On the plane to Cairns, a lady asked us if we were escapeing the floods, we replied yes, to which she kindly informed us that there was a cyclone that was due to hit Cairns over the next week or so. Brilliant. Nothing about our Australia trip has gone anywhere near to plan.

So now we find ourselves in Cairns (that's if the cyclone doesn't hit!) until the 26th. We arrived kind of unaware of anything, we were so concerned with getting out of Brisbane, we've got no plans. Luckly we had no problems finding a hostel on the Esplanade as a base to work things out. Originally, we'd only planned to be in Cairns for 2 nights, we now have 13 nights.

We are so disappointed that we won't get to see anywhere near as much of Australia as we hoped. We were both so looking forward to this part of our trip, but now we both feel like we just want to leave. Australia is literally bankrupting us.

To carry on with the theme of 'unplanned, expensive and stressful', on day four of being here, Candy's tooth cracks for no apparent reason and a quarter of it falls off, not out, literally falls off her gum, so she's left with only part of her tooth. It's a Saturday, and we're not sure as to A) where there is a dentist, and B) if there'll even be one open. The guys at the desk pointed us in the right direction and called us a cab, which we have to add, for a 5 minute journey cost us $20! We arrived there at 11am but couldn't get seen until 3pm! So until then, gummy (Candy) had to deal with the pain and worry. To say she's not a fan of dentists is an understatement.

We were reassured that the guy who would see Candy was really gentle and nice... really, because he was extremly rude, and had lost, if he ever had them, his bedside manners! The tooth was replaced by a filling but there could still be further problems as its very big and very deep so could have affected the nerve. $353 dollars later we left. We don't think it's the last trip Candy will be making to the dentist unfortunatley.

Because of 'toothgate', we've extended our Cairns stay for a further 3 days until the 20th. We were thinking of taking a trip to Port Douglas for the weekend, but with further reports of the cyclone causing floodings to highways, we're really dubious about leaving Cairns and being stranded somewhere else. Perhaps with our luck, we should just stay put. We want to take a trip to the Great Barrier Reef, but again, with the weather, we'll have to play that one day by day.

We'll keep you posted...