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Cricket over. It was back to Queensland, this time up to the tropics, for a couple of weeks staying in Mikeys awesome palace, complete with pool, jacuzzi and cockroaches. It was a fantastic place to stay for a couple of weeks (cheers mike) however, the predicament was not helped by poor Mikey having 4 litres of engine oil dumped in his pool a few days before i got there. Obviously they'd had one party too many and on meeting the slightly mad neighbours it was possible to guess the culprits, but got sorted just in time for a cheeky couple of pool parties before i left. After seeing Mr Wynes for the first time in nearly 18 months and the tears had been wiped away, it was time to hit the legendary nighlife that is Cairns. It is well regarded on the backpacker circuit for its reputation of great nightlife and Cairns did not disappoint. It all falls in to one big blur of karaoke at the c*** and bull, gilligans, the woolshed and tropos. They are quite leagueofgentlemenesque in that you have to be a 'local' to enjoy many of the priveleges in town, so it was more than helpful being shown round the city by Mike. The particular highlight of Cairns would have to be the hour of power at Tropos, where you pay $10 (4 pounds) to get in and drink for free for an hour! "Great Success!!!"
Of course one of the other things that Cairns has got going for it is its proximity to the Great Barrier Reef and again I was able to abuse Mikeys status as a dive instructor and do some really cool dives and scooba dooing for free. After going out on the Great Adventures boat, I got to see Mikeys impersonation of a dive professional, complete with Mike, resplendent in life jacket giggling his way through the safety instructions he gave out at the start of the tour. He works for a company called Scooba Doos, which operate little motorised yellow vessels which allow you to travel around underwater around the reef. I got my own personalised tour from the man himself and they are maaarvellous fun! He does get bored of them tho, leading bemused tourists around at 2mph, marvelling in amazement at the sight of a little fish three feet below sea level. So it was after lunch when we got to do a bit of Scuba Diving that was the real highlight of the day, we got to go a good few metres down and see some beautiful coral and sealife. He does without doubt have a very cool job.
Cairns is also something of an adventurers paradise and while i was there, Mikey and I did a bit of Quad Biking (which if im honest I was less than succesful at) the eventa at which will never be spoken of again, eh mike? Suffice to say I was lucky to avoid both hospitalisation and a hefty bill, while my university friend proved somewhat more adept at negotiating the tracks. I am starting to think, on the basis of this and other assorted evidence that motor vehicles and I do not mix together particularly well... We also got to do some white water rafting down the barron river, which of course i would recommend to anyone, but it was a bit tame and there are better rivers in cairns on which to do it. The last night appropriately contained an hour of power at tropos, an awesome night at the woolshed and after an all nighter in the pool, it was goodbye to the misty mountains of cairns, the beautiful great barrier reef, michael wynes and his very generous hospitality and i was off down the east coast for a 3 part 27 hour bus journey, taking in the Whitsunday Islands, Fraser Island as my last stops in Oz....
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