Day one - we arrived in Cairns at 7 am and just went to the first hostel that would allow us to check in so early as we both needed to top up our sleep from the coach. The Greyhound has serves us well most of the time, although the only thing I'll miss about it is the cheesy humour of the drivers which I found hilarious, one example is when the driver was asked can i sit anywhere? he replied yeah but don't take my seat.. classic old man humour!

Cairns in a lot smaller than we anticipated, with no tall buildings its just full of tour desks, restaurants and bars. As with Airlie beach there is ironically no beach so a large swimming lagoon has been put in. We spent the day relaxng and then went out on the town, Cairns is full of places to go but our mood was soured by the news that Charlton  lost 4-1 and how seem to be staring Championship footbal square in the face. One interesting thing about Cairns is the ubiquity of aboriginals around the town, the only other places we ahve seem them ahve been big cities of Sydney and Bisbane so it is a little strange to see so many in a relatively small town. It may be because we're nearer the outback now, but they are all to be found drunk on street corners shouting at people. Good thing the europeans brought alcohol with them when they settled in Australia!

Day two - We decided to book up some tours, one to the barrier reef and one to Cape tribulation rainforests so we can split our time in Cairns between sight seeing and cotching. We also decided to switch hostels as we had heard good reports about one ominously called the asylum, its cheap and cheerful with free tea, internet, evening meals and bed bugs. During the day we watched 300 at the cinema which was ok but lacked a storyline, the action scenes were good on the big screen but not really worth seeing.

Day three - Today we visited the Great barrier reef on a day tour, the reef stretches half the length of the Queensland coast but the best snorkelling and diving is on the outer reef. Cairns is the best place to access the heart of the reef as we dived on the edge of it in the Whitsundays. We both just snorkelled as the dive was more expensive and we had already done that, we did have a free skills leason off the back of the boat and it was a lot different doing it straight off the boat than walking in off the beach. The views were similar to the Whitsundays with amazing coral and a true orange coloured nemo. We also saw a turtle, and they are really friendly so were able to feed it and stroke its shell which was really amazing. you could also feed the fishes in the water, as soon as you bread on your hand loads of fish swarm around you and bite at your fingers, all in all its an amazing experience to see all that goes in underneath the sea and how they all live off each other. even the coral is a living thing, and one of the  seven natural wonders of the world. On the way back the crew got us doing some boom netting, which is bascially holding onto a large net with about twenty other people while the boat drives as fast as it can. Lee managed to stay on the whole time but I let go towards the endto save myself swallowing the entire Pacific and stop myself from losing my swimming shorts!

In the evening we joined an organised bar crawl from the hostel with some free drinks and food and a stupid t-shirt to wear, it was ok but a little to 18-30s for our tastes.