13/5/09 - Cairns

Right... where were we?! Oh yeah, we were just getting on a red-eye flight from Perth to Cairns, arriving at the unsociable hour of 5:10am which felt like 3:10am to us on Western Australian time. At least we saved money on accommodation by flying through the night and got some sleep on the plane you're thinking... well think again! No sleep was possible for two reasons; firstly there is pretty much NO legroom whatsoever on the Jetstar planes, and secondly we were sat behind the whinging child who would win gold in whinging at the whinging Olympics. No jokes. So having landed massively sleep deprived we collected our luggage before heading to an ATM to get out some money so we could pay our hostel on arrival. The ATMs were having none of it though no matter which card either of us tried. Not cool. This meant a nice early morning call (x2) to Natwest to rant and rave about how we had let them know well in advance that we were going abroad and not to block our cards etc etc. Got that sorted... apparently they have automated systems that flag cards making large withdrawals in unusual places. Still annoying. Anyway... we finally got into a taxi at about 5:45 to take us to our hostel that we knew wasn't open until 7, in the dim hope they might let us in early. Wrong again! At least they had told us that they would reimburse us our taxi fare which was almost as much as we paid for a bed for the night. Still rubbing the sleep from our eyes we resolved to walk along the seafront boardwalk and get our bearings and maybe find some breakfast that wasn't from McDonald's. Found the main lagoon area that Cairns has as the real beach isn't a sandy one and there is also the threat of stingers (jellyfish) and salties (bad-ass-man-eating saltwater crocs), and we sat and watched the sunrise over the sea, except that it was actually pretty overcast so had to estimate roughly when that moment was. Still carrying our rucksacks (and me sporting the awesome front-backpack and rucksack on the back look) we found an Italian restaurant where we got some cheapish breakfast. We sat there until gone 7, just to make sure that our hostel was open when we got there. We had booked ourselves into a dorm room so we knew that there was a good chance we still wouldn't be able to get into a room (and more importantly, a bed) as people would still be in there. We paid up at reception and finally dropped our bags off in the storage room. We were told that we could use any of the facilities in the hostel, but that we would have to wait until beds came available to get a room. We were both so knackered though that we just sat on one of the benches and read our books, and a million pamphlets advertising different kinds of tours to the Great Barrier Reef, trying to keep our eyes open! This is when our luck began to change...

Firstly in the book exchange (which had about 6 books in it, and only 1 in English), we found a Rough Guide to Australia which would have cost us 20 quid, and it was the aforementioned lone book in English. Result! Then the staff member who checked us in found us and I think having taken pity on us said that he had a room for us and that it was a private double room that we could have for the same price as the dorm room beds, and that we could go there straight away (this was at about half 8). So we went there and slept til about 2 in the afternoon. Much better!

Having had some much needed rest we booked ourselves onto a snorkelling trip out on the reef (more about that later!) and went out into the town to explore properly. Ended up in Cairns Central shopping centre and got some food and a cheap international phonecard. Then chilled in the afternoon before checking out Gilligans - a mentally huge hostel with it's own nightclub, bar, restaurant, games room, shop etc. Got a meal deal for $10 (5 quid) which was food + beer = result. Still pretty knackered from the lack of sleep the night before so had a pretty early night.

14/5/09 - Cairns

This, we had decided, would be our chill-out day. I woke up pretty early (well about half 11ish, but it's all relative!) and used the cheap phonecard and the 14hr time difference to call my mum and gran in the USA on what was the evening before! Jo got up a bit later and we left the hostel at about 1ish and headed to the lagoon area to soak up some rays and just generally chill with our books and ipod all afternoon. In the evening we went to the Woolshed bar/restaurant where we had a voucher for free dinner from our hostel, but in actuality if you want anything decent you can 'upgrade' your meal for $5 or so, so still pretty cheap! After that we decided to go to the cinema to see Angels and Demons before heading back to the hostel.

