The trip today was really, really cool! Long day, but a really good one, despite me falling arse over tit right outside the hostel and giving my right leg and arm a good scraping on the concrete!!

Despite that, the trip (ho ho) did get off to a good start.
A few English people on the tour, one Ozzie, three French friends, a couple of Canadians, two girls from Columbia, a guy from Norway, and a small assortment of other foreigners! Uncle Bart was our guide and driver, and he informed us that Uncle Brian was now a very rich dude who didn't take the tours anymore but just took it easy somewhere else!
We got introduced to Gus the Wonder Bus, and Elmo who sat up front and sometimes attempted to drive the bus! He looked a little worse for wear as some of his fur had been bleached by the sun, so he wasn't quite the Elmo red that we've come to know and love, more of a pinky colour on some of him! I was sitting next to the Ozzie girl from Perth, behind Laura who I met yesterday, and behind Tina who was from Leicester I think, and then in front of two lads from Derby.

First we went to the Boulders, which are just outside of Babinda, after a bit of a rainforest walk. No swimming there as it's too dangerous. However, we did see a few large spiders called Jewel spiders and thankfully aren't venomous. Morning tea was biccies, fruit cake and some juice, which we all obviously devoured very quickly!!

After that, we went to Jospehine Falls for a swim and a bit of a slide down some smooth rocks. It was a bit chilly in the falls, but the rock sliding was really great fun!! Shame I didn't get any pictures as I'd forgotten to take out my waterproof camera!! It was nice to have a dip in the cool water in any case, after walking through some very warm rainforest!

Then a drive to where we were having lunch, which was in the middle of the Atherton Tablelands. We'd been asked if there were any vegetarians, and only two of us put up our hands. Me, and one of the Canadians I think. However, she was lactose intollerant and claimed she was vegetarian even though she ate chicken and fish. When will these people stop calling themselves vegetarians if they still eat meat? I'll have to find another word or two for those people, other than annoying and stupid!!
Lunch was really, really nice, especially with the Tablelands as our backdrop. They stretch for absolutely miles and miles and are really nice and green and lush looking. Makes such a difference from the South of Australia being a bit brown and burnt looking! Though apparently they've had a fair bit of rain recently, so I'm sure it's not quite so brown down there now.

After lunch we went to Millaa Millaa falls which is apparently where lots of commercials have been filmed, including the infamous one for Timotei some years ago that had the girl flicking her hair out of the water and the camera caught all the water flicking round her. I vaguely remembered the advert and Uncle Bart had told us that he was happy to try and recreate the photo opportunity for us! Even the guys, though the result wasn't quite as spectacular seeing as most guys have short hair!
By the time we got to Millaa Millaa, the sun had moved and so the water was very cold, but I thought I may as well get in the water anyways! It was probably going to be my last opportunity to swim in a waterfall in Australia, so I thought I may as well take the plunge. Flaming Nora, the water was cold!! But I swam over to the waterfall to have a look and this time I had remembered my waterproof camera!! It's only one of those disposable ones, so the pictures might not be that great, but I hope I get a few good ones of the waterfall from behind it and so on.
I also got Bart to do the Timotei advert photo for me, and mine turned out not too bad. Bit blurry as you're moving and of course I don't have the right equipment to be able to capture an action shot (though I've just remembered I could have put my camera on 'action' mode - oh well, too late now!) but I think it still looks pretty good.

Then we went over to Lake Eacham to go turtle spotting! Saw quite a few turtles actually, and Uncle Bart told us what 'turtle' was in every language that he'd learnt so far, including Swedish, Hindi, German, French, and Greek!! I asked what the aboriginal name for turtle was and he just said 'food that comes in it's own bowl' which made me giggle loads. I don't know if that's true or not, but it still made me laugh!
We had some afternoon tea at the Lake which comprised of extremely milky hot chocolate (I think it was just some brown sweet milk to be honest as I couldn't taste any chocolate at all) and some muffins from the place where we had lunch.
We also had a bit of amusement as when we first arrived at the Lake, we had seen what we had thought was a water feature on the other side of the lake. However, it did appear to be moving forwards (we had hoped it wasn't someone drowning) as so it must have been someone swimming. Lots of people swim from one side to the other apparently - goodness knows how far it is - but it is far! We probably strolled around and sat down for at least half an hour....he did finally emerge from the lake and it turned out to be a rather tall, old-ish bloke who had a very big gut on him!! Good on him for being able to swim the length of the lake!!

After that, we went to go platypus spotting, but only a few of us saw any as they're quite elusive creatures. Uncle Bart and Elmo gave a demonstration - platypus don't flip out of the water or do spins and turns, they just surface and then dive back down again. So, they're quite hard to spot and I didn't spot one :(
Good thing I'd seen them at the Sydney Aquarium then even though it would have been nice to see wild ones.

Then it was finally time to head back to Cairns, and we got told the story of how Elmo was on board. A few years ago, a little girl and her parents came on the tour and they all had a really good time. The little girl was carrying her favourite Elmo toy and apparently he'd had such a good time, that he wanted to go on the tour every day!! The girl seemed quite insistent and so they asked her parents if it was ok for Elmo to stay with the tour bus, and they said 'Sure, for $44.95, he can stay on the tour bus.' and so they paid $44.95 for Elmo so as not to hurt the girls feelings, and he's been on the bus ever since! Quite a cute story, though shame the parents were pretty greedy though I guess they would have to have forked out for another Elmo toy for their daughter!

We got some good tunes on the bus as we got home, though everyone was pretty tired and so there wasn't much of a karaoke vibe going (Davina, where were you?) but I did my best :D Uncle Bart even had a couple of tambourines on board - haven't played the tambourine since I was at school!

When I got back to the hostel, I booked myself on the dive and cruise on the Barrier Reef for tomorrow. I thought I may as well go tomorrow seeing as I would get back early enough to pick up my glasses and go grocery shopping so I could feed myself! I'd also be able to have a well earned rest after all my excitement of today and tomorrow. Will need to pack up my stuff on Thursday too, as will have to get a taxi at about 9am as my flight is around noon on Friday.