Arrived in Cairns about 1pm on Monday after our last Greyhound bus journey, thankfully only hr and a half long! Set off with our packs on to our hostel- Shennanigans checked it (had the best air con ever!! :-) ) As there is no beach in Cairns, headed straight to the lagoon to meet Sam and Simon as they were leveing the following day! Really nice and realxing here, a huge swimming pool looking out onto the ocean! Was nice to catch up with them, shared all our expereinces so far and organised to meet them and there friends that night- they kindly gave us a voucher $10 for a meal beer and a pudding- result!! Had a nice meal with them, they they headed off for an early night and we had a few nightcaps in our hostel bar before bed!

Day 2 in Cairns...was a little overcast so decided to hit the surf shops one last time in Aus, I've been so good so far I must add! But 9weeks with the same wardrobe does get quite monotomous u know- so I treated myself to some new shorts and a top! :-) oh also some new flop flips as mine snapped! We then met a family friend of Claire's who drove us north of Cairns to Crystal Cascades up in the rainforest, we took a walk and chilled out by the river for a while. He the drove us to a lookout point for a fantastic view of Cairns! That evening we cooked a meal in our hostel then went to the cinema to see 27 Dresses- a claissic chick flick of course!!

Yeah i've made it too today... Another lie in till about midday- oops! Sun was shining, 36 degrees in fact- headed to the lagoon to work on the tan- oh it's a hard life!! So heading back to pack up and have some tea- then popping out later to say our farewells to our friends here before a 3.30am depart to the airport- we're going to be grotty girlies!!!

Cairns was lovely, not what I expected more like a holiday resort than a city- kind of dissapointed we didn't go out on the reef here but we must watch our pennies and I suppose we did do it in the Whitsundays! So- farewell to Australia, sad to be leaving but muchos excited about New Zealand now, have just booked our Kiwi Experience as got a great discount with the agents we've used so far! Guess what in less that 2 weeks I'll have jumped out of an aeroplane...eeeeek!!!! :-)

Hope thins finds everyone well and will catch up in NZ! xxx