So we finally made it up the East Coast to Cairns, in total this was 60 hours on a coach from Melbourne!!! Thats how big Australia actually is! We arrived here in their winter and the thermometer showed it was 33 degrees!!! It was absolutely roasting. They were hosting the Iron Man triathlon there and we went to go and see some of the people cross the finish line......only we were too hot and couldnt even stand in it! Some people take 18 hours to complete the course and we couldnt stand for longer than 5 minutes in the heat. Im not sure how they did it!! We met up with one of my old school friends who happened to be there at the same time and went out for a few bevvies. We went to a pub which cost about 10 dollars a drink (about the standard price everywhere!) but they were selling dinner for $2! This made no sense at all but it was delicious!

Cairns is the stop for the Great Barrier Reef so we booked another boat trip to go out and see it on Tusa5. Ben had booked to do some more diving there and everybody else had gone in snorkelling whilst i sat on the boat........by myself! I was too scared to go in on my own. However, when Ben got back from his first dive he managed to get me in the water! I had been watching everyone snorkelling and there was a massive fish that was hanging around the back of the boat where you have to get in. And when i say it was massive, it actually was!! Its called Elvis because of this weird hair style its got going on and its over a meter long and probably the same depth as well!

But anyways, i managed to get in and after quite a while i put my head under the water. The visability is amazing and you can see about 20m through the water, although at some point the coral is only about half a meter under the water surface so you are literally swimming on top of it.

It was amazing to see but i was glad to get safely back on the boat away from any man eating sharks. We moved to another reef and Ben went diving again so i thought i would surprise him and go in the water by myself. I say by myself but technically i was being pulled around by the instructor. I got to see Nemo though, and even a little baby one about 10 cm from my face.

We saw some amazing fish and it definitely does live up to the hype. Ben was disappointed that he didnt get to see another shark but apparently they are hardly spotted any more because they are often killed for shark fin soup! Very harsh indeed!

It was then time to move on to Ayers rock aka Uluru to sleep under the stars..........or so we thought!