18th June 2009

Howdy!

We got to Cairns around lunchtime, its quite a small "city", so we found our hostel easily which is very central. We checked in and dropped our bags off and then took Rupert back to Jucy!! On our second day we noticed quite a big chip in our windoswcreen which luckily we took out the full insurance otherwise it would have cost us about 500 dollars for it to be replaced!! So after here, we went back to our hostel. We are staying at Global Palace, its a nice hostel, great location, pretty clean apart from the kitchen, a nice terrace where you can sit to eat, the rooms are pretty good to. We are in a 7 bed dorm and I always end up being the only girl!! We have 2 really funny/mad irish guys in our room! They have been drunk most of the time and are pretty amusing when they come in at 4 in the morning, lol. They are a good laugh though.

So this afternoon, we took a walk around to see what was about. there is a shopping mall here, lots of shops and cafes and another big lagoon. We sat by the lagoon for a while, its been cloudy here but when the sun comes out it is so hot. Tonight we went to the pub a few doors down to get our free dinner! Mike had curry and I had spag bowl, the food is good but small portions, but its free so no complaining there!! Cairns is quite a big party place, it is full of backpackers. Unfortunately me and Mike cant afford to go out and drink every night!!

After being entertained by the irish guys in our room, the drunkily stumbled out around midnight so we managed to get a bit of sleep before they fell back through the door again around 4, one laughing to himself and the other making very loud gruntting and yawning noises, lol!!

19th June 2009

Today me made a picnic up and took it down to the lagoon! We also went into a dollar shop and bought a pack of uno and a new ball!! So we played that for a while. We are both really into books aswell, back home we never pick up a book but we have both read a few out here, so had our heads in our books for a while. We then went to find out what was on at the cinema as we are planning on going tonight, and we went to the shopping mall where i picked up a little outfit for a great baragain, i actually have no room in my bag at all!!! And Mike got some new flip flops as someone stole his last pair, lol, gross that they stole a used pair of flip flops but the even had superglue on them from where they had broken and mike tryed to save them! On our way back to our hostel we stopped in P.J.'Brien's which is where we get our free meal, for a drink, I had a pint of snakebite which went down really well.

Tonight we paid 10 dollars each for a meal and a pint. Mike had steak and I had some chicken thing, it was good food as we hadnt eaten out in a while. We then took a walk through the night market and later on went to the cinema to watch The hangover which was actually really good and really funny!

20th June 2009

We have had a really good day today, we have just chilled out by the lagoon catching some sun, its been really busy as its the weekend but there is a market on and live music which was really good. We had a few beers out on our hostel balcony tonight with one of the guys from our room, he is so funny. He had worked on a farm and was telling us about it, it seemed very hardcore, so glad we arent doing that, lol! We are really ecited as we have rafting 2moro !!!!!!!!!!!!!! yay!!!!!!!!!!!

24th June 2009

We arrived back in cairns and checked back into the same hostel. We met up with Steph and Philippa who are friends of Mikes from back home. We are spending the next few days with them. Its good to see another familiar face! We spent the day by the lagoon and not doing too much. We have 4 days here before we fly to New Zealand and there isnt much to do here other than drink or chill by the lagoon, so we are spending as little as possible to save money for NZ. The weather has been so nice and is getting warmer every day! There are so many aboriginals around here, they are horrible! They just walk around town all day with there kids, they attacked a girl in our hostel last night too!! Tonight we went for our free meal with a few others, the Irish Stew is really good, then we bought a box of goon and sat out on our hostel terrace drinking it!

25th June 2009

Me and Mike are in a 4 bed dorm and theres only one other guy in it with us who is really quite so for once in a hostel we both slept really well and had a decent lye in!! We just spent the day by the lagoon again today with the girls. Its always so busy around there and there are free barbies so there are always people cooking. The girls are heading South so we were giving them tips on where to go and what to do on their way down. After playing uno, reading our books and sunbathing we all went back to our hostel to grab a shower. Reception gave me an extra meal voucher by accident so we shared an extra free meal tonight. The food is actually really good, you can have a pasta dish, spag bowl, curry or irish stew and the portions get bigger every time!! We feel like we are back at school though, queing up every night with our little vouchers haha!

26th June 2009

Another great lay in and me and Mike got up and went to the shopping centre here to try and find mike a pair of pumps and his current ones have been thrown away from being worn so much but we couldnt get any so will have to look in NZ. We found the one bakery in Oz which sells cheesey mites so Mike was very excited about this! After here, we met the girls back down at the lagoon and were there for the rest of the day, it has been 33 degrees today!! I was so hot I actually swam in the lagoon properly, although Mike threw me in to begin with! The sun normally clouds over late afternoon but it stayed out all day so we were all down there until 5ish. We got free meal vouchers for another bar today so tonight we went to that one first to get our free meal, we both had thai red curry, then we all went to PJ's to get our free one there, lol!! So we were nicely full tonight! We then went back to the first bar as they were given out free raffel tickets to win bungee jumps and skydive but we didnt win :-(.

27th June 2009

Last nights sleep wasnt eventful, if non-exsistent!! The two guys in our room came in about 1am quietly which was all good, but about 10 mintues later me and Mike were awake due to one of them snoring so loudly and every breath in he took! It was the most irritating thing ever, lol!! So we tried to sleep...it didnt work!! So we then tryed shouting 'SHUT UP' in turn which still didnt work. So I told Mike to go and push him and he was telling me to, lol, so i ran over and pushed him then ran back and jumped into my bed, it was so funny! Yeah, that didnt work either, so we put our headphones in and listened to music which cut out the snoring but we still couldnt sleep! It was so funny though.

We spent the day doing boring stuff like washing, sorting our bags out catching some sleep! Tonight we are having a night out with steph and philipa and other people from our hostel. So we have a box of goon at the ready!!!

28th june 2009

Last night was eventful and very amusing!! We were sat on the terrace at our hostel with loads of other people drinking etc, Steph got very drunk very fast and so I went with her to Macy D's to get some food for her which was a funny walk. We then ended up in our dorm room with the guys from our dorm who joined us yesterday and are a really good laugh. Steph was so funny, she was our amusment for the night. We didnt make it out but we had such a good night. As we were sat in bed at about 3am, Mike went out and got us a Macy D's!!!

Today we have all been by the lagoon and had a BBQ which was good, only 2 dollars each for bargain burgers and sausages!! Later on we said bye to Steph and Philipa as they are moving south today and me and Mike have packed as we are flying out to New Zealand tomorrow!!!!!

We have LOVED Oz, we have done so much, seen so many things, met so many people and had a brilliant time. Now we cannot wait for New Zealand !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!