we landed in Cairns to find it cooler than the two previous locations. we looked at the free phone board to find some accommodation, this worked well as we thought it was fate that one was called JayJay's (Jack & Josh). so we decided to stay there.

w e had actually planned to stay in cairns for about 2-3 days and do a bit of diving. but after the 4th day we found out that that wasn't possible. so we ended up staying for up to 2 weeks. looking back we didn't really do anything apart from hang round the hostel, town and the legendary woolshed. this was easily the best place to get a steak. you get a steak, large helping of chips and salad for $7 or if you get a meal and a pint for $10 you can get happy hour pints. it was great, we ended up getting steak meal with two pints of snakebite for $10 (or 5 quid). and after everyone finished eating the place turns into a nightclub where everyone gets up onto the tables to dance.

after the woolshed we'd all go back to JayJays to play a bit of poker, which i didn't seem to fair well with. seeing as i lost most hands. i was just sooooo unlucky. i had a pair of Aces which i thought was a guarenteed win but then Gerry the Irish bus driver managed to win me by playing blind! talk about luck of the bloody Irish! josh had a brilliant tell becasue as soon as the cards got dealt he slapped his legs really fast and hard. which in turn got everyone to fold before they even finished dealing.

one of the many days in Cairns we decided to spend a bit of money and go diving on the Great Barrier Reef. we chose the Osprey boat which was the fastest out of all the boats. and got us to the outer Barrier Reef withing 40 minutes. before we left we decided to rent a waterproof camera so we could mess about a bit.

in total we got about three hours of diving and one hour snorkeling, the diving was amazing, the colours were vivid and the fish were huge. at one point we went down and saw about 3 Black Tip Reef sharks. they were fully grown at about 2.5 -3m long. one decided it would be funny to sneak up on Josh and scare the living s*** out of him, by swimming directly at his face.

after pratting about with the camera for a while we did a drift dive, this is where you get in above the dive location and let the underwater current take you to the site. this was all good because you save on oxygen, apart from when you have to swim against a bloody strong current underwater! the current was being forced in between two rocks that we coincidentally had to swim through. great fun!

we got back onto dry land and checked out the blisters that the fins had given us for fighting against the current and got our photos and videos put onto disc. then we headed off for the Woolshed. suprise suprise!

we thought it might be a good idea to get a job to pay off the diving and all the other expenses we had accumulated *COUGH* Beer *COUGH*. so we found out that Gerry (JayJay's Bus Driver) had been told about a job opening fixing tyres onto trailers. so we turned up to meet the guy. this invloved walking for about 2 miles away. so he told us to start the next morning.

so next morning we woke up at 6am and left at 7am to walk the 2 miles to work. once we got there we found out his building got broke into so we were turned away. the next day we woke at 6 to start the same routine and once we got there he fobbed us off. so we wasted another day. the third day the same happened and he fobbed us off again so we thought, enough is enough and we decided to leave it.

that night we awoke to our mate shouting his head off shouting "FIRE, FIRE!" and then sat up, shook his head, and then went back to bed. in the morning we woke up and asked him what the hell was happening, and it worked out he had night terrors. OK, but i don't think he needs to share them with his dorm room!

the next morning we booked the Premier Bus to head South to Sydney, with unlimited stop offs. however before we set off south, we were heading north into the jungle of Cape Tribulation.