We arrived into a very soggy Cairns after spending another night in Melbourne. Unfortunately we had forgotten to note down the out of hours code to get into our hostel, so we managed to get ourselves locked out in the monsoon weather. Not the best start!

The next morning we booked onto our reef tour and booked the bus down the coast. With only two weeks left in Australia we had time against us and had to move quickly.

Our day on the reef was incredible. The visibility wasn't brilliant, but we took a trip to the outer reef so got to see a less touristy area. We saw a variety of different fish and coral and even got to see a big pufferfish up close. It was everything we hoped for, even though we didn't get to see any reef sharks.

The next morning we checked out to get ready for our bus, when we found out it had been cancelled. Unfortunately the continual monsoon weather had left most of Queensland under water again, so no buses were running.

We decided to hang around in the hope that maybe the weather would clear up. Unfortunately five days later, we realised this wasn't going to happen anytime soon. So we begrudgingly bought a plane ticket down to Brisbane. This did mean we'd have to miss a massive chunk of the coast out, but on the up side we now have a chance to travel with friends we met in Asia for the remainder of our time.

The flight was for two days time, so we booked ourselves onto a crocodile tour just for something to do. It wasn't the best tour we've done, but it passed the time.

All in all we ended up spending eight days in Cairns and we didn't manage to see any blue sky. Luckily, there are far worse places to be stuck and we managed to have a relaxing time. Not ideal, but there isn't much else we could have done!