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Once we had gotten back to Cairns after our week away in Cape Tribulation and Port Douglas, we still had another week there before we left Australia for good. Just like I said in my first blog for Cairns, there wasn't really a great deal to do there other than chill out by the pool and look around the shops. Luckily the weather at the begining of the week the weather was much better than it had been before, which meant I could spend more time sunbathing and less time spending any money! On the Friday after we got back to Cairns we went to the cinema to see the Sex and The City movie, which us girls loved, but Justin didn't seem to enjoy as much.
On the following Tuseday Justin, Chris and I went out for a day trip to the Great Barrier Reef, which is something I had really been looking forward to doing, but that we had had to put off until then as we were waiting for a good weather day. We had to get up very early in the morning and make our way down to the waterfront to be on the boat for 8. The trip we booked was for an enitre day snorkelling on the reef and had lunch and snacks included. As we were going to the outer reef, as it was supposed to be much nicer the further out you go, it still took a couple of hours to get to our snorkeling spot. We were told we would have 5 hours in the water altogether though. The boat we were on was extra-fast to give us as much time there as possible, but because of this I got very sea sick on the way there. This hasn't ever happend to me before and I hadn't expected to feel that bad, so by the time we were ready to go in the water I felt so ill that I couldn't go in. After a while I tried to go in, but every time I breathed through my snorkel I thought I was going to throw up and had to get out of the water. This went on all the way until lunch time, by which point I was getting so annoyed with myself that I thought I had to just go for it. I went in, and almost threw up about five times, but after that I was ok. The only problem was I couldn't stay in for as long at a time as I would have liked, but that didn't really matter. I was so pleased that I felt better because the reef was amazing and really good to look at. It was so much nicer than places we had snorkelled at before, and was well worth the trip out there. Justin and Chris felt ok, so had a great time and were in the water all day. We saw loads of fish including a massive wrasse, which are one of the biggest fish there, and also a stingray. The boys were a bit annoyed that we didn't see any sharks though! Some people on the boat went diving instead of snorkelling and saw abit more, but it was a bit too expensive for us. I would have liked to do it though, so that will be something for next time! We went to two different places on the reef, and the second was even nicer, but we couldn't go to the third that we were supposed to because the weather was too rough that day. It was a great day out and I enjoyed it in the end. I didn't even feel that bad on the way home and managed to eat the fruit and chees they gave out!
We went out that night for our 'last night in Australia' night out. Even though we weren't leaving until Friday morning we decided to go then because Chris, Claire and Matt were all leaving too and we could make it a joint thing. It turned out to be a really good night, and the bars seemed to have cheap drink offers on too which made it even better! Nic and Ashleigh, who we had been travelling with had already left Cairns by the time we got back, but they came back for the night. We went out for dinner first, and then back to our hostel bar. We also met up with a couple who we had met in Thailand as they had just arrived in Cairns that day, and it was great to catch up. We all met up again on Thursday night as that was our actual last night there, but as we had to get up ridicuously early to catch our flight, we just went out for dinner. I had had to spend all that day packing my bags, as it was so hard to fit everything in. I had to throw out loads of my stuff, but I still had too much! As it was so long since we had last flown, we had stuff in bags all over the place. It was a boring final day, and I would have liked to sunbathe one last time, but it rained!
Justin, Claire and I had to get up at 3 in the morning, after hardly any sleep, to get a taxi to the airport. Claire was flying back to Sydney that day, and we had to fly there first before getting another flight to New Zealand. We said our final goodbye (after many throughout the trip) at the airport! We landed in Sydney at about 8.30 in the morning after a two hour flight, and as our bags were being transferred onto the next plane for us, we had some free time to go back into the city. We got the train in and went to the Sydney Aquarium in Darling Harbour for a couple of hours. This was something we had wanted to do but had never gotten around to when we were there before. It was really good actually, and I'm glad we made the time to do it. My favorite thing were the seals! We stopped for lunch when we had finished at a bar nearby, and then made our way to the international airport. We had to be there early because of our bags, so once we had checked in had a bit of hanging around to do. We boarded our flight to Christchurch at about 5 that afternoon. It felt really strange to be leaving Australia, having been there for such a long time. The weather in New Zealand was going to be freezing, and it was also going to be the first time that Justin and I were truely on our own since we left. But the weirdest thing was that New Zealand had always been ages away in our minds, and it brought home that our trip was nearly over and we didn't have much time left!
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