Hello!!

Well believe it or not this will be my last blog from Australia booo :-( (also rather exciting as of to New Zealand on Wednesday yipee!). Last time i left you at Airlie beach after our day trips. We had our final day chilling by the lagoon even though it was cloudy...turns out cyclone charlotte was heading down this way after hitting up north. So we jumped on our greyhound up to Townsville to catch our ferry to Magnetic Island. Now i know i have been moaning a little about the rain, and we know it is wet season here at the moment....but seriously it was getting ridiculous. We were not expecting this much rain or a cyclone for that matter!! When we arrived at Townsville through the wind and rain it turned out all the ferries had been cancelled as nothing was allowed out because of the weather!!!! I know it is the coldest winter back in England for 20 years...but here the locals were complaining that they hadn't had a summer this bad in 40 years - just our luck! The leaflet for Townsville goes on about how they have at least 300 sunny days a year and magnetic island is the sunniest place on the coast. Well we were stuck there 4 days and it rained the whole time. Just to make our time better we discovered how rubbish Townsville actually is and why no one stays there. Think of Yate, but worse, half the shops are actually shut, it is like a ghost town, plus the rain! hehe. The high point was that our hostel room had a weird little side room with a tv, fridge, table and chairs which made staying in our room for 4 days a little more bearable. So no magnetic island and a few days of reading made us much more excited about leaving to go to Mission beach.

This was so much better!!! We stayed at Scotty's hostel which is amazing. We only had one night here so wanted to make the most of it. After checking in we went to the famous Scotty's bar and grill where i had Kangaroo steak in plum sauce with mash and veg...yum yum! yes i have officially tried it (just tastes like good steak and you can only eat it rare). Then we did a hostel scavenger hunt. We were teamed up with two rather quiet czechs. You had 20 mins to find as many things on the list as possible..each worth different points e.g. disposable razor 10 points, flag 20 points, y-fronts 50 points etc etc. While they totalled up the scores they shipped us all off to a little cafe down the road. while we waited for our lift they counted the scores up. In that time our 2 team members ate, got a lift back and went to there room...before we even got there!! boring! so we went alone to discover we had come 3rd. We then teamed up with 4 other guys we met for a second round. 6 things in 10 mins (this was harder and included a cane toad and a mangina!!...i will leave that to the imagination of those of you that know what it is) We managed 5 out of 6 and won wooooo!! free shot all round, leaving me ready to enter the limbo contest hehehe. I came a close second sadly missing out on a rafting trip. Ah well. So a good night in all.

We then headed on up to Cairns for 3 nights stuffing in as much as we can. First day a boat trip to the Great Barrier Reef, which included snorkelling and two dives! The second one being the best when it was just me, Toya and a dive master for 45 mins basically doing what we wanted around the reef. So amazing i cannot explain. I saw too many fish to mention including nemo...and also a reef shark....i swam with a shark! (well kinda). So another great thing to add to the list. The next day we went to Cape tribulation which included walks in the rainforest, gorges and a crocodile cruise where we saw "Scarface" a 4 and a half metre salt water crocodile. We also saw lots of baby ones too. Finished the day off with a trip to Cairns night market and a $7 massage...well needed as my shoulders adn back are ruined from carrying my huge bag on my little body :-s.

So we flew back down to Sydney today where the 27 degree heat actually felt fresh compared to the north. Tomorrow is our last day where we will take a walk over the harbour bridhe and then watch "The complete works of Shakespeare" at the Opera house yay!!

See you in New Zealand!

Lizzy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx