fresh water lakes, swam in some waterfalls and then got taken to our backpackers. We met Barbs who runs the backpackers with her boyfriend. She took us out in the canoes that night and went possum spotting with flashlights. It was really cool as it was dead quiet on the water and we managed to spot half a dozen possums and some water dragons. The next day Barbs took us on a short cycle around the area and we finished off with a swim in the lake. It was a really hot day and so the swim was most welcome. We then went on a bit of a paddle and spent some time painting each others faces with clay stones. A bit of dirty fun was had by all J. I got back to Cairns after a great weekend away and packed for my flight to New Zealand.