WE'VE MADE IT TO ALICE SPRINGS, WOOO HOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! No rain, no floods, no Contiki!

After my last mega blog we met back with the tour rep in town for further instruction and decided to go back with the coach to the hotel. What a mistake - as it was still early and we hadn't done much, we took a walk to the shopping mall just down the road and I put everything back on the credit card that I had just cleared! Well, not really, but have a few great additions to my wardrobe that I hope to wear this British summer.

The day of 'the proposed flight' we decided to go to Magnetic Island. Dan (tour guide) also decided to go so we drummed up a group of 10 of us to get the ferry over. We hired 2 4wd vehicles and with Dan driving one and Chris driving the other (so proud), 2 lots of 5 went around the bays and stopped at the base of a hill to do a walk up to a WW2 fort. Even though it was slashing it down as we arrived and left the island, it was pretty dry whilst on it so we were lucky. Dan was quite good, stopping at a 'tree ant nest' (leaves all stuck together on a tree branch), tapping it to get some ants out and then eating some. Apparently they're citrusy. I didn't confirm that. We also saw black Cockatoos (rare).

Our flight was at 5.20pm so at 5.40pm and no info, we were all getting a bit negative. Thankfully all was okay and there was just a delay so off we went on a 50 seater ish propeller plane to Cairns. I think everyone yelped when it suddenly dropped a few feet during a bumpy patch; my heart was surely pounding. Landing in Cairns and the heavens were opening yet again. I think we were all so so sick of the rain but so so pleased to be in Cairns! I did the quickest turnaround in my life (27 mins and even washed my hair and attempted a mini-straighten!) as we were off to the Woolshed at 8.15pm for a party night. Now those who have been there - need I say more? Those who haven't : cheap but good food. Pitchers of drink (free ones for Contiki on arrival) and 2 for 1. Dancing, loud music and a MEAT MARKET. It was such good fun. We left at 11pm with some others though as we had booked 'Uncle Brian's Bus Tour' for the following day. I was disappointed as I was thinking that our one day should have been used to get out to the reef although I was unsure after hearing that although the people who had been out that day thought it was lovely, there were lots of horror stories of the boat being packed with a large amount of loud rude people and almost everyone being sea sick as it was so choppy.

Our Uncle Brian's tour group consisted of 3 Germans (one being the happiest and most off the wall German I've ever met), 2 Taiwanese, 2 English (Weston Super Mare), me and Chris, Cousin Rowan (Uncle Brian has stepped more into the background as he is now a dad) and Gus the Wonder Bus. Getting on Gus, I was thinking 'Boo hoo, reef reef reef!!!'. Getting off Gus I was thinking 'How cool was that?! Reef smeef!!'. Gus took us right up into the Atherton Tablelands and the Rainforest and Cousin Rowan was so fun and knowledgeable that you wouldn't guess he has been doing the tour for x amount of times a week for a couple of years. Our tour had to differ slightly as there were some road closures dur to flooding, but it was still excellent. We saw the Cathedral fig tree, which I cannot explain - wait for the photo. We visited Lake Barrine, a crater Lake and went for a rainforest walk. This was an experience because it was so very wet and muddy (I think the mud is ingrained) and as we stopped at one point for Cousin Rowan to start a spiel about something, I looked down at my poor muddy feet and saw a bloody rude little blood sucking (and something that rhymes with sucking) leech stuck near my big toe sucking on MY blood. Now I don't care for anything taking anything from me without asking so I interupted Cousin Rowan for instruction on how to remove the little beggar. I did this very calmly whilst absolutely s***TING myself inside. It took everything I had to keep myself still and not run around screaming thinking I was about to lose my foot. The answer from Cousin Rowan was to simply scrape them off with your fingernail as they're only small Rainforest ones (apparently. To me it was going to suck litres out of me in minutes and then eat me). This is fine, but then they can latch onto you finger if you're not careful. Chris found it amusing until he noticed one on himself. I then found another one by my ankle and didn't enjoy the rest of the walk as I removed a total of around 5 leeches. They just kept appearing! Chris won the game in the end though as a bit later we found quite a fat one near his ankle who must have been there a while and one between his 2nd and 3rd toe which, unfortunately, he pulled off and this caused a slow bleed throughout the trip. It was a tweezer operation on return to the hotel to remove bits of leech head. NOTE: the bug spray that we paid almost 8 pounds for said it protects against leeches. We obviously do not recommend Bushmans. We also found a mega fat one on the bus that must have been on someone for long enough to gorge itself to satisfaction. Unfortunately, someone must have stepped on it as it was half squished and there was a bit of a blood explosion across the the bus floor. Me, being the microbiologist and aware of blood borne viruses (it could have been sucking anyone) took precautions and mopped it up with equipment I seem to carry with me on trips now (wet wipes, tissues, plaster... etc).

