After a very early morning flight from Darwin, and a quick 10 minute shuttle ride, we were in our double room at the Calypso Inn, in Cairns, Queensland. The 7th state (out of 8) that we would have visited here in Australia.

We arrived in Cairns knowing this was the beginning of the end of our time in Australia, and it had certainly panned out well. We had tickets to the weekends ReggaeTown and the hostel were having 4 bands staying there, Gil and Lis were coming to meet see us for a night as they were working just a couple of hours away in Atherton. So we were expecting a fun last week. Not only all of this, but we were going to try and fit in a day out on the Great Barrier Reef.

As we'd been travelling pretty much through the night with no sleep at all, we decided to sleep the minute we got to the hostel. The heat eventually got to us and we were up again a few hours later, so decided to hit the streets of Cairns. Our first impressions of the city were good. The city was actually fairly small and seemed to have a very relaxed atmosphere, and although it was hot tropical weather, it was a relief compared to the humidity of Darwin. As we walked into town along the foreshore we noticed there wasn't actually a sandy beach but instead, as the tide was out, mudflats. Swimming in the sea was also at your own risk because of the amount of saltwater crocodiles that enter the sea through the creeks and rivers within the city. To make up for this there is a man-made lagoon by the esplanade, with plenty of bbq areas (typical Australia), which was packed full of sunbathing tourists and Aussies alike. After exploring the town we then had make a little trip to a casino club sort of place to collect our tickets for the festival. We thought it would be fairly easy; catch a bus, get the tickets, catch a bus back, simple. After spending ages waiting at the bus stop for a bus that was clearly not coming, I managed to persuade Kirsty to walk. It didn't look that far on the map, but we'd that mistake before. About 45 minutes later, after seeing numerous different neighbourhoods and crossing plenty of little creeks (with crocs in our minds too) and getting dark, we made it to the casino to collect our tickets. Fortunately we managed to get a bus back, but not after that unexpected tour of the backstreets of Cairns.

Our 3rd night at the hostel we decided to enter the quiz night. Finding out that the losing team would be thrown into the pool fully clothed, we decided to get some more people on our team of two. After sizing up the backpackers scattered around the hostel, we persuaded two young Aussy lads to join our team. It turned out we got on really well with the lads and they were going to ReggaeTown too. It also turned we all got pretty drunk that night, came 3rd in the quiz and got to watch the poor losers be thrown in the pool.

After swimming off our hangovers the following day, we were all set to go to ReggaeTown with Kepi and Kailen (K-Dog), the aussy's from the night before. We got a shuttle bus full of raggaetown-ers and arrived at Tjapuki (meaning 'Rainforest' in Aboriginal) Aborginal Park just as the sun was setting. The place was incredible. A miniature festival set amongst a magical tropical rainforest. And the music had just started. We then spent the evening dancing away to some amazing reggae bands, but it was the finale that we were really looking forward to. The best band in the whole world: THE CAT EMPIRE!! And, did they live up to the expectations we had? Bloody oath they did!!! For the next 2 hours we danced away, it was amazing! And I don't even do dancing. To top the night off we bumped into Paco randomly, who we had lived and worked with in South Australia. 3,000km away from where we first met him, we had now just bumped into him again...and it was all completely unplanned. The fact that we were all a little bit drunk too made it seem even more exciting. The night didn't end there either; when we got back to the hostel we jammed with some of the bands from the festival until 4 am. Definitely a night to remember.

There was no let-up of the partying for us the next day either. Guylain and Lisolette had the day off from potato farming so were coming to visit us from the Tablelands in Atherton. And they were keen to party. Us, not so! But it didn't take long once they arrived that evening for Kirsty and I to get into the swing of things again. Before we knew it we were playing drinking card games, caps (the famous bottle top game) and exchanging stories from the past months travelling. It was a great night and really good to see them again. I can really see that they are going to be friends for life. The night concluded with all of us jumping in the pool fully clothed...why not?

After three full-on days of partying pretty hard, Sunday was a bit of a recovery day. We said goodbye to Gil and Lis (until Thailand), and spent the rest of the day relaxing by the pool. We still had three more days in Cairns and were planning on fitting a day out on the reef before we left.

That day out on the reef came a couple of days later. It was to be the last big thing we were to do in Australia, with very little money and only a few days left before heading to Bangkok, the Great Barrier Reef was a must. Seen as we were so close it be crazy not to. We got a 7am boat out to Thetford Reef, one of 2,900 individual reefs within the Great Barrier Reef. During the hour and a half journey to reef we all got prepped for what we would be doing. I was going to go scuba diving; Kirsty would be snorkelling for the first time in her life, so she was pretty excited and nervous. We also got told a billion facts about the Reef, one being that the Great Barrier Reef can be seen from outer space and is the world's biggest single structure made by living organisms.

It was a brilliant day. We spent about 5 hours on the reef and we were free to snorkel as much as pleased and I went down for to scuba dives. It was incredible amongst it all, seeing the amazing coloured fish and reef, even the odd nemo fish here and there. Sadly, we didn't see any sharks. Kirsty, obviously wasn't up for seeing a shark seeing as it was her first time snorkelling, but I was as I had heard the reef shark are pretty harmless. We had a lovely lunch on board the boat and continued swimming around the reef and eventually got back to Cairns at 5 that afternoon. It was a great way to end our time in Cairns and our time in Australia.

The next day we were flying to Sydney for a few days before heading to Asia, so it was really starting to hit home just how close we were to the end of our travels. As for Cairns; we both loved it. A great city that had the 'real' feel of Australia, like Darwin, and most definitely a place we would come back to.