Well as I ended in my last entry we weren't sure where we were going after Airlie Beach, we let Genie decide! We ended up 2 hours further up the coast in a place called Townsville where we left the car and caught the ferry over to Magnetic Island (so called because Captain Cooks compass went crazy as he sailed passed it, bit like 'Lost' if you ask me!). We decided to stay there for 2 nights and chill out and enjoy Australia Day, we asked a few Aussies what Australia Day was all about and they didn't seem to know, 'just a day off really', was there general answer! Anyway we chilled out in our accommodation for a night which was pretty cool, it was called Bungalow Bay and it had its own Koala sanctuary and loads of wildlife everywhere!

The following day was Auatralia Day and the staff had arranged a day of games that consisted of us and about ten others making fools of ourselves and generally running around like maniacs, the first prize was 200 dollars though! After completing the assault course, biting a biscuit into the shape of Australia, winning an egg and spoon race etc I ended coming second to some Danish guy, (I was gutted, well should have won!). Oh well it was a fun day, I'll definately remember my Australia day.

The following day we got back on the ferry and headed a further 2 hours or so to spend a night at Mission Beach, this place was pretty cool, extremely chilled out and relaxed. I had a stroll down the beach and relaxed at the hostel as we were only spending one night there before heading to Cairns.

We had planned to have 10 days in Cairns thinking we need 5 days for the scuba dive course me and G'bo had signed up for and a further 5 days to try and sell our car as we thought this would be a bit of mission! We had one spare day before our dive course to get the ball rolling in selling the car so we went straight to an Internet cafe designed a poster and proceeded to walk around Cairns in the blistering heat (about 38 degrees, and humid, the hottest we'd been!) and put up posters in every available hostel, and there's a lot of them! Just as we got back to our hostel my phone started ringing non-stop, half an hour later we had three groups coming to view the car and more interested. Genie worked her magic and we were confident of making a sale! That night we headed to the infamous 'Wool Shed' to have a few beers, luckily we bumped into one of the groups of girls that were interested, after a few beers they made us an offer. We had put her up for sale at 2500 dollars (having paid 2100!) the girls offered 2000, no chance! The beers flowed and the offers kept on coming but we stood our ground until we got bored and it came down to a coin toss, heads we'd sell at 2300 and tails we'd sell at 2200, the winner would get the next round! So this is what we did, unfortunately we lost but not really because we still made a profit and got a free Jager bomb from the deal, class. All its cost us to get from Sydney to Cairns is petrol, which is not very much between the three of us, bonus, buying a car in Aus is definately the way forward, well glad we did it!

After a day of rest it was time for mine and G'bo's dive course to commence, we had two days of pool training then we were on a boat for three days, diving on the Outer Great Barrier Reef, what a place to learn to dive! The pool days were well hard work we had to get up about half six, spend about 4 hours in a school type environment learning all the theory then spend about four hours in the pool doing skills, for example, taking your mask off under water, practicing a no-air scenario etc! It was good fun but very intensive! After the two days it was time for the boat trip, Leeroy came aboard the boat too and did some snorkelling. It took about three hours to get the reef the it was dive after dive, not much time relax at all, this course was mega intensive!

On the first day we did 2 dives to about 12m deep and practiced all the skills we had learnt in the pool, much different in salt water when you can't see the surface and the currents moving you all over the place, but we all did them without any dramas. The second day it was another early start as the first dive was at 7.30, we performed 2 dives in the morning and completed all our skills, after these two dives that was it, we were qualified divers, able to dive to 18m with no instructor to guide us or anything, just jump in go down and have a look, this was an amazing feeling, all that hard work was so worth it! After lunch it was time for a first dive with no instructor, we had a briefing of the best places to go and that was it, me and G'bo jumped in and swam around! We had a set path but navigating underwater is difficult to say the least, you just have no idea of distances! Oh well no bother we saw some amazing stuff and loved every second! Over all our dives we had swam with every tropical fish you can think of, including Nemo, parot fish, literally hundreds of different kinds, we saw blue spotted rays, eagle rays (which are well rare!) turtles and the best of all black tipped and white tipped reef sharks, yep sharks, love it!

So that was it we were divers and had completed our first dive, but that wasn't the end, Prodive the company we dived with laid down an irresisitable offer of doing our adventure course which would take us one step above an open water diver and qualify us to do any dive we like upto a depth of 40m! We couldn't say no! Part of this course was the participation in night dive! Yep we would be jumping into the pitch black sea with just a torch and a glow stick, crazy scenes! So that evening after dark, we donned our gear and jumped in, this was the most nerve wracking part but after going under and your eyes adjusting it was actually pretty relaxing we cruised around and saw loads of different stuff the best of all being 'Brian' a famous turtle that lives there. This turtle is massive, about 4 metres in length I'd say, and there he was right infront of us! Loved it!

To comlete the adventure course we had 2 more dives to do, a deep dive to 30m and a photography dive! Again it was another early morning the first dive being at 6.30 and this was the deep dive. At that depth everyone suffers from nitrogen narcosis, well not really suffer as it feels like your drunk, you just feel like you're so chilled out with not a care in the world just cruising around with the fish, people have been known to halucinate, for example one guy found a flip flop but was convinced it was Cinderella's glass slipper! Our instructor made us perform a number challenge were we had to count to twenty by finding the numbers on a board, we did this at the surface and at the bottom. My time was 17 seconds at the surface and 24 seconds at the bottom, quite a difference! We also had a little drink (non-alcoholic) at the bottom which is well weird but pretty cool, this was probably my favourite dive of the trip. After resting for several hours to make sure all the nitrogen had left our bodies it was time for the photography dive, so we all had digital cameras and went for a swim, I loved taking all the photos and could well get into underwater photography but it is extremely difficult, the photos I'll upload don't do the reef justice, especially as this area was definately not the best site we went to and we didn't see a great deal here but there is a ray which is pretty cool.

Now we have five days left in Carins which is a really inviting city, everything is available and within walking distance, theres no high rises and theres a sweet man-made lagoon you can go to and have a swim which is comptely free! The only problem is the weather, its raining every day, and theres talk of a cyclone somewhere further north which might effect us, hope not!

Its Fiji next which obviously I really can't wait for becauase I get to see Becky! Well excited!