A 3 hour flight from Sydney to Cairns, reminded me how huge Australia is!! It was Lianas birthday so we headed out for lunch on the esplanade. The heat was so different than in Sydney, really humid. Also noticed there is lot of aboriginis sat on the streets looking pretty out of it. Ash and I headed to the lagoon afterwards to cool down. No beaches in the town but you can't swim in the sea at this time of year anyway due to stingers aka jelly fish. The pool on the sea front was nice enough though. That evening Liana wanted to head to an Aussie restaurant for dinner, it was nice but quite pricey for a travellers budget!
Up super early to head off to the barrier. It was torrential rain which did not stop until late afternoon. Luckily it didn't ruin our day. I heard about the sea sickness going out to the barrier reef so dosed up on tablets. It was pretty choppy and lots of rain was coming into the boat. I started to feel really ill and a few people were throwing up which didn't help. A nice lady gave me some hot water and lemon which helped. Ash went off to get ready for his dive. He's now padi certified so could go off deeper than the rest of us. After around 2 hours we stopped at a stop to snorkel. I jumped straight in desperate to get off that boat. The visibilty was quite poor due to the heavy rain. I decided to try scuba diving so I could see more. Had to do it alone as ash was off with his group. Had a short teaching about how to breath and regulate then straight to get ready. I freaked out a bit when I jumped off the boat. It feels so weird breathing underwater and kept making my instructor come back to the surface. Eventually he convinced me to down. We dove down to the coral as soon as were down there I forgot to panic. He kept hold of my arm the whole time. It's quite hard to not float around under the water. So much better diving than snorkelling. We got right up close to the reef it was so colourful. Saw huge rainbow fish and lots of nemos. Just before the end we saw a reef shark, that bit was so cool. We swam right up to it and it swam next to us for a bit. I think we were down about 6m. I really want to have another go. Once back on the boat we had lunch then headed to another spot for more snorkelling. This bit was a lot clearer you could see the reef from the boat. They took us off in a smaller boat and dropped us off so we could swim back. Saw stingrays and hundreds of colourful fish. I loved it. Ash and I kept diving down to try and get pictures on our underwater camera. That evening we had some cheapish food at the night market. Got some $15 massages, they were pretty painful I did not enjoy it.
Another early start to head off to the Daintree rainforest and cape tribulation. It was a bus trip so hop off take photos kind of trip. Ash and I didn't really enjoy this type of trip. Visited the Daintree rainforest which was cool but just had a short walk around it. Cape tribulation beach was really nice, saw some lazy Monica's which are just giant lizards walking around. Again we only had a short time here.
Ash went for a sky dive today. I couldn't go with him so I spent the day in Cairns. Sunbathed by the lagoon as the sun was out for a short while then just wandered about town. Ash really enjoyed his sky dive, can't wait to see the videos and photos when we are back home.
That evening we finally got to have a BBQ. Bbq points everywhere. Got some meat then headed to the lagoon. Tried some kangaroo burger which wasn't actually too bad.
Today we are catching our first greyhound bus to Airlie Beach.