Monday 11th May

After a few beers the previous night, watching man city loose (to slaters disappointment)and the weather getting better we were in good spirits as we headed up to cairns. I drove over 500km of the 677km to cairns whilst slates drove the lilly bear and guy slept in the back, managing to have one of the worst dreams of his life with all of us being shot by terroists!! HA! Anyways we eventually got to cairns although we had a slight hicup 10km from cairns when slater got pulled over for drag racing, after over 3,500 km this was just sods law! But slates was lucky enough to be let off with just a "faack off u stupid pommy." After this we met up with ash at a bar down on the front looking over the marina, we had a couple of beers and then ash was nice enough to invite us back to his place where we had a few more beers and then hit the hay in our vans on ash's front lawn.

Tuesday 12th

Guy, Slater, Charlie and Gareth started there open water dive course so i chilled with ash and alex all day whilst they did this. We took his new puppy, suri, fo a walk down the beach and then had some lunch and a couple of beers at this nice place on the beach, i had actually been there before when i was in cairns last easter. After lunch we headed back to ash's place where we chilled out all afternoon by the pool, playing ps3 and having a few beers in the sun. We headed to the green ant for supper, had an amazing dinner and then went back and crashed on the sofa at ash's place.

Wednesday 13th

I had a fairly hectic morning sorting out the returning of the campervan, i had to sort everything out as the other guys where doing there open water course but no worries. After i had sorted it all out ash came picked me up and we headed back to his place for another chilled out afternoon. After a very chilled boozy afternoon i headed over to rthe serpent hostel had a few beers with gaz then headed to bed.

Thursday 14th

We were all up pretty early as we had a 7 45 pick up from ash in the deep sea divers den van to take us to the boat down in the marina. We all got on sea quest and headed out to the reef which is 60miles from cairns. We got there just before lunch, i had a dive with ash and this really fat black guy and this random english woman but it was quite fun, i met wally the famous fish. We then had lunch, i had another dive after lunch and then moved over to the liveaboard boat (ocean quest) where ash had set me up with my own double room (how good is that!!). I then did one more dive that day with this random english guy called colin. Later on that evening we went for a night snorkel as the other guys had not passed their open water yet so couldnt do the night dive, ash chucked in the leftover from dinner so we had about 3 or 4 2metre grey reef sharks circling us, it was pretty crazy and got the adrenaline pumping but it was good fun. We then headed up to the top deck bar where we spent the rest of the evening and ended up drinking the bar out of VB with some of the crew, we all also had a little go at digerydooing which was much harder than i had expected. A spot of fishing also occurred, we managed to hook a shark but it snapped the line and swam off, was pretty jokes though.

Friday 15th

I had a nice long lie in and then went for a dive in the afternoon with all my newly qualified friends, we went on a mission to find cleaner crabs and we did and they cleaned our fingernails and stuff which was pretty cool! I then had a dive with ash, just me and him which was nice we saw a turtle though which had had its back right fin bitted off by what i guessed was probably a shark. Then because everyone was now qualified we did the night dive together, gareth was s***ting it but loved it afterwards. We had more of a chilled night after the heavy night the day before, watched a film and went to bed.

Saturday 16th

Our last day on the boat and guy's last day travelling!! We all got up at 5 50 to do the dawn deep dive, we are all now qualified to dive to 30m as opposed to 18m now which is pretty good. But it was a really cool dive, with the sun coming up and everything. After breakfast we all did another last dive together, i managed to get some pretty good pictures of nemo etc. We then headed back to cairns on sea quest polishing off quite a few beers on the way, getting ourselves ready for our last big night in OZ. When we got off the boat we headed to the nearest bar, had some more beers for a couple of hours and then heade back to the hostel to drop off our stuff and get ready to go out. We first hit the hostel bar getting a massive order of 45 jagerbombs between all of us ($375 worth!!). We then coned marcus into drinking 5 shots of vodka whilst we all did shots of water which was pretty funny! After all the heavy pre-lashing we headed to the woolshed in town and had an epic evening which ended up in me, paisnel and gareth taking this random guy back to his hostel cos he was so drunk (this then got a bit messy).

Sunday 17th

We all woke up earlyish to say goodbye to guy and then spent the rest of the day recovering finishing it off with dinner at the green ant. I cant believe i m leaving Oz, its gone so quickly but anyways asia is going to be awesome. Its not really that long till i get home, and i cant belive we ve lost guy!! Anyways we shall soldier on without him....