Hey there! I will warn you (and apologise!) now but this will be a long one I think. I haven't emailed for a while and there's a lot of ground to cover! So make a cup of tea or something now - you'll probably need the caffeine just to stay awake reading this! I'm now trying to remember the last thing I emailed about.... um, I think it was after we had done our Whitsundays sailing trip? So..... we went up the east coast a bit further after the sailing to a place called Magnetic Island, it's very beautiful but quite quiet! We had a couple of days there and just lounged around in the sun really - very lazy! We then travelled up to Cairns (the far north of queensland) and ended up being there for 8 or 9 days in the end! Not the place where we imagined we'd stay for that long (they say the far north of Australia is like the deep south of america....!) but we ended up doing quite a lot round there! We stayed in a huge backpackers hostel/resort place for the first couple of nights in Cairns - it's supposed to be luxury backpacker accommodation - still in dorms but with air conditioning, lovely fresh linen and towels, ensuite bathrooms to every dorm, all brand new etc etc! It was great to stay there after the hostel in magnetic island where I swear we saw the worlds largest cockroach! This luxury backpacker place had a pool and a huge bar but also a real 18-30's kinda crowd! (God, I really am getting old now, but it did just felt like I was in Ibiza or Magaluf or one of those kinds of resorts!) So although the luxury was nice it did mean putting up with a few lary 18 year olds - yep, definitely getting myself a knitted cardigan and bus pass when I get back to England! We ended up spending the best part of our 2nd day in Cairns in a travel agents looking at all sorts of tours and diving courses and trying to book something for while we were there. We ended up booking a 2 day tour to Cape Tribulation - Captain Cook named it this cos he had such a god-awful time there - half his crew disappeared and died in the rainforest there and he managed to get their ship run aground several time too! (Little bit of Aussie history/trivia for you all there!) We also got a really good deal on an Open Water diving course so arranged to do that for 4 days after Cape Trib (as the locals call it!), thus committing ourselves to over a week in the tourist metropolis that is Cairns! Our Cape Tribulation tour included a river cruise where we saw a baby crocodile and huge crocodile nest along the river - right before this we'd got caught in our first tropical monsoon rainstorm so we were completely soaked while doing our croc spotting, but by the end of the river cruise we'd dried off almost completely as the sun had come out again - very bizzare weather! In the afternoon we'd organised to do 'tree surfing' (Or jungle surfing, I think you can call it that too!) We were in the middle of the rain forest and being swung from one tree to the next along zip wires while strapped into a harness! It was brilliant fun and the 3 guys who were the guides/instructors were a really good laugh too. Although one of them very cruelly pretended to have not done Lisa's harness up properly and just as she was swung off one platform, he started saying 'oh god, come back' and acting like he was trying to pull lisa back onto the platform while she's suspended 50 metres above the rainforest with a look of pure horror on her face! Aside from that bit, was all really good fun and we got to swing upside down too! Rather aptly, Lisa and I had crash helmets with 'Tarzan' and 'Jane' across the front. (And yes, Lisa got to be Jane and I was given the Tarzan helmet - I reckon most people think I'm the butch one of the couple! I'm just not girly enough!) We ended up getting back from Cape Tribulation on Thursday evening (the 9th I think?!) and then had to get up at 6.15 the next morning for the first day of our diving course! We were being picked up at 7.20am every day - and we thought we were there to have fun! On the first day we had our medicals and all lied about how much alcohol we normally consumed in a week then spent the morning in the classroom watching the PADI diving course (very cheesy) video and having to do mini quiz's along the way! (We also ended up with homework that we had to finish that night!) We then spent the afternoon in the pool, firstly having to swim 200m then tread water for 10 minutes, which clearly highlighted just how unfit I have become while being away! We also learnt how to use the diving equipment etc and practised our 'skills'. I didnt realise but you have little tests that you have to complete when you do your proper 'open water' dives out in the ocean in order to pass the course and be certified! So I spent the afternoon trying not to inhale the contents of the pool while taking my mask off underwater and putting it back on and trying to clear it of water - while still underwater! Apparently this is an essential skill but I'm not convinced....! Our second day was pretty much the same, half the day in the pool then a bit more classroom time then our exam! It was like being back at school, on the mini bus on the way to the dive centre in the morning, lisa and I had been frantically scribbling our answers to our homework and then giggled through the cheesy videos in the classroom, unlike at school though, we managed not to be seperated and got 49/50 on our tests! (Pure coincidence that we got the same score of course!) Our 3rd and 4th days of the course were out on the boat which took us 2 hours out to sea to the outer reef to do our 4 ocean dives! It was incredibly scary getting in the ocean for the first time and breathing underwater. (I'm also very glad I didn't see the film 'Open Water' before coming away! We