Dear all! I hope that everything is well for you all back home. Missing you all lots as always.

I've finally reached my final destination in Australia which is Cairns. There's not overly much to do here but it's very relaxed and there's an awesome lagoon - just a huge outdoor swimming pool which makes up for the fact that there's no beach. Since i last wrote from Airlie Beach we travelled north to Townsville where we got the ferry across to Magnetic Island (it's not really Magnetic - just Captain Cook thought it was because his compass didn't work!). We spent 3 nights there - the most worthwhile thing was a visit to an animal sanctuary at Bungalow Bay. We got to hold a baby croc, a snake (it took quite a lot of persuading) and a koala. Now i'll just set you straight here: Koalas are a) not bears! and b) are really not that cute. They smell very funky and have viciously sharp claws. I think that will be the first and the last time that I hold one! It nearly pierced holes in my t-shirt! JOKER. There wasn't really much else to do on the island - just a lot of relaxing. The hostel was right on the beach but the weather didn't end up being very good so we had to miss out on snorkelling and sea kayaking as the sea was too choppy. It's a bit weird - the closer to the equator you get you'd think the weather could only get better - but it rains here all the time!

Then we made our way up to Cairns and arrived here on Wednesday evening. I can't believe how far we have travelled since Melbourne - it equates to about 60 hours travelling! We've not done much since we've been here - just packing ready for our flight as we now seem to have triple the content that we started with. Haha...

On Friday we did however have the most amazing day of my trip so far. We went on a cruise out to the Great Barrier Reef. It was truly amazing. It takes about 2 hours to sail away from the mainland before you get into reef country. The sea is so clear and so amazingly shallow in some parts. The sea was really rough though - i thought i was going to be sea sick. We firstly did some snorkelling - the underwater camera came in very handy. The pictures have come out well and are now up on facebook. With our package we also got an intro scuba dive. I was so scared about it but it is something that i've always wanted to do. I nearly bottled it at the last minute - had to come back up the surface to be reassured that it would be ok. Just so frustrating not being able to talk under the water. All you have is these funny hand signals! But so glad that I did it...got to see some clown fish which definately look superimposed on the pictures (but honestly they are real)! I'd love to come back here to complete a full dive course - there's some debate as to how much longer the reef will be accessible for diving etc because of human impact. There was a story about a turtle which was found dead out there - when they opened it's stomach they found 375 cigarette butts! EEEk.

We've met up with Chloe Grindlemonster from uni and her travel bud Louisa. That's been lots of fun. Staying in the most amazing hostel ever - it's like the Ritz in hostel land. Really refreshing to have an en-suite and good facilities for a change.

Looking forward to flying out tonight (if only for the plane food yum yum) but very sad to leave Australia. It's been a fantastic 6 weeks out here! I hope that everyone's well back home and taking care. All the best with any finals, job applications etc. Lots of Love Lizzi xxxxx

PS: I declined my dentistry offer - just realised it wasn't for me. I figured if I was having to convince myself to do it then it just wasn't right.