Morning all!

So, this will be my last post from Oz for those of you that are still reading this ... mum. I'm now in Cairns (as you may have cleverly guessed from the cryptic naming of this entry). Cairns is pretty cool, not the biggest of cities, clean but bloody hot!!

However, before Alexia and I reached Cairns we visited both Magnetic Island and MIssion Beach, bith of which were really cool.

We stayed at the Base backpacker resort on Maggie island, and were again with the crew from Kroombit. To be honest we didnt really do a lot on the island. It was a relaxing couple of days spent around the pool in the day and around the bar at night watching Adam get stitched up with many a random and quite possibly made up drinking game. We did make it Sea Kayaking on the Monday, that was good fun. There wasnt massive amounts to see other than the shark baited bouyes that were a mere 20 metres away from us and some points.

After leaving the island we boarded the Oz bus once more and were on our way to Mission Beach. Again, we didnt really do a lot here other than chill around the pool and play the occasional game of volleyball. We met up with Faye and Amy again from my first Oz bus and went to a bar with them on our first night .. but didnt drink!! The next day went went on a small coastal walk after trying to find our way out of the resort the bus dropped us off at ... my sense of direction has never been the best.

Our very last Oz bus took us both up to Cairns. We have travelled further north than Cairns, a few days a go we spent a couple of nights in the rainforests of Cape Tribulation. On our way there we visited many places of interest. We sawm in a stunning gorge, went to an animal reserve and saw cassowaries. Next we croessed the Daintree river and saw a massive croc before making our way to the Alexandra lookout point and walking along the Maridja boardwalk and seeing the rainforest up close.

It was spiders galore in the resort, but it was beautiful. One night we had a walk on the beach and it was full moon. I think that night will be one that stands out as a 'moment'. It was like being in the Truman show for a bit and someone had turned up the brightness of the moon with a flick of a switch. You could have easily of pulled out a deck chair or layed down your towel and read a book. The beach was empty which added to the experience, we could have been the only people in the world at that point, it was one of those kind of moments. To top it off, just before we headed back in I saw my first ever shooting star ... awesome!

Because its still stinger season here we cannot swim in the sea which, is a bit of a drag to say the least! We instead hired bikes and rode one hell of a sweaty bike ride to one of the local, natural swimming holes and splashed about there for a bit.

Back in Cairns we've been to the cinema a lot as we are still on a bit of a detox. Yesterday we went scuba diving and snorkelling on the great barrier reef which was as you can probably guess, amazing. Scuba is a wierd sensation, I find breathing through your mouth very odd! But, the sights down there were amazing, the fish were brilliantly colourful, it looked as though they'd been given to 4 year olds to paint (I mean no disrespect to any 4 year olds reading this ... i admire your work and one day hope to achieve such greatness myself!) there was just random colour all over them. We visited two reef sites, the second of which we only snorkelled on, but you were so close to the reef there was no need to Scuba. The second site was even better than the first, I would say it took your breath away, but that would be fatal under water so i'll just say it was astonishing! An amazing experience, glad I did it ... wont be there in 30 years or so ... so i'm told.

And that brings us to today, not much more to be done in Cairns. I have however taken out a parental loan (to be paid back iover the next 59.6 years) which has given me the freedom to go to and travel NZ with Alexia, so thats awesome we dont have to split up and go our seperate ways!! We leave on the 9th ... exciting times ahead ... bungy, sky dive, rafting, snowboarding - game on!!

Take care folks.

Neil.