We had the ski season interviews on 7th April, which seemed to go well. The manager of the hotel and the HR manager were both really nice and fully appreciate that people who to choose to work there do so because of the perks of having 7 slopes to play on in their spare time. We weren't due to find out if we got the jobs until 3rd May so we had once again more time to wait out our fate, which we were now quite used to.

We decided to leave Brisbane and head North to Cairns and planned on making our way back south, this meant that we could see what we wanted as one way or the other if we got the jobs we didn't want to have to travel all the way back up the country or if we weren't successful it would be the end of our travelling and we'd need to fly out and the best place would be from Melbourne. So with those plans in place we scrapped together the bare essentials for our road trip and hit the Bruce Highway. We drove 900km on the 1st day from 6.30am to 7pm with one stop which got us just outside of Mackay and on a map that is just over half way to Cairns we had another roughly 800km to go the next day.

We got to Cairns late afternoon, found a cheap camp site that was also close to town which is convenient as we wanted to go into town for a night out and there was free wireless internet which is always a bonus!

It was the tail end of the rainy season in Cairns where the temperature is in the mid 30's, high humidity and lots of rain, we were lucky most days were sunny and rain free but when it did rain it lasted all day and was torrential.

Whilst here we met up with our mate Vicky who we met in New Zealand, she loved Cairns and as New Zealand was getting too cold she decided to apply for her 2nd year visa and spend it there in Cairns. It was great to catch up and she showed us the town and some lethal cocktails called Kryptonite that really hit the spot.

Our main aim of going to Cairns was that we wanted to dive the Great Barrier Reef. Due to the weather being quite hit and miss we waited a few days to see how the forecast changed, we had to bite the bullet sooner or later and on a fine day we booked up for the following day. We woke up the next morning and the clouds had descended full of rain, praying that the heavens wouldn't open we dragged ourselves out of the tent at 6.30am to make our way to the boat.

The boat was lovely and didn't have many passengers on it there was about 12 divers and 15 snorkelers which isn't a lot on a boat that has a capacity of 60. The wind was 20-25 knots which we had no clue what that meant but soon found out when the crew advised that everyone to take ginger tablets to remedy sea sickness. Soon enough we were smashing down on to the waves and swaying radically from side to side, during this time we also had our pre-dive brief which was good to have a recap as it been over a year since we last explored the underwater world. Steve didn't fair too well during the pre-dive brief, he went really hot and sweat was pouring from him, his face went grey and clammy then he bolted for the toilets, I'm sure that you can figure out the rest.

With phantom drunken legs we made our way to the back of the boat to get our stinger and wetsuits on, stinger suits are basically thin jumpsuits that cover the majority of your body. These are necessary as jellyfish AKA "Stingers" are present all year in the Northern waters and being stung by one could be life threatening (as with most things in Australia) so it's better to be safe than sorry and wear one. It was strange to have the heavy tanks and BCD's on again and trying to maneuver around with fins on was difficult so it was quite a relief once you take the big stride off of the boat to be weightless and happily floating on the surface before making the descent down. I was quite nervous that I would have forgotten what to do but it all came back easily and before I knew it I was taking a good look around and so happy to be back under the water. Steve had a few problems equalizing the pressure in his ears when we were in Thailand and it appears the same problem affected him again, he's fine once he's passed the first 5m but until then it is really uncomfortable and painful. Once we're back home I think he plans on going to the doctors as his hearing takes ages to get back to normal and perforating an ear drum isn't something that he wants to happen.

With the weather being overcast and not that bright we didn't get to see the colours of the coral in all their glory but it was still impressive none the less. During the 3 dives we saw 2 white tip reef sharks which are generally timid shy sharks and aren't that likely to go for you, just admire from a distance and don't provoke a reaction, makes enough sense really! On the 2nd dive I say my first turtle which was amazing, it was really quite close to the surface gently pecking off food from the coral, our guide went over and hand fed it some sort of food and it was happy to chomp away until it had enough then it slowly glided away into the blue yonder. It was magical to be so close to such a beautiful creature. Steve boasts to me that he saw 2 turtles but couldn't get my attention in order for me to see it, damn!

The rest of the time we spent going in between huge walls of coral, teasing the massive clams and generally bumbling along watching all the fish go about their business.

Diving is one of the best things that we ever decided to do it is such a great experience and you completely forget any worries of issues that you may have on dry land, love it!

Off to Cape Tribulation tomorrow….