ok here goes with another blog...

we checked out of scottys hostel on the 9th june and moved up north to cairns. cairns is beautiful, the weather was really nice so we chilled out by the lagoon mainly and walked around all the awesome shops.... theres a shop called "the british lolly shop" which sells just english sweets and stuff it was weird going in there and seeing normal food.

On the 12th June me gem and 3 others that we're travelling with hired a car for the day and drove to Hartleys Crocodile Farm. It wasn't advertised as a farm so it was only when we got there and had paid to get in that we found out they breed crocodiles in the thousands to sell them for meat and for their skin. It was pretty disturbing. In one small cage they'd keep up to 80 crocodiles and they were all lying on top of each other with nowhere to move. We were then taken on a boat ride around a lake where this crazy guy (well our guide he wasnt a complete random) dangled a chicken over the side of the boat so we could watch the crocodiles jump up and eat them .... scary stuff. We left there after a few hours and then drove to a town called Kuranda outside cairns. This is an original aboriginal town, we spent the afternoon wandering around the markets and the traditional aboriginal shops. On the way back to the hostel we stopped off at a place called Yorkey's Knob.... just because we found the name of it so funny. There was nothing there so we just had our photos taken with the sign and left.

The next day we checked out of Bohemian Central ... the hostel we were staying at. Didn't much like it there, our dorm was like a prison cell as there were no windows and i don't think they employed any cleaners...eww. so yeah we were glad to leave there. We had booked onto a tour to go to Cape Tribulation, which is further north of cairns. Our guide was called Jeremy and OH MY GOD he did not stop speaking... at all... ever. we actually found it really funny but after listening to him twitter on about trees for 3 hours we were glad to be away from him. On the way up to Cape Trib we stopped off at Mossman Gorge and had a walk around, it was really really pretty there. We then moved on to Daintree Zoo were we saw cassowaries. (they are big huge killer birds, there are only 1000 left in the world and they are in this area so everything is about saving the cassowary) We also saw baby kangaroos that were being hand reared and this woman was carrying them around in a basket - SO CUTE.

After that we crossed the Daintree river on a cable ferry and then were dropped off at Fern Tree Lodge in the jungle were we were staying for 2 nights. It was a really nice room but when we turned the lights off to go to sleep that night we realised how many weird sounds there were outside and how many creepy shadows appeared on the walls. Obviously all the girls freaked out, and gem was making up aload of horror stories that might happen to us that freaked us out even more. eventually we were all starting to drop off to sleep when dean thought it would be hilarious to jump out of bed and shout at the top of his voice. We all screamed like lunatics and i nearly fell out my bunk, if that had been filmed it would definately have got on 'You've been framed'!!!!

The next day me, gem, vicky and dean decided to go jungle surfing. we were all strapped into harnesses and attached to zipwires and then we whizzed through the rainforest 35m above the ground. it was really good fun, on one zipwire we had to dangle upside down, and on another one they dangled us over a creek...really good views.

The next day gem went horseriding, she had a really good time and did all professional horse riding kind of stuff like cantering. i gave this a miss since i can't horseride and i don't particularty like horses haha. Me kat and vicky decided to go on a walk along cape tribulation beach and then on a boardwalk through the rainforest. In australia places aren't signposted as well as they are in england so we managed to walk straight past the boardwalk and end up in crocodile terriority were you are warned not to step foot in. thankfully we saw no crocodiles and got out of there sharpish!

On the way back to cairns we stayed for one night in Port Douglas, which is beautiful. theres a church right on the beach which was sooooo pretty (and i'm going to get married there one day you're all invited)

Thats all for now, we're back in cairns for a while. the weathers pretty crap since it is winter now, when i saw crap i mean rain its still bloody boiling. i think we're going to go to the cinema and watch shrek 3 today.

gem will update soon

lots of love from us x x x x x