got to see some amazing fish and coral - we saw one huge fish called 'Wally' who must have been almost 2 metres in length! The night before, Lisa and I in our student mode went to something called 'Reef Teach' where this crazy Irish marine biologist/dive instructor with a huge head of curly grey hair (mad professor style!) bounced around a room screaming for a couple of hours in the evening telling us all about fish and coral and sharks and jellyfish etc etc! We went so we'd have some idea of what it was we were looking at on the reef, but I'm not sure how much we really learnt as we spent most of the evening trying to not to laugh at the crazy man doing the talk! Anyway, we saw lots of cool fish that I can't remember the names of now - including lot's of fish like Nemo (from 'Finding Nemo' for anyone not up on their kids cartoons!). I had one rather hairy moment when we had to do the dreaded taking the mask off, putting it back on and clearing it thing. I somehow managed to inhale water TWICE and stared coughing and spluttering and couldnt breathe properly. We were 18m underwater and at one point when I really couldnt breathe I really was panicking and thought I was going to die either of drowning or decompression sickness as I was fighting my body's instinct to just swim straight up to the surface, but obviously couldn't do this! It was all very dramatic - as it would have to be with me, but did eventually manage to avoid hyperventilating underwater and breathe normally again! Oh and managed to do the bloody mask clearing thing! (As you can probably tell from the lengths I have gone to to describe it all, this was a bloody big deal and I'm chuffed to bits I eventually managed to become a certified diver!) Oh, and I got stung by a jelly fish - and I still have the mark on my arm where it got me! (I knew there was some other drama I'd forgotten about!) We were surrounded by them every time we got to the surface and by the boat but our instructors told us they weren't stingers so our group ended up having a massive jellyfish fight with the other group in the water with us! Apparently, somethimes there a few random stingers still floating around in that part of the ocean! Obviously after 4 days of being very good and not going out drinking during the dive course we ended up having a pretty heavy night out with the rest of our class and our instrutor - to celebrate of course! We ended up in a very dodgy club which smelt of the excesses of the night before, to put it politely! (Worse than Kaos or Jesters at Uni for those of you familiar with those charming places!) We then ended up having an even heavier night the next night as it was the day before Lisa's birthday and we met up with a couple of English girls, one of whom Lisa had met back in Walton just before we came away - very small world! We had intended just to go out for a couple of drinks as we had to catch our flight to Alice Springs the next morning but as is always the case, the best intentions never last and after it hit midnight it was lisa's birthday so of course we had to celebrate that! A great couple of nights though and we met some really great people along the way! When we got back that night I spent 20 minutes drunkenly making Lisa a homemade birthday card - seemed like such a good idea at the time, even trying to make a little envelope for it! (It wasn't even good enough to call a Blue Peter effort!) Lisa did seem to appreciate the thought when I gave it to her in the morning, although how much of this was just to humour me I don't know?!! We did feel a bit delicate that day especially trying to get ourselves sorted for our flight - poor Lisa spent her birthday feeling hungover and exhausted from the night before so we didnt really do anything to celebrate it on the actual day! It was over 40 degrees when we got to Alice Springs - it's in the middle of the desert and is the nearest big town to Uluru (aka Ayers Rock, although its not politically correct to call it that anymore!) The first hostel we went to was awful, ants all over the floor, some very dodgy 'long termer' living in the dorm whose death art magazines were strewn all over the place - just generally NOT NICE! All part of the joys of budget travel I suppose but there's budget and then there's crap and this was just a ****-hole! So we very politely asked for our money back and found a much better hostel owned by a hilarious Aussie bloke who was brilliant and was our knight in shining armour as he'd 'rescued' us from the nightmare hostel! He had spent 10 years as a tour guide in Alice Springs doing tours to Uluru and the surrounding areas so helped us pick a tour to do. We were considering doing a 3 day camping trip where we would have slept in 'swags' (sleeping bag/tent kind of things) under the stars! In the end we picked a 1 day tour and god am I glad we did. We are not cut out for sleeping out in the desert for 3 days in that kind of heat and surrounded by flies! It's a 4-5 hour drive from Alice Springs to Uluru so we were picked up at 5.55am for our day trip - we seem to have a knack for picking things that require us to get up ridiculously early in the morning! Firstly we visited 'The Olgas' which are some other big rock kind of things near Uluru - I know, that's a horrendous description but that's what they were - big rock/boulder kind of things! An amazing sight of course despite the crap description of them and apparently a lot of people are more impressed with The Olgas than they are with Uluru. I think the big rock - as most of the tour guides call it - is still very impressive though and was probably my favourite. We did a couple of few short walks round both The Olgas and Uluru and spent most of the time fighting the flies away and trying not