Thursday 15th October 09

Cairns 5:45pm

Hey up all! Its been a while so thought i'd fill you all in! Arrived safely in Cairns and checked into a hostel for 3 nights to find our feet and get our bearings of the city! Met up with Cookie, who we met on the Ayers Rock tour and visited Port Douglas for the day. Visited the local markets, sampled jungle cane juice, tasted free chocolate and purchased some natural cream for my skin! Walked along the beach and watched the thousands of crabs running into their holes! The next day Cookie was gone and so we headed to Cairns Sharehouse office (which we read in the Lonely Planet) and landed ourselves an apartment and jobs as the caretaker couple! Neil has to be the onsite çaretaker doing the noise patrol and general maintanence while i work in the office! Only have to work 25 hours between us a week and that pays our rent and gets us a free meal every night too..not bad!(Although Neil got the easy part at only 5 hours per week) He is in the process of looking for another job. Moved in to 80 Martyn St (with our own BBQ and pool) the next day and met our new room mates, Ken, Raphael, Ariane and Jessie. Have enjoyed our time getting to know all of them and had amny drinks on our balcony and in town with them!

Decided walking wasnt the easiest option so bought a bike from Jim, so this is our new method of transport! I have been in work most days while Neil acts as the house boyfriend, cleaning up and doing the washing!! ha! Another perk of the job is getting familiar with the tours which i have to promote and sell, this means we get to go on them for free!!On Tuesday we went on a trip to the Great Barrier Reef (Norman and Hastings Reef) , i snorkelled and swam, Neil did 2 scuba dives and loved it so much has now booked his 4 day PADI diving course. We met Wally the resident fish a Maori Wrasse which was HUGE! We were able to touch him and he enjoyed all the fuss! The coral was amazing and lots of other tropical fish to see! Elvis was our onboard entertainment on the way home and sang us lots of songs while we enjoyed wine and cheese! On the trip we also met Bridget and Mike from Galway and met up with them on the evening for a few drinks and a good laugh.

So thats what we have been up to roughly, the weather here is superb, sunshine all day and beautful evenings. The Espalande is a great place to relax,you cant go on the beach because of crocs, but you can go the lagoon which is very impressive and overlooks the sea. There are BBQ stations all around so perfect for a picnic or dinner by the beach!

Thats about it for now! Catch ya later!