had to fly to darwin first and then cairns from singapore which made the journey over 8 hours, thankfully my bag made it through the transfer and it was there waiting for me. i did get picked out to have all my stuff x rayed and then because there is so much rubbish in my bags that they couldnt recognise they had to go through everything. the woman picked up on a mysterious long object which it was the guy who had to explain they were straightners, haha! not humiliating at all! the belt buckle the thai guy gave me is cassete shaped but since its metal it looked funny on the xray so i had to explain that one, then she pretty much gave up on my bag, there was wires and paper and all my other organisation and filing in one bag. she spotted the note book lauren gave me that looks like a passport so i had to explain that one as well and then when she finally got to the bottom there was loads of brown and green leafy stuff. it was just the icing on the cake, i wasnt bothered as i knew its just leaves and stuff from beaches etc. but i could just see what was coming next. she asked but gave me the benefit of the doubt so let me go!

got to the hostel and met up with the halifax lot that id been in thailand with, just spent the night at the hostel with them and drank far too much goon. id booked to go on a live a board the next day and had to be at the pier for half six.

cant believe i made it to be honest, randomly woke up at 3 which was lucky so i packed my small bag for the boat and sorted myself out. woke up at 6 still drunk and starting to get the worst hang over of my life. a sailing boat was just where i wanted to be!

got the pier and i was early so i went and got some breakfast, threw that back up all along the pier while people were having their morning stroll, no worries, wiped my mouth, head up and pretended it wasnt me!

got on the boat and luckily we had three hours to go until we got to the dive site so i just went to bed and all was fine.

other than once we'd left the pier i realised id just left my backpack in the dorm id checked out of, it had my passport, airline tickets, credit card, other cash card, all my clothes, insurance, trip vouchers! not worth much really, but there wasnt alot i could do about it really so i forgot about it and got on with the diving.

amazing, there was one called the fish bowl and it was just that, the coral was perfect and the colours amazing. did four dives and a night dive over the two days and it was a really good trip. other than, i hadnt quite sorted mysefl as well as i thought. i'd packed, two vests, some shorts, a bottle of aftershave, my i pod speakers but not my i pod, no towel and no jumper for the night! Not really that useful!

got back and luckily my backpack was in the room where i left it and nothing stolen! sorted out getting to sydney and what i was doing down the east coast and then got ready to set off the next morning. then went out for a bit to say bye, there was another girl from halifax and two lads from huddersfield in the same hostel, they get everywhere im telling you!

Oh yeah, i forgot, there was a really funny old lady in singapore. she had a pretty cardigan, flowery skirt and then these big white nike trainers on, proper dotty old dear from manchester but she made me laugh. started talking to her and then she said to me 'do you say cairns or curns' when i said cairns she said 'oh well you'd know, your one of the locals' i just looked at her and said im from england so she fell about laughing saying how silly she was but then just kept diggin' 'oh well you can see why i was mistaken, southerners have similar accents to the oz cos all the australians originated from there because they used to take all the prisoners over to oz didnt they, so the accents really similar!' i didnt bother trying to argue that all australians arent decendents of southern prisoners and that they dont really sound anything like each other but just laughed and said 'im from near leeds' - well she just giggled no end and said she could see it now.

carried on telling me how dave had been to oz 12 times, whos dave? she tried to redeem herslef by saying she always does daft stuff and that her son would be so embarassed, im sure he wouldnt! but then went on to tell me how when the first time she got on a plane she but the earphones on and then put the plug end in her mouth cos she thought it was to help her ears from popping. she put the nail in her own coffin when about five minutes later she just randomly stuck her leg in the air and said 'ive got odd socks on, i lost one in the hotel so ive got one black one and one white one on' while she tried to tuck them back below the trainer line. why didnt she just put both white ones on?

mum, rach...you know where your headed!