15/5/09 - Cairns

Had an actual early start (7ish) as we had to be at the marina bright and early for our trip out to the Great Barrier Reef to snorkel. One of the must-dos in Australia and particularly Cairns. We had booked ourselves onto a tour on a 48ft ketch (two-masted yacht) called Ocean Free where we would motor out to a tiny island called Green Island (which is a coral cay) where the boat has a private mooring offshore in an area perfect for snorkelling. Other than it being a proper yacht, we also chose this tour as they have small numbers and there were only about 15 people on the tour this day. They did offer SCUBA diving too but we were trying to watch the spending already so chose not to. After leaving the marina at about half 8 we arrived at Green Island at about 10ish having found a spot where Jo didn't feel too seasick, and after the obligatory safety talk from the crew (who were a really good laugh) we were given our flippers, masks and snorkels and in we jumped! About 10 feet from the boat we were suddenly in water that was only about 4-5 feet deep above the coral and there were fish everywhere. All sorts of fish of every colour you can imagine (literally - there were rainbow fish!) in all sizes from tiny little Nemo-like clownfish to ones about half my size! Jo dubbed me fishboy for staying in the water for so long just snorkelling. Had some smorgasbord lunch before getting the dinghy over to Green Island for an hour, during which we walked round the entire thing (it really is tiny), before getting ferried back to the boat for more snorkelling. Jo enjoyed the second lot of snorkelling much more as this time she had a snorkel which had a water guard on it so she didn't keep on drinking the water! Sadly we had to leave at about 3ish as it would take longer to get back to Cairns than on the way out as we would actually be sailing. Now I've been sailing plenty over the years with my Dad on Running Wild and Tiberius, but it's no secret that I never really enjoyed it and now I know why - it's because we were in the English channel and off the coast of England... not here! It was a really relaxing journey and when we were actually sailing Jo felt much better seasicknesswise. Got back to dry land at about 5ish and went back to the hostel to have a much needed shower to get all the salt off us, before heading back to the marina area to go for a few drinks at a bar the crew had recommended to us. Didn't manage to meet up with them but ended up having drinks with Amanda, an American girl who had been on the boat with us all day and ended up joining us for dinner before we having an early night as we were all absolutely knackered and we had to be up pretty early for our first taste of the Greyhound buses that would be taking us the 3000 or so kilometres to Sydney over the next 4 weeks...

16/5/09 - Mission Beach

Got up nice and early to catch our first Greyhound bus - the bus was acually pretty decent - A/C, decent legroom and the drivers put on DVDs so that was pretty good and made the journey to Mission Beach pass pretty quickly. Neither of us knew much about Mission Beach but it's main attractions were white water rafting and skydiving so you land on the beach itself. We didn't know if we wanted to do either of these (well, it was more like 'can we afford them' than anything!) but decided to stop there anyway. It was only a few hours down the coast from Cairns and we arrived at the bus stop at ish. Now, we knew it was quite a small place, but we were both thrown when we were dropped off in seemingly the middle of nowhere and we suddenly realised we had no idea where we were in relation to our hostel, or how to get there. Then thankfully Jo spotted a guy holding a sign for our hostel, the Mission Beach Retreat. His name was Richard and he actually owned and ran the hostel with his wife Anthea. He was so enthusiastic and just incredibly happy, and it made for a very nice stay. The hostel itself was actually very small - only 25 beds or something like that, so it had a very cosy feel. We decided to explore the beach first - Richard had told us that on a busy day you might see about 30 people so we thought that the beach must have something wrong with it, but when we got there (about 2 minutes later as it was that close) we couldn't understand why there were so few people - it was gorgeous. A huge stretch of flat, golden, sand that went on for 14km we were told, with shade from the palm trees. We walked down the beach to the swimming area (as designated by the stinger nets in the water) and saw a group of people looking to the sky, so we had a look and lo and behold a group of skydivers were parachuting down onto the beach right in front of us. Certainly a spectacular way to reach the beach!

After we were done on the beach we grabbed a bite to eat at the Gecko Cafe before actually doing some food shopping so we could cook for ourselves - a novel idea indeed! Just chilled out in the afternoon before cooking some dinner then had a long chat with Richard and Anthea and promised to pop into the sandwich shop they ran in Noosa when we got there. Got a pretty early night as we were going to voluntarily get up early (CRAZY!) to go for one of the walks through the rainforest parks nearby and we wanted to get there and back before the day got too hot.

17/5/09 - Mission Beach

Managed to stick to our early start and left the hostel at 8ish to go walking in the National Park. We walked along the beach for part of the trail and took in the wonderful views of little deserted bays and coves. Then we got to the start of one of the trails only to find it closed due to storm damage earlier in the year so we had to walk along the road instead which was less exciting though we still got some decent views of the beaches. We got to the Bicton Hill track which was supposed to give us wonderful views of the coast and inland. We made it as far as the first viewpoint before deciding to stop and admire the view and then heading back as it was already getting very hot and we were running low on water, we did manage to spy a baby cassowarry (big flightless bird) and a few big spiders but fortunately in their webs. Had a light lunch when we got back to the hostel before heading down to the beach for some late afternoon rays but unfortunately what with it being an East facing beach we were just in the shade and ended up soggy from the damp sand. Cooked up a storm in the kitchen for dinner before retiring to our room to play cards and generally be rather antisocial as we had to be up early for our next bus in the morning.