Hello, we are in AUSTRALIA! After a 8hour flight and a brief stop in Darwin, we arrived nice and early into Cairns! It was boiling! We phoned up our booked hostel, which was Cairns Beach House, and they came and picked us up! After having to wait at the hostel for a few hours until we could actually get into our room, we unpacked and did some much needed washing and then headed out for an explore! he hostel was on the outskirts of the city, so we had to take the hostels free shuttle bus into the town. The city is brilliant, nice and clean! The bus dropped us off at the Espalade, which has been done up very nicely, and has work stations all along the front for joggers and walkers, as well as our favourite place in the city, the lagoon! The lagoon is a safe swimming area on the sea front, and has a small sand area as well as fountains and big metal fish! Its all free, and has BBQ areas around it again free to use so its very cool! he city itself seemed very quiet but only because its so spaced out.

Our first night at the hostel was not very good, the room came alive with cockroaches and so we quickly evacualted intot he spare dorm room next to ours until morning where we went and asked to move upstairs. After another sarcastic comment from the gordie manager, we were moved to a must nicer room unstairs, well away from the bugs. Which was sooo much better! We managed to save alot of money by self catering in the not very clean kitchen downstairs, which was great to be able to cook what you wanted after asia, where you had to trek around to find some where cheap to eat!

So on the third day we went to the city and booked up our dives and greyhound bus tickets. A very strange but nice man called Alan, was very helpful, but pumped on steriods and made strange noises after everything he said... hmmmmmmm. We were to do our dive on the saturday, expensive, but well worth it!

On the friday we went to the Cairns Batonic Gardens, which was pretty cool, slightly out of town but only a couple of dollars on the bus. Lots of plants and trees, not that exciting really but Zoe liked it! On the otherside of the road from the gardens was the Board walk which took you through a jungley area of cairns and to a salt and then a fresh water creek! We walked around the edge of the freshwater one and saw loads and loads of little turtles, they were amazing! As soon as we crouched down they came swimming over to us, and so we sacrificed a peanut butter sandwich for them, which not only attracted about 10 turtles, but some ducks and geese!

Okay so on the saturday, we got up early and went to the Greaf Barrier Reef to do our 3 dives! The first 2 dives were at a site called, Millner Reef. I had sevre sea sickness, first time in all our travels, didn't through up though, just went very green/grey and sweated alot! Once in the water, I felt alot better, still a bit rough though! We went down and the visability was amazing, just pure brilliant blue all around us, there is no way of describing it! The coral was brightly coloured, and the fish were huge! By far the best dives that we have done so far! We saw some huge parrot fish, must have been about 5ft long, and some other strange looking fish! On the second dive, we finally saw a shark, close up an all! The shark was a white tipped reef shark, which unlike the leopard shark, looks like a real shark! It was about 1.5 meters long i guess, so not huge by any means, but when its about 2meters or so away from you, its an incredable sight! Zoe is convinced she saw 2 sharks, but i think it was the same one, seeing as she 'saw' it about 2 minutes before the good sighting, going around the same coral! But she is silly like that! Was a great sighting, and we were one of the only groups to see one that day, so really really happy! The 3rd and final dive was at Oasis reef, which again was filled with some huge fish, just swimming all over you, was superb! Well worth every penny! I just wish we could afford more photos!

After the dive, Zoe went and got a Tattoo, just down the side of her foot. After an hour of watching her squirm and nearly in tears, she came out happy, and a little bit sore! But it does look very good, and its a great reminder of our dive and our trip, so i think she thinks it was worth the pain, lol!

Anyways, we are in Townsville now, after a 2 day stop in the beautiful Mission Beach, which was good, but far too hot! Townsville is very picturesque (excuss the spelling) and our hostel is great, so il hopefully be writing another blog in a few days! Hope your all ok,. miss you all loads xxx