Katie:

Left Magnetic Island and made our way to Cairns, our final stop on the Oz Experience bus. On the way to Cairns we stopped off at a Crocodile Farm which was loads of fun if not a bit scary! We walked around watching these crocodiles being fed- they were absoultely huge! The owner was a nutjob and sat on the biggest croc and placed his hat on his head. They were really fiesty creature- one bit the workers rake in half. Arber was a lot braver than me (I jumped at the sight of them) and held a few snakes and an alligator. Arber also decided to get himself purposefully bitten by a snake which was rewarded with a free bottle of water (don't worry it wasn't poisoneous & he is still alive to tell the tale). The farm was really good fun it had over 5500 crocs, lots of birds, kangaroos roaming around freely & talking parrots!

After leaving the farm we made our way to Cairns and arrived that evening. We stayed in the Serpent Hostel which was really nice. That evening we had a walk around the city centre before heading to the Woolshed to meet up with people from our bus. We had a wicked backpackers dinner of Steak & Chips for $6.50 a nice treat after living on beans on toast for the previous weeks! It was ladies night at the bar so I enjoyed free champagne all night and had a fun time- although we are convinced Australia Backpacker bars only have one CD as they all play the same music!

The following couple of days were pretty relaxing as we were exhausted from our trip & were happy to enjoy a treat of a lie in. The sun was shining and it was 25C we finally got a taste of what Oz weather should be like even though we only had a few days left. I made the most of being in a big city and did some more shopping, checked out the local markets before heading to the Lagoon where we lazied around the man made lagoon soaking up some sunshine. That evening we went to the night market and I finally bought my Ugg boots after much deliberation! On returning to the hostel we watched our first ever Cane toad race which was pretty fun if not a little bizarre!

We left Cairns at 3.30am to make our way to the airport to catch our flight back to Brisbane before heading to Australia. The domestic flight was really nice and we had a wicked sunrise & some cool views of the city- we were also lucky enough to be able to see dolphins from the plane in the sea as we were coming into land pretty exciting. The day itself was so long as we didn't arrive into Auckland until 1am the following morning- a very boring day at the airport.

Arber:

We have spent too long in airports if you could clock up air miles by the amount of time you sit in a departure lounge we would be flying this entire trip for free!!

The Croc farm was... well... amazing if not evidence of the fact that health and safety codes havent reached Oz just yet and thank god they havent!! Getting bitten was fun and watching Kate run a mile from anything with scales was even better!! - The best bit was when one of the crocs decided to bite off the instructors ...... rake.

Cairns was cool and the reason i dont have much to say is because we felt like being lazy and i can tell you it was fun really fun!! The most excercise i did in cairns was on a pin ball machine!!

But now its farewell to sunny cairns as we head for NZ!!!