AFter those fun and games we had fun and games on the bus (Sian - a really good one using matchsticks and a polo!) until stopping at our first waterfall, which you can imagine was awesome due to the increased water. We saw some Golden Orb Spiders (amazing webs - rather big spiders), visited another waterfall and stopped for a home cooked lunch in a farm tearoom. We then went to Milla Milla falls. Think Timotei advert and Peter Andre's Mysterious Girl video and that's the one. Chris went for a swim but it was absolutely sloshing it down so I felt wet enough! On to Lake Eacham, another crater lake, and I did swim then seeing as it was warmer water and had stopped raining and got warmer. We saw freshwater turtle and archer fish (not whilst swimming, further around the lake!). During afternoon tea I got a wild bird to feed from my hand and on the way back it was dusk and we watched the hundreds on large fruit bats taking off from the trees and starting their flight to the rainforest to start their nightly feed. Getting back at 8pm we were exhausted but feeling good and brightened as it was all about 'the bright side of the road'. Thank you Cousin Rowan, we will spread the good word of enlightenment!

As we were so tired on our return, we had to cry off the meet up with Tim and Nish, who were coincidently in Cairns, after persuading them the previous day that we would be fine to go into the town and drink with them. This was also due to the huge taxi fare to town as well as tiredness and hunger, but it was all good as we found out this morning that the roads to the hotel flooded last night and people were walking back through the water. We could believe it as the rain we could hear was unbelievable and when the thunder started it was the loudest thunderclaps I had ever heard that shook me to the core. Particularly as the first one was as we were dropping off to sleep - we almost had to wash the sheets!!! :)

We obviously didn't get to do some of the trips that we wanted to do in Cairns that some people had given us the money for as our wedding gifts because of the weather, but we'd like those people to know that we have instead put the money to good use, especially for Uncle Brian's tour. We will let you know exactly what we used it for on our return. Thank you so much.

Sods law is that the storm must have cleared this persistent rain that the north has been having as we awoke to a bit of sun today. Typical. Our flight to Alice was amazing as I understood the vastness of the outback after seeing it from the air, and also why it's called the red centre. My mouth was hanging open. The extremes of this country is so shocking to me - 65 deaths so far from savage bush fires around Melbourne today and sky rocketing temperatures with crops being severly damaged by the heat and water restrictions. And in the north, people cut off due to flooding, crocs swimming down the streets and crops being lost due to the persistent rain.

And lovely Alice Springs? High 30's today. So good to be out of the humidity and rain, but I'm still damp as not it's sweat! The flies aren't as bad as I thought they'd be, but I still have my fly net to hand. We did go for a little walk down to the town centre and I was suprised to see the amount of Aborigines hanging around, even though I was warned. I find it saddening. Our hostel is really nice (thanks to those who paid for our stay) and we found great relief in the pool whilst we did a bit of washing ready for our trip which starts at 5.50am tomorrow. ULURU, here I come!!!

PS - Not only do I have straight hair today (yippeee), I have a wedding ring suntan mark, woo hooo!!!!!

xxx