Firstly, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! If your reading this today, I hope you have agreat day and the parcel finally arrives!!!

Anyway, I flew from Perth to Cairns last sunday night. The others had already come on saturday. I flew Quantas, very nice!! I got a chicken wrap and mars bars for dinner, haha. It was an overnight flight so I literally just slept as I managed to bag myself two seats. I arrived into Cairns at about 5am, it was a very small airport so luckily there was no chance of me getting lost! Caught a taxi to the hostel everyone was at. The owners left a key for me in the letterbox, they also managed to save me a bed in the room with the others. I was expecting to have to sleep out in the common room until the morning! Flopped onto the bed about 6am, and managed to get a little sleep before gettin our taxi at 8am to go on our dive!

Quite a hectic morning but really worht it. The sun was blazing hot, and our boat was pretty packed. I booked onto a dive at the last minute, as i thought I may aswell as I probably won't be back anytime soon! The water was amazingly clear. Jon and I went down in a group of four, it was such a bizarre feeling being able to breathe under water. I honestly thought that I saw more just from snorkelling but its cool to be able to say that i've scuba dived on the Great Barrier Reef!!

Walking back from the harbour Jon got us VERY lost, ended up circling this one shopping centre about 3 times, typical Jon not paying attention to his surroundings!!! Got back just in time to get the free shuttle bus to the place we get a free meal. I was so sweaty it was discusting, the humidity is so intense! I guess its doing wonders for my body, flushing away all the crap!!!

The followinf morning we caught a bus to Airlie Beach. This took about 10 hours, but it went surprisingly quickly. Watched 3 films and had a good nap! Stopped off for lunch and met a really funny guy called Lloyd. Lloyd was about 60, an abvious alcoholic, who was telling us how everyone in CannonvaleLoves each other....hugs each other....were just so happy....I have everything I need''such a funny guy, who had a lovely spider in his fish and chips that we decided not to tell him about...

Arriving in Airlie Beach we booked into the dreaded 'Magnams', we heard a lot of bad stuff about this place but we thought it was great. It was a huge backpacker resort. It reminded us of a cross between uni-halls, camping in france and big brother! Our dorm was pretty empty, which i guess is a good thing as less people to wake you up!

I t was our first night of cooking for ourselves since being away and we decided to go all out....and cook ourdelves beans on toast!haha. Booked up to go on a tour of the Whitsundays. We expected to be able to do it fairly cheaply, bu the only real way to do it was by booking on a day trip. The cheapest one we could find was on 'Fury', a kind of big RIB with 900 hp! Pretty nippy! We stopped off for a snorkel off of Hook Island, the sea was a little merky but we saw turtles!!We had to wear stinger suits, these are very sexyall in one leotard to stop you getting stung by deadly jelly-fish!

The best part of the day was stopping at Whitehaven beach. Whitehaven is one of the top 10 beaches in the world! The sand is so fine it actually sqeaks when you walk on it! Its bizarre. We stopped here for lunch, and sat up on picnic benches out of the sun as it was so hot.

The biggest surprise of the day was bumping into Jamie Banasic! We went to school with Jamie and he just wondered past as we were waiting for our boat! Jamie is working as a lifeguard down at the lagoon and living on a boat in the marina...its such a small world! We met up in the evening for a few drinks up on deck. His boat was amazing- full on jacuzzi and everything. We laid up on the top deck star gazing and then went out in town. It was cool because Jamie knew all the workers in the bars so we got really cheap drinks. This was our first real night out in Oz.

Had a lzy day down by the lagoon yesterday, the weather was a bit iffy, rained a little bit but then the wind changed and it brightened up. Jon and I walked miles to find this place where you could get chicken shnitzel for $3.90, we waited for the free shuttle bus back and really paniced we would miss out greyhound bus. It was tight for time but we did it. The only downside being i didnt have time to change out of my bikini so travelled all night in a slightly damp bikini!

Arrived into Hervey Bay this morning and its pissed it down ever since! The overnight bus wasnt sooooo bad, i managed to curl up on two seats and used my micro-towel as a duvet!

We are booked onto a 4x4 tour on Frase Island tomorrow so we hope the weather brightens up! Fraser Island is the biggest sand Island in the world, and apparently has some of the purest water. You can drink the water in the lakes! We arn't allowed to wear sunscreen in the lake as it would pollute it, so hopefully no-one will get burnt. Theres no roads on the islands either so you drive along the beaches! There is 8 of us in our jeep, and 3 of them have just gone down the supermarket to get our food allowence, its going to be so fun. The second night we stay in an aboriginal village!!!

Just got a message from Wenna who is meeting us in New Zealand in 2 and half weeks! Can'believe thats the amount of time we have left in Oz! Really looking forward to seeing her. Anyway, im off to cook up my pepper, onions, noodles and chilli sauce!!! Are you impressed?!?!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx