Hey guys! Another Country Another blog!

We arrived in Cairns on the 29th Dec 2008! The flight from Singapore was pretty bad...no food or drink!

Cairns is a small place but we found a really nice hostel on the outskirts which provided a free evening meal in a bar in the main town...perfect! We met a really nice bunch of people in the hostel. 2 OZ girls (one will be showing us around Brisbane and the other one around Sydney) and a Irish guy. We all went out for new year together!

New Year was good. Started with our (free) meal, then moved on 2 another place they wouldnt let me in with boardies on so went back and got changed!! After that little miss-hap we had a really good night, fireworks by the lagoon at midnight was prretty special and then onto more bars afterwards all in all a good way 2 start 2009!

After a days rest we went for our trip on The Great Barrier Reef. This was amazing! Despite the early start we had a really good day. We got a huge breakfast and a buffet lunch which was amazing then wine and cheese on the way home. Superb.

The coral we saw was unreal, so many different kinds and colours! Way better than the dead stuff we saw in Thailand! The animals were cool 2. So many fish! We saw "nemo's" cousin which has a blue stripe rather than a white one, stingray, a cool sea turtle but unfortunately no sharks! I (Rich) got a little bit too friendly with a Jellyfish and the stupid thing stung me. The pain was pretty bad but the crew had loads of vinegar which they put on it which helped (i was so glad that they didnt pull their pants down when i told them i got stung coz vinegar works better than wee). Apart from that it was an awesome day and something that is essentail part of any cairns visit.

Afterwards we went north to Port Douglas which is a smaller coastal town, we only visited on a recommendation from Adrian who we were with in Thailand, it was good but 2days was definatley enough.