So our next stop after Melbourne was Cairns, we spent four days in pretty much constant rain with dry sunny spells here and there. Although there was so much rain it was still hot and very humid so we were constantly in tank tops/shorts which resulted in some very wet walks to the high street and mall.

Our hostel was pretty basic/poor but we were given free meals every night along with free tea and coffee all day which nathan loved, overall though the standard was pretty poor but as we hadn't experienced any others we thought this would be what we would be living in for the next five months, luckily though it's supposed to be one of the worst up the east coast!

Because of the constant rain the only thing we were able to do up in Cairns was a trip up to a place called Cape Tribulation which is situated in the heart of the rainforest in the upper most tropical regions, this was great! we saw all sorts of wildlife from birds like the cassowary (the worlds most dangerous bird)!? to giant spiders the size of your face! Doing this trip made the whole trip to Cairns worthwhile and we were glad we put up with the rain to do it.

Apart from the trip to Cape Trib we also managed to book a good package deal which saved a lot of money on some of the big trips further down the coast which were 3 nights 2 days sailing the Whit Sundays and a 3 days 2 nights camping trip to Fraser Island, we also invested in a bus pass that would get us all the way down the East coast allowing us to hop on and hop off at any point so in a way i suppose we did manage to get a few things sorted in Cairns.

We left Cairns for Mission Beach and on the coach journey we got talking to some people who said they had all been advised to go to a hostel called Scotty's as it had a really good reputation so we decided to tag along with them and check it out, this proved to be a wise move as the hostel was perfect! The first night we ended up going out with everyone for St Patricks night which was great and ended up getting talked into dressing up with everyone and going down to a local bar for a few drinks which ended up being a bit of a drunken one.

We managed to get a private double room with bathroom fridge etc cheaper than the dorm rooms which we couldn't make out?! Whilst in Mission beach we spent a few days just relaxing and trying to budget our money as much as possible after our recent spending spree on the bus pass and package deal in Cairns, Although it didn't take long before we spotted a trip down the river Tully doing White Water Rafting, this was a great day out, we ended up getting absolutely drenched and falling out the boat on several rapids but overall it was a great trip and well worth the money.

We left Mission Beach to continue our decent down the East coast and headed for a place called Magnetic Island, this was an island found 20mins off the coast of a place called Townsville. We arrived to find the island was packed out as we had completely forgot it was the easter weekend and soon found that this was the Australians equivalent of Hayling island or the Isle of White. So we found ourselves with no other option apart from staying in the worst hostel on the island, the room stunk and we were in a dorm of 10, but we didn't let it bother us and were soon out and about sunning ourselves and enjoying the scenery.

Whilst on the island we decided to rent Scooters/ Mo ped's and explore the island, this turned out to be a right laugh especially watching Danielle and I holding up the traffic when going up the steep hills, we also decided we would like to go diving on the great barrier reef seeing as we were close to it and had already missed the opportunity in Cairns due to the weather, unfortunately we got halfway out on the boat before being told I could not dive due to the fact i had a past history of Asthma and despite my best efforts to make her go Danielle would not dive on her own so we both got our money returned and Snorkeled instead and saw many nemo's and other fish.

On one of the days we visited a koala sanctuary where we were able to hold baby croc's, lizards, parrots, snakes and koala's which proved worthwhile and another great day out. We spent our last day on the island just relaxing by the pool and saving money before departing for Townsville where we will stay for a night before getting the bus down to Airlie Beach to prepare for our Whit Sundays trip which departs on the 28th.

hope we havn't bored you too much, all our love

nath and wally

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