to swallow them! They were a nightmare and all Lisa and I kept saying was that we were so glad we hadn't done the camping thing! Our two driver/tour guides, cooked a bbq in the afternoon/evening and we were able to sit down and enjoy champagne and a bbq dinner while the sun set over Uluru - very romantic! (Honestly, lisa and I are just good friends!) We didn't get back to our hostel til gone 1am and had to be up again at a reasonable time to catch the train the following day! We'd arranged to get the Ghan (the train that goes right through the middle of Australia between Adelaide on the South Coast up to Darwin on the North Coast, and stops mid way through at Alice Springs. It takes about 18 hours to do the part we did from Alice Springs to Adelaide so we got on the train on Saturday early afternoon and travelled through the night and then arrived in Adelaide on Sunday at midday. (We should have arrived at 9am but kept having to stop and pull over to let freight trains pass - they only have one line and I think the freight trains have to be given priority over the Ghan. It was a really good experience though and we got to see so much more of the Australian landscape etc travelling that way - and spend several hours in the lounge carriage playing cards and drinking beer! We hadn't originally planned to go to Adelaide but we both ended up really pleased that we did go there. It's quite a small city so easy to walk around and see a lot of it in a short space of time. We even went to the South Australian art gallery there and spent an afternoon being very cultural and arty farty! (See, we're not just drinking our way round the country, we can be very cultured too - at times!) We were a bit disappointed though when we found out that the Adelaide Fringe Festival was due to start in a week's time and we were going to miss it! Apparently it's the second biggest fringe festival in the world to Edinburgh's! (This is one of the bad things in not planning ahead and just seeing where you end up!) We found a fairly cheap car rental deal so after a couple of days in Adelaide, picked up our wheels and hit the Great Ocean Road to Melbourne! (We got very excited about our mini road trip and felt like Thelma and Louise! - apart from the criminal activity and driving off a cliff thing of course!) but yeah, it was great fun, singing (very badly!) at the tops of our voices while we drove through some really beautiful parts of the country. I realise I am sounding more and more like a david attenborough - ooh look at the landscape kind of person, must be the getting old thing again! We drove for about 6 hours on both days and spent the night in a tiny little fishing town on the coast called Port Fairy - I'm still immature enough though to find this name amusing!! We treated ourselves to one night of luxury and stayed in a proper hotel and after we'd eaten we went back to our room, jumped on the bed for ages then lay in bed watching TV - not a great adventure, but a night of 'luxury' was definitely in need after all our hostelling! So, I've been in Melbourn now for about 4 days, staying at Lisa's brother John's house and still having a brilliant time! Lisa's been to Melbourne before so it's good to have someone who know's their way around and where's good to go etc. On Thursday night, John's girlfriend gave Lisa and I tickets to go to the Cultural Opening Ceremony (or something like this) for the Commonwealth Games which are happening in Melbourne in a couple of weeks - again, just after we leave! But anyway, Lisa and I got as dressed up as we could and went along to this event. There was a speech that we couldn't hear and a big puppet/tent kind of thing being paraded around by what looked like A-level theatre studies students, but apart from that it was mostly just lots of arty Melbourne people there making the most of the free booze and discussing cultural diversity in the city! (I know, cos I was ear wigging on some of the conversations and felt like a complete philistine!) Lisa and I made the most of the free food and champagne - we're backpackers after all and still not long out of that student mentality! It was very interesting though to go to something like that, we weren't just there for the free stuff - honest! We then met John and his girlfriend Rivkah in a funky bar with a live jazz band in the city and had more drinks there and then in another bar which I'm struggling to remember as I'd had far too much by this point! But it was a really good night and ended up drinking more red wine back at John's house and putting the world to rights until 4.30am! Unsurprisingly, I felt a little worse for wear on Friday so we didn't do too much until the afternoon when we went into the city, pottered around a bit, had a very late brunch then did a bit of shopping! There are so many fantastic little cafes, bistros, restaurants, bars etc. in Melbourne. Most of them are tucked away in little corners or down side streets but it's great, such a great atmosphere in every one I've been in so far. I think food and drink is the heart of Melbourne so I feel right at home here! Anyway, I think I have probably gone on enough for now - my bum aches so god knows what you'll all feel like if you ever manage to get through this mammoth missive! I am sorry it's gone on so long, I think I have included far too much detail this time so I am sorry if you're sat there wondering why the hell you're reading about what time I was picked up in the morning for our tours etc! Thank you so much to those of you that have emailed me while I've been out here and kept me updated on what you're up to - it's really good to hear about stuff going on back home! Until next time then.... (when I promise to keep it shorter!) Byeeeeeee! Anja xxxx