I write this blog to u today after yet another night of broken sleep, it is becoming a daily occurence that i am almost ready to accept along with the big bags under my eyes.... jen has a matching pair. Recently we have spent many a night in bed by 10pm (yes im sure that shocked u mum!) as we dont feel like drinking every single night like other backpackers and with only knowledge of two card games there is little else to do in cairns. so we save our money and retire to bed at a reasonable time, yet everyday we wake up with bags, this we can only assume is due to being woken up continuously every single night without fail, that is the life of a bachpacker... donna be warned!

Last night at 3am we were treated to a rendition of several irish folk songs by some very bad irish singers and a guitar... right outside our dorm door. After lots of complaints from our neighbours they moved on.... to the foyer downstairs right outside the hostels windows, so for the next hour we were kept awake by their drunken shouting and chants! when all was quiet on the hostel front, i thought id try to get some sleep, but a guy (presumably the same irish twat) walked up and down outside my room burping loudly! it was then that the 3 other occupants of our room decided to wonder in at various times of the night, talk in the room and slam our broken door despite a note on it telling them how to do it quietly!! through the night the drunken t*** in our room decided to sleep talk really loudly... i finally got to bed at 5:30am. Not to be outdone jen woke up at 9am and turned on all the dorm lights and slammed and unzipped everything possible to give them a taste of their own medicine! tonight should be interesting....

so here it is, the life of a backpacker in Cairns or anywhere in Oz... dont expect a single nights good sleep, you WILL be woken up throughout the night and failing that you are guaranteed to have someone in ur room that has to be up at 6am for whatever reason. Although we were woken up in Asia early in the morning by normally Asian people going to work or cooking breakfast this is the asian culture- get up early and go to bed early... i have since learnt that the Oz culute is get up late and go to bed late, suitably drunk and make sure u wake up the entire hostel on the way!

Im not bitter, although i may sound it!! in fact at 5 am when i couldnt sleep and the guy was sleep talking i laughed to myself, im so used to this sort of thing now, it is part of my sleeping pattern!

so anyways enough ranting... Jen and I have now finsihed all the trips we planned for Australia (apart from getting our padi - basically a licence to scuba dive- which we'll do once were about to leave australia), the next month should be spent working, however this isnt looking too likely as our jobhunting today hasnt gone too well... on a happier note.... Since I last spoke to you I have spent 3 days, 2 nights on a sailing boat called the Habibi with 22 other people. The boat sailed around the Whitsunday islands and gave us time to snorkel in 2 different dive spots and explore the whitsunday island which is probably one of the most gorgeous places on earth. The first night was spent drinking "goon" or cheap wine (tastes just like the stuff at home but u get 4 litres for 4 pounds!!) which was alot of fun seeing as we all started at 4pm. The captain loaned me his seat and hat... and pineapple sunglasses.... for the night and it was a great time spent meeting so many different people. When we snorkled we had to wear stunning stinger suits to protect us against the many killer jellyfish in the sea (see my pics!) and despite the water being freezing it was amazing seeing all the coral and fish, i even saw nemo! i think!

One bus ride and a boat trip later we arrived on magnetic island. Its a pretty small island which you can drive round in half an hour. On our first day we bumped into two guys we had met in airlie beach called Guy and Chris and we all rented out a moke, a small car thingy (see pic!) and explored the island. we went on a small trek around the bush in search of the koalas but after an hour and speaking to many locals we realised that only one koala had been seen that day so after lots of searching we managed to find the sleepy b*****! he was very cute and i was really pleased to see a koala in the wild rather than at a zoo! Afterwards we visited the animal sanctuary and saw the bird feeding! this was hilarious as there were about 200 birds all wanting to be fed so they fly all around you and sit on your heads and backs thinking uve got food! think jen even got pooed on by one! hehe!

next day we said goodbye to guy and chris as they were moving on to cairns to meet up with their travelling buddy shane (who it turns out is lucy and jame's friend from back home!) and we returned to the sanctuary to do the tour where you meet crocodiles, cockatuus, lizards, koalas and snakes! i held all the animals/reptiles and was amazed i managed to hold a snake after having a fear of them since i was small! i was so happy to hold a koala and it was a baby one at that!! it had yellow all arond its mouth cos its a messy eater... arent most babies! he was so cute!

Our next stop was Mission beach about 4 hours north of Airlie beach, an extremely small sleepy beach town. We were only here for two days, just enough time to do some white water rafting on the Tully river. The day before the rafting (thurs), jen picked up the local paper to see that an English teacher from back home had been rafting on the monday with the same company and had unfortunately fallen from the raft and got his foot trapped in some rocks. he died when the rafters couldnt pull him out in time. The company was still running on the friday when we were booked in and no one mentioned it on our arrival. After worrying about falling in, we asked our guide not to topple the raft on purpose and he said he would do his best to stop the raft turning at all. We were lucky as on a few occasions we were up against 3 and 4 grade rapids and the boat would be at an 80 degree slant with us all falling to one side and yet we managed to keep it upright... thankgod!

Back on the greyhound for our last ever bus ride up the eastcoast we arrived in Cairns. For want of a better comparison its a bit like watford but with a more holiday feel to it. Its warm here so we walk around in vest tops and shorts and theres lots of bars and restaurants to cater for everyone. its basically a party town, so on our first night here (sat) we met up with chris from magnetic island and shane (lucy's and jame's mate) and went to nearly every bar and club in the town until we found a wicked club in the Casino and stayed until 5 in the morning! after recovering on the sunday we spent 2 days in Cape Tribulation, the only place in Australia where the rainforest meets the coral reef. On the first day we did a croc tour, where we went on a boat down the daintree river to look for croc's- we were really lucky as we saw fat albert, his girlfriend and another fat croc (see pics!) then we did a board walk through the rainforest learning about all the different species of trees and animals that live there. The next day we spent relaxing by the pool and trekking (ok walking on a path) to cape tribulation beach. The weather was warm but very windy so you couldnt really sunbathe as such but it was a nice relaxing couple of days.

This brings me back to Cairns! we moved hostels on our return from cape tribulation because the hostel we had stayed in before was a bit mankey and smelly! the one we're in now is much cleaner but as we found out last night has alot more party animals in it! so fingers crossed we'll get a job soon or we'll have to resort to spending all our money on going out drinking to keep ourselves entertained!!boo hoo!

hope everyone is well! love me.xxx