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Once again, slightly unable to believe it, but finished Australia and am now facing my mega flight all the way through to Tanzaia tonight! The last few weeks have gone scarily fast, but been absolutely amazing as well. After the Whitsundays, we headed up to the beautiful Magnetic Island off Townsville where we enjoyed snorkelling, lots of walking and some unsuccessful koala spotting (despite being in the best place to see them in Australia and at the best time of day as well!) but we did hear one so I guess we'll just have to be satisfied with that, as neither of us felt like spending a small fortune to have our pictures taken cuddling the tame ones in the island's sanctuary...
Anyways, next stop was Mission Beach ( I came very close to missing the coach for this part!) where we began our manic last week with some white water rafting on the Tully river - fantastic fun, but extremely wet and definitely adrenaline pumping! The next day was sky diving day, which I would love to be able to describe more eloquently than "it was absolutely awesome" but I think that's about the only way I can sum up all the exhileration of 60 seconds free fall, amazing views or the reef, flying over turtles in the water, and landing on the beach in blazing sunshine!
We then sped up to Cairns the same evening so as to be ready for our day trip up to the rainforest around Cape Tribulation the next day. This was great, particular highlights being the massive bowl of potatoe wedges for lunch and the corcodile cruise where we saw a total of four "salties" including one big four metre male affectionally known as Scarface! We had a small amount of panic souvenier buying on Hannah's part the day after, followed by an amazing all out veggie burger meal and then a very emotional goodbye the following morning. Can't believe five weeks of travelling could go that quickly or, in fact, have gone so smoothly considering the amount we crammed in! However, we had a great time together and have already planned to meet up for homemade bruschetta, veggie burgers, muffins and boiled eggs on toast when I get back :)
I'll admit I found it very odd being on my own after having such a wonderful travelling companion, but soon found occupation going out onto the Great Barrier Reef for some more snorkelling. This was, once again, spectacular and fascinating in equal measure, although I got a bit of a shock when I'd just jumped off the boat for the second time and happened to glance down to see a (quite big, I thought) shark swimming underneath me! Another highlight was finally getting to sail (!!) which we did all the way home whilst drinking goon and eating cheese and crackers, which the crew managed to pass round the rather cramped boat through the use of some quite impressive acrobatics! Was also very impressed, and slightly bemused, by the captain's habit of steering and controlling the throttle with his feet while he stuck his head out the cockpit!
Anyways, Cairns is lovely, but there's not a vast amount to do in the city except lie by the pool and go shopping for cheap souveniers so, after two days of this, I was getting a little bored, and, being lucky enough to find some like minded people (one of whom also had a car), I've just spent a long weekend going to a local rodeo, which was great fun - particalularly the bull riding - and then travelling round the region. This is also another beautiful part of the world (as is everywhere up there) but slightly surreal as the agricutural parts look wierdly similar to rural England interspersed with a bit of rainforest and a few spectacular waterfalls!
Anyways, have now completely done the East Coast and am sitting in Perth, also a lovely city, for the day and musing about how I'm going to squeeze in returning and seeing the rest of Austalia one day!
Love you all
xxx
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