Our last full day in Cairns today…we wish we were staying longer! Everything is pretty good value here compared to everywhere else along the east coast - dorm beds for $18 instead of $30, free meals at the hostel, cheap drinks…oh well, off to expensive Perth tomorrow! Back to today…time to explore the Great Barrier Reef! This is another one of the things on my 'bucket list' and we were both really excited, although a little unimpressed at the 7am start! W...

We had a slow start to the day today, trying to recover from our Australia Day festivities! It was boiling hot and sunny outside, so we packed our towels and headed to the lagoon to relax. We lay on our towels under a tree to shade from the scorching sun, and swam in the lovely lagoon for a while - I wish you could do this in Boro to get over a hangover! We'd had enough sun after a few hours, so headed back to the hostel. We had our free dinner in the bar (minc...

Well, Kel left very early this morning for the first flight of a mammoth 33 hour journey home - rather her than us! We've enjoyed all the adventures we've had together in the last 3 weeks - we've definitely kept her busy! Anyway, we've still got four months of travelling to do, beginning with celebrating Australia Day today! It's a public holiday here so everyone gets together for BBQs, drinks and sunshine! In the morning, we headed down to the Esplanade by the...

After a nightmare bus journey overnight, we arrived in Cairns at 6am, all very tired and wanting nothing more than a shower and a bed! We got a taxi to our hostel and put our bags in the luggage room. The guy told us to come back after lunch to check-in…just 6 hours to wait then! We went to a coffee shop next door for some caffeine, and then I used the opportunity to call home - it's not often we're up this early! For the rest of the morning we wandered around...

We woke to heavy rain for the first time on the trip. We decided not to get our stuff wet and go snorkelling again, so we hung around on deck and in the cabin while most people had another dip. Lunch was served very early at 10am(!) but it was only hot dogs so we managed to force a few down! Then it was back to port at Airlie Beach after a fantastic couple of days. Definitely a trip we'll remember! Back at Airlie Beach, we had a few hours to kill before our nex...