We have arrived at our final destination in australia a few days ago and it was almost sad to say goodbye to the greyhound that has taken us so far! Today it rained but apart from that the weather here in Cairns has been totally amazing. After Magnetic island we headed to mission beach. Our hostel was amazing, so clean (especially the kitchen) and made up for the fact the place was so quiet. Most people do their sky dives in mission beach and so as we were sunbathing we got to watch lots of groups parachuting down and landing on the beach which was really cool. We also splashed out and cooked a proper meal...Fajitas with salad and capsicum and even chicken! apart from eating there wasn't much else to do though but it was nice to chill for a couple of days.

We arrived in cairns to stay at the Serpent hostel we had vouchers for to get a rate of $12 a night which is veryyy cheap. It was a nice place and we met up with some friends from our fraser island trip, one of them actually used to work at the hostel and we all went out for his birthday. However they all decided to go out dressed as grandma's which is don't think Cairns was really ready for. In pretty much every hostel they give you a free 'dinner' but this is laughable as the first night it was a piece of bread and a sausage in a bowl pretending to be a sandwich. Although we have managed to pick up lots of free food vouchers for other places and so just do the rounds until full.

Yesterday it was brilliant weather and we went on a sailing trip out on the barrier reef to two sites to snorkel. It was amazing and we saw lots of turtles just swimming around the coral and even sting rays too at our first stop, an island covered in birds all over the place. I'm reading a steve irwin book i found so interesting to see the ray i guess! the food was very yummy and we had lots of fun.

Tomorrow we are off on another trip to cape tribulation before Thailand on friday!!!

xxx elspeth xxx