So we got to Cairns on Tuesday night, it was dark and very very very hot. It gets dark at about seven up here, they dont have daylight savings either. It rains a lot up here at this time of the year, but the driver of the car taking us to town tells us it rains a bit during the day and mostly just in the evening. He was wrong. It rained a lot the first few days here and on Saturday just gone it cleared up mostly and we have had fine weather since. This is all thanks to going for a walk on Friday and meeting a man, dressed in tshirt and shorts (old ones) and cycling his bike barefoot. He told us he was a weather man and that the weather would be getting better from Sunday on..... we think he might have been a crazy man

Cairns is nice, very resorty. Its like being in Brazil again, Regina thinks its like being in Spain somewhere. In the town there are plenty of lovely smelling restaurants and we have to walk passed them all on the way into town grrrrr. Down the town there is a big man made lagoon pool thing, at the end of the Esplanade. Its massive and great for our early morning swims!!!! The Esplanade stretches out along the coast out the town a bit, lots of people go walking and jogging down there. There is also lots of free gym equipment for working out, nothing fancy but you could get a decent work out I reckon.... we havent tried it, and probably wont!!!! The day we met the crazy man we were trying to walk over to the botanical gardens (yes more fecking botanical gardens). It kept lashing down on us so we had to stop and wait, and went back to the hostel after making it just a few hundred metres.... twice. Eventually we made it and had a look around, it was very very very very hot, about 30 I reckon and we couldnt breathe with it. Back to the pool in the hostel fast!!!!

On Thursday last, to celebrate my birthday, I went for a run at the local running track (stadium and all). It rained so much that 7 of the 8 lanes on the track were under about a half a foot of water and I was confined to the outside lane. I have never experienced anythign like it, and I thought I had in Tongariro and before that in Cork in the 2009 floods. It was great though, because it was still quite warm. We went for dinner after, and then home for jelly and icecream.... mmmmmmmm

Not much more excitment until yesterday, off to the Great Barrier Reef for our diving and snorkeling. The boat that took us out was a bit of a cruise boat, not really the best thing if you just want to go out diving for anyone interested. We started out by going on a semi submersible around the reef and got to see loads of fish and coral. Lots of the coral is damaged by the Cyclone, but it is a good thing for the coral because it helps it grow bigger, not so great for tourists visiting it of course. We then had a massive lunch and about an hour later we got in for our dive. It was ok, not what we expected, lets not dwell on it. After the dive, we went to the nearby sand bar island that we anchored off and went snorkeling. That was amazing, we just went off around the reef by ourselves and saw millions of really brightly coloured fishys and lots of amazing coral, blue ones and red ones. There was giant clams, and lots and lots and lots of brightly coloured fishys, so bright they are worth mentioning twice. There was rainbow fish and illuminous blue and yellow fish. Black ones and orange ones and stripey ones and see through ones. It was awesome!!!!!! I still cant stop smiling when I think back on it. It more than made up for the disappointing dive. We cruised back to the mainland then, which was nice and relaxing. The colour of the water out there was epic!!! Sadly we didnt get many photos from the little island, which would have been nice, because we were very rushed out there thanks to the time slot we got for our dive, but it is somewhere that we can both picture forever..

Cairns is not finished yet, just this entry of the blog. More to come in a few days time.....