...yes, that's right, the terrible/terrific, catastrophe stricken twosome of Chris & Luke is once again no more. We managed to find Luke a job whilst up in Cairns and he is now working hard doing banana picking in a little town called Innisfail. I would have done it myself but then the lady on the phone told Luke that the bananas sometimes way up to 60 kilograms - that's more than me!!! So I was once again left on my own, and decided that my best bet was to head south to a place where the straights are paved with gold, the harbour city, where dreams are made, etc; I was headed for Sydney!

But first, I decided to pop to Cape Tribulation, a World Heritage Area (I don't really know what that means but I'm assured it's a good thing) and of Australia's biggest rainforests. Once there, I met two lovely girls from England (where else?) and we decided to go on a night-time-jungle-croc-hunting tour. After dousing ourselves with bug spray we were ready and as night fell, we headed out into the great unknown where who knows what monsters awaited us...

As it happens, after two hours of walking around a pitch black rainforest, we STILL don't know ourselves what was living there as all we saw was (drumroll please) a stick insect. And a caine toad. And did I mention we almost saw a snake (it got away before our guide could point it out)? And last but not least, we saw the most deadly, the most murderous, the most frightening living creature in the whole of Australia - a plant. Unfortunately, it's aura of deadliness was slightly diminished by it's slightly-less-than-terrorfying name: the gympie-gympie. Oh well! Our guide - a Father Christmas lookalike by the name of Hans - was most upset he couldn't find us anything more exciting, but we didn't care! It was lots of fun and the looks on the faces on all the foreigners when we didn't find anything was worth the $39 alone! All in all, a successful adventure!

As a way of rewarding me for being so understanding of poor Hans, God decided that next day he would answer my prayers and lo and behold, what did we see on our way back down to Cairns but 3 live crocodiles! In the wild no less! This more than made up for our slightly lacklustre advernturing the night before, and we even had a few snakes and mega bats thrown in too!

Upon my return to Cairns, I hopped aboard the Oz Experience bus (a special coach trip we booked in the UK to take us down the East Coast of Australia) and began my descent downwards. As luck would have it, one of our stops that day was at a crocodile farm so I got to see even MORE crocs! This time there was a man called Mick who rode the big crocs (he was a bit mad) and said he wanted to feed some Germans to them (maybe he wasn't THAT mad)! He then showed us some alligators and a casowary (the most dangerous bird in the WORLD!), before letting us hold a baby croc and some snakes. Most of the foreigners were too scared to hold any of them, so i had to step up to the plate and take the croc by the horns as it were. I was Mick's favourite - he even offered me a job! However, I had to turn his kind offer down for I was destined for Sydney - even more so upon the news that my lovely friend Steven had offered me a place to live when I got there. So, it was with a not very heavy heart at all that I left the croc farm and continued down south.

After a couple of boring days in the middle of nowhere, I finally arrived at what would be the highlight of my trip so far - Airlie Beach, the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. Here I boarded a boat with 18 other strangers and we headed out for three nights and three days at sea. Everyone on the boat was very nice, although the Germans were all a bit weird (it is true what they say about not having a sense of humour. I can see why Mick wanted to feed them to the crocs). On our first day, we went to White Sand Beach, home to the whitest, purest sand in the whole wide world and we saw stingrays and even a shark in the shallow water of the beach. Later on that day, we went snorkelling and had our first glimpse of the reef itself, with thousands of little fishes nipping in and out to say hello. No Nemos though. Oh well.

The next day, we had our first go at scuba diving and unfortunately it wasn't a very successful attempt for me as the fast current and my low tolerance for high pressure in my ears didn't allow me to go further than two metres under the water. Because of this, I got the scuba instructor to myself later on that day and going really slowly, we went all the way to the bottom and were 8 metres under the water and got to touch the soft coral and swim around under the sea. Ah yes, under the sea...

Under the sea, under the sea
Darlin' it's better down where it's wetter
Take it from me.
Up on the shore they work all day
Out in the sun they slave away
While we devoting full time to floating
Under the sea

Ahem. Anyway, as we dived down further and further, it was here that I got my first glimpse of a PROPER shark, over 2 metres long and swimming behind the instructor, I was very much distracted from focusing on her like she had told me to. This was followed the next day by ANOTHER shark swimming in the ocean next to our boat, along with a couple of big sea turtles swimming around us whilst snorkelling. There were also lots of box jelly fish, THE DEADLIEST CREATURES ON EARTH! Yes, a good 3 days was had by all!

I spent a wobbly couple of days after getting off the boat trying to get used to not being at sea anymore, something which I am still feeling the effects of 3 days later. However, I didn't get time to recover properly as the next day I had to jump back aboard the Oz Experience bus and headed for our next destination on the way to Sydney - the Kroombit Cattle Station. Here, we had to learn to crack a whip (I got a blister), ride a bucking bronco (I lasted 16 seconds and came 2nd out of 30 people - ride 'em cowboy!), and round up the goats on horseback (the goats weren't on horseback I mean, we were. Mine was called Biwi). And before we knew it, we were back on the bus and headed down to Hervey Bay.

Which brings me to the present moment in time. I'm waiting for tomorrow where I will be headed out to Fraser Island in a 4x4 with 10 strangers and doing camping. Yay. Sleeping outdoors with no home comforts whatsoever. My favourite. I'll let you know if I survive.

Love from Chris (and I'm sure Luke sends his love as well) xxx