Well eventually made it to Oz! Arrived in Brisbane with no plans for the next 7 months - scary!

Stayed at a hostel called Tin Billy's which was really nice, a good bar downstairs. It's pretty hot there so enjying walking around in the sun. Enjoyed a couple of days of wandering around the shops and window shopping only.

 Took a bus to Steve Irwin's Australian Zoo.  Had a great day, definately the best zoo I've been to.  Lots of hands on activities.  Got to feed an elephant, pat a Koala and Kangaroo.  The croc show was really good, got to watch a croc being fed and manipulated around the crocoseum.  It was quite sad too.  There were lots of images of Steve being shown on the big screen and someone who had sung at his funeral came out to sing the song again, definately had a few tears in my eye.

After getting some advice we decided to fly up to Cairns and sort ourselves out from there. Stayed at Gilligan's Hostel - definately the Ritz of all hostels! The bar and nightclub downstairs was busy and there was a pool and small beach. Picked the right weekend too - as it's the finish of the Ozzie Rules football season, all the teams take a weekend trip to Cairns! Lots of oogling that weekend!

Did quite a bit of sunbathing at the Lagoon in Cairns, you can't swim in teh sea (too many dangers) so each larger town has a lagoon. While sunbathing, we spotted two girls we had met on the Wanna Taki Cruise in Fiji, Jo and Jill.  Decided to be proper Aussies that night and cook our won BBQ.  There were BBQ dotted all over by the lagoon, so got our sausages together and threw a few shrimps on the barbie!  Had a good night, the funnies tthing was a family next to us were cooking up a feast, we had a few sausages and burgers and managed to blacken most of them.  I think they felt sorry for us because they gave us some of their leftovers...poor backpackers....

Took a trip out to the Great Barrier Reef the next day.  Weather was a bit cloudy so we didn't get to go to all the places we should have and just stayed at Upolo Cay all day. Decised to try scuba diving, pretty much because it was free. Had a 5 minute inroduction and were basically told to keep breathing.  I thought that we were going to be diving from the shore but did it from the back oif the boat instead.  Kar and I were in teh first group and I was first to get in teh water and go under.  Felt very much the professional....gas tank on...scuba gear...looked the part but as soon as she deflated my jacket and I started going under I totally freaked out! It was a weird sensation being told to breathe in under the water. I started shaking my hands to tell her to take me back up but she just kept saying breathe....that was the last thing on my mind! Eventually she took me back to the surface to 'practice' breathing.....Kar's turn next and she did exactly the same thing! After a few practice sessions we finally made it under the water.  We had to do a ew exercises to make sure we could go further??!!?!!  Managed them, just and down we went.  I can't say I enjoyed it very much, i was panicking far too much.  The rest of the group were great but we were getting dragged around by the hand...couldn't really take in much of the coral.  I was very thankful when she finally let us go back to the surface....not sure I'll be doing any more diving.  The funniest thing of the day was getting back to land and noticing Karen's red face....around a set of pure white eyes...major owl eyes. I couldn't look at her for the rest of the night.

The next day we were off agian to Cape Tribulation, north of Cairns in the rainforest.  Did a tour that took us over the Daintree river which is infested with crocs!! Did a croc tour but only saw one popping up from the water.  Drove on to Cape Trib and took a walk thorugh teh rainforest. Stayed at a place calles PK's, supposed to be 'the place' to go but it was really quiet.  Decided to go a walk along the beach and up to a look out point but only got so far because we had to cross a wee stream and there was a croc on the other side, no way was I crossing it! It must have been about 3-4m long and sat with it's mouth wide open, scary stuff!

Headed back to Cairns the next day and stopped in Port Douglas for an ice cream and Mossman Gorge.  Met up with Jill and Jo at night and went to the crazy place that is the Wool Shed. It was Ladies night so free champagne (!!!??) was the order..let's just say Karen took full advantage of this offer and had each glass timed down to the minute. Best bit about the Wool Shed is you can dance on the tables!!! Great fun!