Hello everyone!

Sorry for the lack of blog writing in Australia so far! We have non-stop a-go-go trying to fit things in around the weather since we have arrived! So, from the beginning:

We arrived early on the morning of the 31st January to a rainy Cairns and it literally did not stop the whole time we were there. The first day we slept all morning then went into the town centre to look around. Then we went back to the hostel for our free dinner and stayed in the bar area for the rest of the evening! We started playing cards and it all went downhill from there! We met some awesome people who joined in with us (Lisa from Swindon, Dawn who went to Portsmouth Uni! and Barbara from Paris). After a few games (and pints) the boys were dancing and we were laughing watching but we couldn't resist joining in and in the end the bar man obviously wanted to shut up shop so he put on an ozzie classic 'True Blue' which is slow tempo. Having none of it we were 'protest dancing' to avoid leaving and ended up pulling some ballet-esque moves! In the end we left and caught the min-bus into Cairns to go to the much talked about 'Rhino Bar'. Well there was a slight mis-understanding when we got there and instead of going up some stairs we ended up in a bar on the ground floor - turned out to be a gay bar but none of us realised until two guys kissed right in front of us! We stayed for a bit longer but as soon as we realised we felt a bit out of place so we moved onto the next place...the woolshed. Dawn managed to blag us all free drinks having been on a tour with a guide who knew the owner. The woolshed was an experience and there were a lot of Australian guys from Brisbane who were using the same chat up line on every girl - they have a 2 bedroom appartment overlooking the sea there in Cairns. Didn't really work on me and the second time it was used on me I just laughed in their face! Perhaps not the reaction they were looking for!!!! When we got back to the hostel Sam went straight to bed whilst Dawn, Karl and I loitered in reception for a while. When Karl and I went up to the room we realised the air conditioning wasn't working so went downstairs to ask to change rooms. We went back upstairs and got Sam who half-asleep just grabbed his blanket and followed us forgetting about his bags!

The next morning I was VERY hungover having not drunk properly since Mongolia and spent a long time trying to gain the ability to not feel sick! We ended up going into Cairns again and going to the cinema with Dawn where we saw 'The curious case of Benjamin Button' which was amazing. The film rating system is different over here though and what is a 12 or 15 at home is rated a M for Mature Audiences only. After telling Sam to get out as he wasn't mature enough we spent the next 10 minutes giggling to ourselves obviously proving that none of us are mature! Back at the hostel we had our free dinner again and had an early night.

Next day we did the tourist stuff suitable for bad weather ie. Art Galleries! Then back at the hostel the weather cleared up very briefly enabling us to us the pool for about 10 minutes! We met Liz who was in Dawn's room and we spent the rest of the evening playing cards with them. We met a Swedish guy called Simon who made the mistake of telling us it was pronounced 'Seaman' which started us, mature as we are, on a full on inuendo conversation for about 20 minutes at his expense...poor guy! The three of us girls were in hysterics. In the end Karl had to explain to him why we all thought a conversation about his 'Snus' (tabacco in teabag like things) was so funny! We went to bed relatively early in the hope of catching the greyhound out of Cairns down to Townsville but the rain was so bad and large areas south of Cairns were flooding so we were stranded, being told the buses were not running for at least 5 more days. We only allowed 6 weeks ish in Australia, timetabling every day in order to fit everything in before out flight to New Zealand so we couldn't afford time wise to wait. It took us about 5 minutes to decide that our only option would be to fly to Brisbane out of the flood zone and start again from there, unfortunately missing out on the coast in between. But to be honest the weather wasn't allowing us to make full use of what was there - The Great Barrier Reef and The Whitsundays, anyway so to Brisbane it was! We booked a flight for the next morning and spent the rest of the day looking around Cairns at the Contemporay Art Museum and several souvenir shops! Back at the hostel we had a quiet night before getting up at 4am in order to get to the airport in time for our 6am flight.