Howdy!!

Well we have finally done it and arrived in Oz and it is absolutely beautiful!! The weather is sunny all day and slightly cooler at night - by cool I mean you take a cardi with you and still wear shorts so pretty great!!

Cairns is pretty much a port/fishing village that has been turned into a back packer haven. It kind of feels like Headingley without the sun and has loads of tour operators and cheap restaurants.

The flight all went well although we came with Jet Star which is like our version of easy jet so all pretty basic. I slept the whole way so didn't really matter but apparently the guy next time looked a bit concern that I was pretty much lying on him for most of the flight :)

We met Eleanor at the airport who was ringing for her hostel to pick us up and just took us along with her so we're staying at The Asylum - yes that is actualyl what it's called!!! The staff are amazginly friendly, and give us free brekkie and vouchers for free meals. Last night we went and took our vouchers and you literally queue up at a windo like an army soup kithchen and they fill your bowl with chilli or spaghettit bolognaise. It was actually really good though so can't complain!!

We are setting off tomorrow for Ayres Rock on a 3 days hiking and camping tour where we acutally sleep out under the stars and have camp fires etc booked through Adam - our favourite tour guide in Cairns (for his professionalism of course and not his australian surfer looks and charm!!) Going to be very early start and hours of hiking but should be brilliant as there about 20 of us and we have discovered that people here do actually want to talk to us which is great!!