Oh my god, it's been a while since i've been on here! Hope all is well with everyone and I can only apologise for not staying in touch but i've been working so hard (on my tan) the past couple of weeks at "The Sheraton Mirage" in Port Douglas, in order to get some cash together for Asia. So last night we were all packed and ready to leave Oz forever today at 1pm. However we said f**k it and booked a return flight to Brisbane, 2 tickets to see Bob Dylan in concert and 2 tickets onboard a whale watching cruise! Talk about last minute and being indecisive! Im crapping myself Im sooo worried we gonna run out of money halfway through Asia and have to hitch it to Bangkok airport, ha ha. Matt said we'll work another couple of weeks before we leave Cairns to account for this massive spend (Matt talked me into it mam, honest!). But hey we're on holiday so we should enjoy every minute of it and when we have been working we've been working bloody hard!

There is not a lot to write about for Cairns as I mentioned 2 days after arriving we moved to Port Douglas ('bout 1 hour north) and got a job in another 5* resort Ha it's a 5* joke! Anyway we have been there for a month. We travelled up to Cape Tribulation, which was awesome but I preferred Mossman Gorge, it was beautiful I could of stayed all day, even after i'd fell in! I also went to a bat house along the way and it was deffo the highlight of my day feeding the little critter (i'll have one as a pet when I get home thanks mam)

On our next day off we thought we'd do it Steve Irwin style (well we are in tropical northern queensland, home of the croc hunter!) So we hired a little pontoon boat and chugged up the croc infested river of Port Douglas. We had a little picnic (by my standards anyway!) and plenty of suncream. It was a beauty day, really hot sun, loads of crocs to be seen and even more mossies! We just found a nice place to stop and eat and it was time to head back, so when we got back we chilled on a bank in the marina and watche the sun set behind the misty mountains.

After all that fun we headed back to Cairns. We took a trip up to Kuranda on the scenic railway, which was really good. Chugging along up the mountain looking down at massive rivers and passing huge waterfalls so close you can feel the spray. We then spent some time in Kuranda and checked out their markets and Aboriginal kids dancing for money then we came cack down the mountain by cable car, it was really scary as we were so high but the views of the rainforest, ocean and towns were immense. On the night we went to embrace the Aboriginal culture, we felt we had to do this now we were leaving as we had not seen a cultural show of Oz but we had in every other country. It was the worst show i've ever seen in my life, total waste of money and I don't recommend it. We were led to a field with someone playing a didgeredoo and a man making us sing and tap sticks together after about 30 mins they led us inside to our buffet dinner 30 mins later they appeared in stage, made a fire and done various dances representing animals native to Oz (Emu, Kangeroo, etc) 30 mins after this we were herded back to our bus and off to our hotels, confused to say the least. I am to shrug off the speech of people exploiting the aboriginies now, we were well and truly exploited out of our pay slips that night in order to gain a little knowledge of this dying culture indiginous to Oz. They didn't know what they were doing! I was very dissapointed.

The next day however was much better. Sunny skies and an early (but very, very rough) start to the day. We snorkelled 3 different sites of the outer barrier reef of the "Great Barrier Reef" It was fantastic, I seen too many things to describe and totally enjoyed myself, we even seen some whales! but they were quite far away, hence us booking a trip in Hervey Bay to whale watch properly!

Well back to Port Douglas for 4 days to earn some cash money, and i'll write again to let you know how Brisbane and the concert/whale-spotting went. Take it easy guys much love Ellie xxx