Feb 23rd 2007

Today is my last day in Cairns yay! Bit boring here, Northampton town centre is bigger than the centre here! Its been cool though cos so many people Ive met up the east coast are here - some from the very beginning of my trip! There are loadsa day trips and tours to do but that all takes money! Have managed to squeeze a couple of trips in tho!

Me and a few girls Im with went to Cape Tribulation for a couple of days, a world heritage listed rainforest which meets the reef - the only place in the world where 2 world heritage sites meet! The first part of our trip was croc-spotting along the Daintree River with our morning tea and biscuits! It was really rainy and we didnt see any crocs, just a few logs bobbing around! The weather made everything really misty and there were low clouds all over the rainforest which looked really cool. After that we tried to make our way to our accommodation but that was easier said than done! All the rain had made the tide really high, there were waterfalls in places there shouldnt be, walkways had turned into rivers and creeks had overflowed onto the road, no vehicles were going anywhere so we had to turn round and stay at a pub for couple of hours till it went down - poor us! When we got to our accommodation it was like a garage with bunk beds in it ha ha! We decided to do our own guided walk up to the lookout at Cape Trib beach. We had to walk along the road as the beach was too flooded but we ended up paddling barefoot through an overflowed creek to get thru - crocodile invested I might add!? The views of the rainforest were great and saw some weird and wonderful plants and a funky praying mantis too dancing along! On the second day it was brighter for us and we did the Dubuji boardwalk through the forest which was really good, right in amongst all the trees, plants and bugs! The walk was supposed to end on the beach but there was err no beach - the tide was so high the forest just turned straight into sea! Pretty cool tho seeing the reef meet the forest! Didnt see any crocs or cassowarys, just a few dead frogs in the road and a dead giant blue-winged butterfly - nice! On the way back to Cairns we stopped at Alexandra Range for an overview of the forest and reef. After that we stopped at Mossman Gorge, big creek with fast flowing waters over huge boulders surrounded by rainforest. After a brief stop at Port Douglas we were back in Cairns where it was still raining, welcome to the wet season!

The other trip that I did was of course to the Great Barrier Reef and oh my god it was absolutely amazing!!! The sun was shining for the first day in over a week and everything was perfect! The boat was big and comfy, the crew were great and the food was awesome - seafood of course (been a while since I had fresh king prawns!) but of course the highlight was the Reef, it is so beautiful! We went to 2 places on the outer reef to do snorkelling and diving. The coral is so pretty, so many diff shapes sizes and colours and the fish are everywhere you look, again all different colurs and shapes from stripy to spotty to neon, big fat small and thin!! There was a constant swarm that just followed me around! At some places the coral was right near the surface so I got some really cool pics (hired underwater digi cam!) which came out better than expected ( I took over 350 pics altogether so only put a few on here - sending CD home soon!!) The sea was pretty choppy and the fish wouldnt stay still for a photo so some are a bit blurry and theres a few just of the tails! At the second location there was a huge drop-off just like in finding nemo, saw some reef sharks lurking down there! Saw an Octopus too and I got to hold a sea cucumber, all sqidgy and slimy gross!! Didnt see Nemo but saw a couple of his friends! I was just so overwhelmed, didnt know which way to look and the reef is so so huge, we were in the water for 5rs altogether at 2 diff loactions but I could easily spend days more out there, a must do for anyone coming up to Cairns! I know I keep saying this at every place I've been too but this is the best thing Ive done (so far...!)

Other than that visited the cinema to hide from the rain (all oz cinemas usually have a cheap half price day!) and Ive booked a trip to New Zealand! I get there on 14th March and leave on 16th April, am meeting Stef my friend from Sydney there and we are doing same tour round both islands, gunna be so good!

Today is sunshiny again yay! Tomorrow Im heading off on a 2067km road trip into the heart of the Australian Desert (or mid nowhere!) to get to Alice Springs after 3 days! Then Im off to visit Ayers Rock, Kings Canyon and another rock formation over 3 days before heading down to Adelaide taking another 3 days so lots of travelling and very very early starts - each day begins at 5am or 6am, gunna be interesting to see how my body reacts to that!! So unless I burn to death (apparently its 44 degrees at Kings Canyon now - IN THE SHADE!!) I'll let you know how I got on!!

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