Hi everyone from Cairns!

Me and Gareth are so glad we travelled up here as originally coming here wasnt in our plans! Thank god we had some time to spare as we've had a blast over the last 5 or 6 days!

We got an overnight bus from Airlie beach on Friday night so we arrived here on saturday morning...checked into a wonderful home from home hostel called Tropic Days (definitley the best one ive stayed in!). After a few hours sleep we went for a walk around town and got to see what cairns has to offer! There's plenty of cool little shops and stuff and also this Lagoon where everyone goes to swim (as the seas are full of stingers) and catch a tan! In the evening we went to The Woolshed pub and had a free meal (deal with the hostel) - I had rump steak and gar had ribs - both gorgeous! We tried to find a pub which showed the 6 nations but couldn't....good job in the end as wales were awful by all accounts!

Sunday we got up and went whitewater rafting on the Russell river...absolutley brilliant day! The recent rains had meant the water level of the river was as high as legally possible for me and gar to be in a 2 man raft so instead of being in a 10 man raft with the instructor, we were in our own raft - in the deep end on grade 4 Rapids! Bloody brilliant fun but a few scary moments aswell! We both ended up out of the raft at some point and both have scars from the rocks to prove it hurts!!! Top Day! Should have some great pics on our waterproof camera!

Monday we had a chill out day, i wrote 15 postcards! went back into town and the lagoon! We were joined by 2 girls who we'd met on our travels, Cassie and Sinead, and planned our 2 day road trip up the coast for the next day! Had an Aussie BBQ and played the Didgeeredoo at Tropic days in the night which was a good laugh! Im tempted to buy a didge for my summer parties back in Timsbury!

Tuesday then we hired a beast of an automobile...a red Hyundi Accent!! Bloody Automatic aswell! We left by 10am and made our way north, stopping off at various places such as Trinity beach, port douglas, 4 mile beach, Daintree, mossman gorge (beautiful) before kipping at PK's at the tip of Cape Tribulation for the night! Next morning we walked round Cape Trib beach, stopped off at Daintree ice cream factory and then headed for the Atherton Tablelands national park and Barrons gorge! Saw some stunning scenery, and had a good time driving to some classic party tunes that we bought on CD! A great couple of days!

Today then me and gar left tropic days at 7.30 and got onto the Silver Swift boat (brand new) and went snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef! We had such a blast! There were 3 different sites we stopped at and snorkelled for over 3 hours and ate some of the best food we've eaten since being in Oz! Saw planty of fish, found Nemo, and gar was lucky enough to see a turtle! We've bought an underwater camera but cant put the pics on here until we have them developed! We did have some pics taken by a pro who has sold them to us along with 30 reef images so they will be up here! Me n Gar reckon todays snorkelling was one of if not the best day we've had here for sure! Breathtaking!! Plus we looked like Ninja frogmen in our wetsuits!

Tomorrow morning we travel to uncle Neil's place in Townsville for our last week in Oz :( Should be a great week though as Ben and Sam are joining us aswell!

Cheers for now

Lloydy

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