G'day everyone!!!

After six exhausting days in Cairns, I am now starting to head south, and that eventually means home. It's less than 4 weeks till I'm back in the UK and I am looking forward to it already. But not so fast, I am still enjoying my time here in Oz, especially after spending 3 days on the Great Barrier Reef diving. Although, to tell the truth, it was bloody exhausting.

My daily return looked like this: Wake up at 5:45am, cup of tea, put on wetsuit, first dive of the day at 6:15am. Strip out of wetsuit, have breakfast at 7am. Put on wet suit for second dive of the day at 8am. Strip out of wetsuit and have a wee break. Get back into wetsuit for dive or snorkel at 11am. Strip off wetsuit afterwards for lunch at 12 o'clock. Relax or put on wetsuit for snorkel at 1pm. Strip off wetsuit, relax until 4pm. Put on wetsuit, third or fourth dive of the day at 4:15pm. Strip off wetsuit, midafternoon tea. Dinner at 6pm, back into wetsuit for night dive at 7pm. Strip off wetsuit, shower, have a drink and fall asleep at 9pm or thereabouts. I think you get the gist of it... But it was good fun. Met a nice bunch of people and had a great time. Overall, who can really complain about a day on the reef just diving and eating?!?

So originally, I planned to have a day off after diving, however, I forgot that I wanted to see the Daintree rainforest and Cape Tribulation, so no relaxing for me after the day but a day trip up north. It was really good, especially the Daintree river cruise and the ice cream. Some of the weirdest flavours you could have possibly heard of but hey, they were yummy! Four different flavours: coconut, wattleseed, black sapote and yellow sapote. No, apart from coconut, I hadn't heard of these ones before either but I can tell you, if you ever get the chance to taste them, it's well worth it!!!

And then the next day I was off for a two day trip to the Atherton Tablelands. Absolutely amazing trip. Had a good laugh with the people, relaxed a bit on the night time doing a jigsaw puzzle (didn't finish it but it was good anyway) and some wine to help the relaxation process. And guess what? It worked! I was tucked up in bed by 9:30pm and didn't hear a single thing all night, not even Tom screaming cause he thought he saw a spider. God, I must have needed that sleep, is all that I can say! The Atherton Tablelands are a fairly recent rainforest, being only 70,000 years old or so, but they really are beautiful. And we saw so much wildlife! I saw a real wild platypus! Can you imagine? I was so chuffed, you wouldn't believe it. They are so rare and it is so difficult to spot them!

On the second day we did a canoe cruise (and I managed to sit in a boat with two young strong English guys who were keen to paddle without interference from a third party). So all I had to do was sit back and enjoy! Great this! And we were lucky again, we saw a tree kangaroo, a pedimelon kangaroo, a water dragon, a goanna and some brilliant birds and butterflies! How lucky were we? And I can share some of my luck with you as we managed to get pictures of all these animals (well, I am hoping that Tom will send me the photo of the platypus, then the collection would be complete)!

All in all, I had a fantastic time in Cairns (even though I actually didn't see that much of Cairns itself). Onwards travel to Townsville today, to set over to Magnetic Island, for a well deserved rest. Just one day though but I am hoping to just relax and top up my tan for a wee bit. Will upload the photos from Cairns as well over the next couple of days, so keep an eye out for them. Oh, I got some great shots at the Great Barrier Reef as well, so enjoy!

And as always, keep smiling!
Yvonne
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