After our daytrip to the Tablelands we had a day to relax, so we did all of washing ready for our flight to New Zealand on Monday and then went to the shopping centre for some last minute bits and pieces. We also went further into Cairns and went to Rusty's Fruit Market - it was full of locally grown exotic fruits and everything smelled amazing, so we bought ourselves a melon - it was so cheap! Today is 9th May, Liberation Day, and to celebrate 70 years of freedo...

When we got back on dry land after our dive trip we took a couple of days to rest and recover ourselves - doing 11 dives in only 3 days is really tiring, especially because your body absorbs so much extra nitrogen when you breathe compressed air underwater. We had a long lie in on the first day back, and then finished all of the remaining admin that we had to do in Australia like reconfirming our flights for next week and closing my bank account (I got $6.24 back...

Joel and I are both certified divers, so going to the Great Barrier Reef was something we have both been looking forward to since first booking our flights to Australia. We got to Cairns on Thursday evening after another long coach drive up the coast, and as soon as we got here I had to do a phone interview for a job I applied for back home (fingers crossed about that!). The next day we had a bit of a lie in, and then booked another couple of day trips for our la...

From Airlie Beach we headed 5 hours further north to Townsville, which to be honest neither of us knew that much about. Our guide books said it was an underrated city, so we weren't holding out much hope for anything special, but it's a surprisingly nice place. We didn't do that much on the first afternoon as we had a load of washing to do, but the next day we set out to explore the town. We walked along the main street to have a look at the shops, and then went ...

Our bus up to Airlie Beach was an overnight trip, so we were pretty tired when we finally arrived. Luckily our cabin was already ready for us when we arrived at our accommodation so we could dump our bags and freshen up. We then went to the shopping centre to get some food, and found a coffee shop that did a coffee + cake deal for $6, and the coffee was huge! I don't think either of us had ever seen a coffee cup that big before, so it certainly woke us up. We the...