Hello everyone it has officially been a week since our last update so this one might be quite big. We have been super busy and are absolutely loving Cairns!

Day 74

So we landed in Cairns at ridiculous o'clock in the morning after our flight was delayed for 3 hours due to the lack opf air traffic controllers and then the airline forgetting to load our bags on! We managed to find an awesome hostel though called tropic days - it's only 3 people to a dorm which is nice and has loads of kitchen and bathrooms, a pool and hammocks! We took a wander around town which is uite far away especially now we are in hot weather again!yay!

In the evening we relaxed in the hostel with our room mate luke who is a legend. We had only kown him 5 minutes and he cooked us some tea. We all crashed early as we had all had flights the night before.

Day 75:

Today we were on a mission to get a car. We ended up getting the first one we actually viewed - which was something i said we really shouldn't do but we had seen loads of others and rang up alot of people but their numbers were alwasy busy or they had sold it. We ended up buying a Nissan Patrol 4x4 3.2 Turbo diesel. It is a bit of a tank and we have christened it 'Big Daddy'! It was a bit of a bargain we got it for less than grand and it came with loads of camping equipment including 2 tents, stove and loads of utencils and stuff! It is a bit retro as it is actually older than me but it doesn't look to bad now we have cleaned it up! We have also tested out the off roading abilities of Big Daddy which i will tell you about later.

In the evening we met another new mate called Dave who is scottish so we cooked a meal for luke and chilled out with those to. They are going to come on a rodatrip for a few days with us to Cape tribulation and Cook town.

Day 76:

This morning we had to get loads of stuff sorteds out - first wer headed to Quantas to get our flight tickets re-validated from when we changed the dates before we left!We thought we would get charged $30 for this but luckily they didn't charge us so we got out of that one. We then went to sign up for a medicare card which is kind of like our NHS but the queue was massive and we could not be arsed to wait - just fingers crossed we don't get ill anytime soon! Are next task was to register the car into our names, we soon found out that we couldn't do this as the car is actaully reigstered in NSW and obviously we are in Queenslnd. So we rang up the department of transport in NSW and they said we need to get down there to register it within 2 weeks or if we do it later we get charged a late fee which isn't that much more so we aren't going to rush.

We then went shopping for extra camping gear we needed and then headed back to the hostel for Aussie BBQ night. This consisted of a big BBQ amde up of loads of different meats like crocodile, emu, kangaoroo, fish and loads of salads. It was gorgeous and there was so much food. After this we had some entertainement which basically consisted of Luke getting pulled up to play the didgeridoo with a few others. Luke was so bad that he had to do a forfeit which was to dance around like a kanagroo - he wouldn't do it though so pulled me and Matt up aswell. Which was highly embarrassing. Matt was suprisingly good at it which was hilarious must have been the goon he downed before he got up.

Day 77:

Today we had to check out and were going to start our roadtrip with Luke and Dave to Cape tribulation & cooktown. After a quick food shop we set off towards port douglas and jumped on the ferry just after this to continue our drive to Cape trib. We managed to find a campsite right in cape trib and next to the beach. So we pitched up the tents for the first time and set up camp before taking a nice long walk along the beach which was aboslutely stunning.

In the evening we played some poker and just generally chilled out.

Day 78:

We set off early for cooktwon via a 4wd track. Luke was driving and managed to manouvre through many creeks and some very steep hills before getting stuck halfway up one ridiculously steep hill. It was so dangerous as the handbrake wouldn't hold the car as the hill was so steep and the car was so heavy. So Luke was panicking a bit so he had to try and hold down the brake with his hand as Matt tried to jump in the drivers seat. It was hilarious as Matt was sat on Lukes head - while me and Dave were bricking it in the back. Luckily Matt saved the day and got us safely to cooktown.

We finally got to cooktown and had a look around - this is where James cook damaged a vessel a few years back and came to repair it i think! or something like that! On the way we also saw this really cool mountains called the Black mountains which are just made up of massive granite boulders - have a look at the picture they were pretty awesome.

We thought the highway would be the safer option on the way back so we took that - Luke was driving again and just only 1km out of town we think he got clocked for speeding - we will have to wait and see. It is confusing over here though as the speed limit signs change every coupe of metres and their roads just don't make any sense. We stopped for the night in Port Douglas which is a playground for the rich & many backpackers. We had the best meal yet considering it was cooked on 2 gas stoves and played afew more hands of Poker with Matt winning the first one and me and dave calling it a draw on the second game as it was getting late.

Day 79:

Today everyone got woken up at 7am and i mean everyone including people in caravans and campers by Matt shouting down the phone to his brother. Hope you had a good birthday Swan. It was so funny as everyone must have heard the whole conversation and there really wan't any need to shout that loud - but everyone does it when you are on the phone to another coun try.

We booked another night in the campsite and headed to the beach. The beach was absolutely stunning but so busy espeically compared to the west coast. Luke is a school teacher back in Sydeny though so told us that all the kids are off on school holidays. We spent practically the whole day on the beach apart from taking a quick wonder through the town. We even found a really nice park/lookout which is absolutely stunning. We played a bit of football on the beach before heading back to camp.

In the evening we checked out the bar in the hostel and played some pool and darts. Me, Matt and Dave went for a walk to check out the stars before crashing.

Day 80:

We spent practically the whole day at the nice littely park we found everyone just read their books while i planned our route from here to Brisbane. It looks good with lots of national parks, lakes waterfalls beaches and some cool activities like skydiving, white water rafting and walking through some lava tubes. We cooked burgers for lunch on the free bbq before jumping in the car and heading back down to Cairns.

We dropped Luke in the centre as he is staying with his mate for a night before he flies home to Sydney. The me, Matt and Luke went back to Tropic Days they had no dorms or camping sites so we ended up crashing on the sofas. Was suprisingly comfy and not too noisy.

Day 81:

That brings us to today - where our plans are to book a dive for tomorrow on the great Barrier reef which should be awesome - just so hard trying to decide which company to go with and which dive site to do. So we will lety you know how that one goes. The hopefully we will be heading off to Athetton Tableands to see some volcanic craters and lakes before getting to Townsville which is where we should be when we update you all next.

So hope everyone is well and everythings ok back home. Keep sending us lots of messages as it makes our day reading messages from back home.

Take care and lots of love x x x x