Wow so what a week it has been! It feels like we left sydney weeks ago!

So after visiting the beautiful blue mountains on a perfectly clear day we waved goodbye to sydney & hopped on an early morning flight to cairns. i'm really glad i shotgunned the window seat as the view as we headed along the queensland coast was breathtaking. we chatted with some hilarious aussies on the flight before touching down in cairns. cairns airport is hilarious, there's more rigorous security at a local carnival england, love it! we strolled off the plane & into the heat of queensland & instantly felt relaxed. our home for the last 5 or 6 days has been calypso retreat just on the outskirts of cairns (away from all the lairy english backpacker scum).

it's a beautiful little place & we've been enjoying early morning dips in their pool everyday. after a couple of days lazing into queensland's pace of life we bit the bullet & coughed up the cash for a trip to the reef & intro scuba dive. the whole day was incredible, though andrea & i both preferred the snorkelling to the scuba diving. the fish & coral were incredible (as was the buffet lunch mmmmm).

by the time we were back on dry land we both developed a ridiculously visible sway, very uncool but we made up for it by drinking lots of tooheys & all was good!

our nights out in cairns have carefully avoided the backpacker pubs (why are they all irish themed incidentally?!) obviously we haven't come halfway across the world to see the inside of some chavvy pub so we went exploring & came across a tiny blues bar & an open mic night, several hours later, we emerge with a large bar voucher as a result of andrea winning some competition, ace! we also met some great aussie guys (one of which was called brett & looked disarmingly similar to brett of kath & kim!!)

onto the weekend & we met gemma in cairns for lovely lunch at the art gallery. she then drove us on the spectacular (and very rocky) road up to malanda on the atherton tablelands. we've had a great weekend, seeing the sights, eating gorgeous barbies & just now we stopped by at the cairns safari zoo where jason's sister works. the zoo was empty & we went into the dingo enclosure & played with them (they like cuddles), who'd have thought it eh!

so our time in cairns is drawing to a close, it has been great (though cairns as a city is pretty generic). tomorrow we pick up our jucy campers. thanks to some serious potter haggling we have got it for around 400 dollars less than our original quote. all those sunday mornings at car boot sales were clearly worthwhile! so we've done quite well moneywise. our main undoing has been our insatiable appetite for food which without exception has been brilliant. i'm umming & arrghing about affording the skydive, still not sure yet!

right best be off. we are having an amazing time, lots of lovely to everyone back in (i presume) rainy, miserable england. thank u for all your messages & thoughts

XX

p.s. mum do you recognise the fellas in the picture?!