After chilling out in Alice Springs & the hostel, we caught our plane to Cairns. We were booked on the same plane as our Yorkshire stalkers but were staying at different hostels. Joel & I were booked to stay at Coronas hostel, but our flight arrived after their reception closed, so they put us up in Caravellas hostel instead, but for the same price. Rooms were usually $18, but we were paying $9 a night! Score! Two nights later, the girls joined us at our hostel because theirs was a bit crappy.

Each evening was spent in a pub called The Woolshed as our hostel gave us a free meal voucher every day. Some days we were tight & had the free meal, which would probably struggle to fill up Posh Spice, & other days we upgraded to a pub meal for a couple of dollars, which could comfortably feed Mexico City for a day! Each evening hosted different events, such as a chilli eating contest, goldfish racing, wet t-shirt contest, Deal or No Deal, live music & cheap drink promotions. We were also joined by a few different people at the pub from our hostel, representing such countries as Switzerland, Netherlands, Germany, Hong Kong & South Korea.

A quick 5 minute walk from our hostel along the Esplanade was a man-made lagoon to swim or chill by, whilst watching the fine array of bikinis on display.

We booked three tours through our hostel (we got a free night accommodation for doing so) in order to keep us entertained during our stay. The first tour was to Hartleys Crocodile Park. Seeing as we had done a couple of boat cruises & not seen any crocs, we were looking forward to this as we were pretty much guaranteed to see some action. Throughout the day the park had set demostrations running, so when we first arrived we headed to the Cassowary feeding. A cassowary is in the same family of birds as the Emu & Ostrich & is actually the worlds most dangerous bird, although it currently holds a human kill rate of zero!! We got to feed them various fruit & because they swallow whole pieces, you could actually see the fruit as it went down the bird's long, thin neck. The next section we visited was the crocodile farm. This is where they breed crocs until they are old enough or long enough (whichever occurs first) to be killed & turned into steaks or handbags & shoes! Here we got to stroke a baby croc, but we weren't allowed to hold it unless we paid money for a photo. Afterwards we headed for our boat tour, this was the good part as they would be feeding crocs. We sailed around the man-made lagoon looking out for them, the largest one being just over 6 metres long. Our guide attached pieces of chicken to a long rod & hung it over the edge, splashing it in the water to attract them in. You could see them slowly sneaking up, just poking theit eyes & snouts out of the water, then just as they pounced, the guide would lift the bait up so that the croc would jump for it. They can jump half their body length out of the water!! After running out of bait, we left the boat & headed to the Saltwater & Freshwater pens to see those crocs being fed. The keeper told us all about their characteristics & chucked out lumps of fish. Crocodiles are very territorial, so if any came ctoo close to another to get food, they would fight, which obviously made good entertainment for us. We headed to the Freshwater crocs after so that we could get a chance to feed them. We had small rods to dangle chicken pieces into their pen. My first bait was snapped up pretty quickly before I had time to react, whereas my second bait I made last a bit longer. I taunted the croc by hitting his snout with my bait & then pulling it away as his jaws snapped shut. I managed this for a good few minutes before he finally cottoned on & beat me at my own game. That afternoon we strolled round the park to look at various reptiles, kangaroos, wallabys & birdlife. Walking past the croc pens again made us realise how lucky we were to see them being fed, as all they do otherwise is lay there & do sod all. We saw a snake show, where we were introduced to the world's deadliest snake (again, it's never killed anyone) & we were also treated to a crocodile attack show, in which the keeper used a bait rope to show us the infamous death roll. We were also told of various ways to escape a croc attack, my favourite being.......RUN AWAY!!! Crocs can go a long time without food (one of theirs went 14 months without eating) so if you run, its not going to be that bothered to chase you. Our visit there ended with a koala feeding session which was pretty dull compared to the rest of the days antics.

Our second day tour was a boat trip with a company called Passions for Paradise out to the Great Barrier Reef. Sally & Amylou booked on the same tour so we all headed out to the marina together. Our first stop was at Michelmas Cay, a little island that we could snorkel off of the beach. Joel & Sally both decided to do introductory dive sessions, so that left me & Lou to head off to the island together. I can't swim & Lou is terrified of the ocean & everything in it, so you can imagine what a pairing we made!! We sailed to shore in a glass bottom boat enabling us to see bits of the reef & various sealife without drowning! Once we arrived on the island we donned our very fetching blue stinger suits (it was stinger season, so they were to protect us from jellyfish), snorkel masks & flippers & waded into the sea to see what we could see....you see? Once your head was under the surface, the water was crystal clear & we had some white fish with yellow & blue tails swimming round our feet. Neither of us were too comfortable in going out of our own depth, so we didn't see much else other than these. Eventually we both gave up & topped up our tans. After lunch we headed out to our second snorkel/dive spot. This was a jump straight off the boat into the water jobby, so I was even more reluctant to do it. Joel & Sally went off for more diving, so once again I was paired up with Lou. We went out with one of the crew & floated alongside them. This gave us an opportunity to see much more than we had before. I was slowly ticking off the cast of Finding Nemo. We saw Nemo's, Dory's, Gill's & I saw a quick glimpse of Crush the Turtle before he swam off & hid. I absolutely loved every minute of it & never thought that I would get the chance to do that as a non-swimmer.

Our 3rd & final trip was to Cape Tribulation & the Daintree Rainforest. The girls were heading off down the coast to Airlie Beach today, so they weren't with us. We started off at Mossman Gorge to walk around the rainforest & along the rapid Mossman River. After an hour long walk we headed to Daintree Zoo. There wasn't much here that we hadn't seen the other day at Hartley's & it definitely wasn't as impressive. The only fun part was a free roaming emu that tried to steal everybodys sunglasses. We then headed off for lunch at Cape Tribulation beach & a walk through the rainforest. There had been a recent crocodile sighting at the beach, so combined with stinger season, it wouldn't have been wise to go into the water. This didn't stop a German couple from going for a swim though.....unfortunately they survived!! After lunch we headed on another river cruise, this time up the Daintree River. We spotted a couple of baby crocodiles & one 2 metre one, which were just chilling on the shore & generally not doing much. So again, compared to Hartley's, it was a bit of a let down. On the drive back to Cairns, the driver took us for a quick tour of Port Douglas to see the multi-million dollar mansions of the rich & famous. The driver kept calling it a drive-by, so Joel & I, being so mature, made gun shapes out of our fingers & pointed them out the window drive-by style!!

We had planned to follow up our trip to Cairns with a visit to Mission Beach so that we could skydive & go white water rafting, unfortunately after spending a long time in the medical centre, the Doctor told me that I had another 3 weeks to rest up before I could even consider those activities. :-( So we finished up in Cairns by watching the Australian Grand Prix (unfortunately on T.V) & then headed south down the coast to Airlie Beach.