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We're on Magnetic Island now, which whilst not being even remotely magnetic, is a nice place. I haven't found it to be the gorgeous island the travel agents would have you led to beleive, but it's nice enough. Sort of place you wouldn't go out your way for, but if you found yourself here you wouldn;t think you'd done too badly.
Anyways, ever since we came back from out banger-hire trip we'd been staying at International Backpackers. It was pretty cheap and quieter than Global Palace, and though it didn't have a pool, the gorgeous Lagoon was right over the road.Â
Other than the reef trip we didn't do much other than getting up late, sunbathing by the pool and enjoying our free meal and cheap pitchers of beer at the Rattle and hum (Pub) next to our hostel. One thing we did do is hunt for a didgeridoo. Katie's always wanted one, I wasn't too bothered though. There were some really nice affordable ones in two shops we were looking in though, and once I got the hang of playing it (I mean that loosely of course), I started warming to the idea. It's pretty addictive; quite easy to learn how to make a decent noise through it but then as i found, you just want to keep at it and improve. I think it's 'cus you can actaully hear yourself improve over a few minutes, and I just wanted to keep at it.
We wanted to get something that sounded good as possible. In the first shop all the irritating woman went on about was the artwork and telling us in GREAT detail the aboriginal stories connected to it. Interesting to an extent, but she never commented on the quality of the instument. So in the end we went with our favourite didg from the other shop, which both looks good and sounds great. We knocked a good pecentage of the price down (Asian bartaring techniques considered very useful) but with the postage ontop it was still quite a bit. But definately worth it.
As much as I enjoyed Cairns, I was ready to leave when the time came. We were almost there two weeks after all, but it's derfinately one of the better places. We've bought a bus pass to get us down to Sydney, so we caught the first leg of it on a 5 hour journey down to Townsville. We got in at 1om, and got a local bus with all our luggage down to the ferry. The crossing was an enexciting twenty minutes, and at the other end everyone was packed into an ancient bus. I have never been so crammed into a bus in my life, even in India or Cambodia! So when we finally arrived at Base Resort I was not in the best of moods.
It's a really nice place, really. We're in an 8 bed dorm which is a bit hot and stuffy, and the kitchens under equipped and crap, but from almost everywhere you get a great sea view, there's a nice pool, and at night the view is unbelievably gorgeous:There's a full moon which is so bright and yellow it looks like a giant torch.
 We didn't do too much here, as there isn't except for walking and sunbathing, and snorkelling. After speaking to reception about snorkelling and being told there's Tiger sharks around but they probably will stay away from you, and its officially end of Jellyfish season that day it should be fine! Right, so the all the box Jellyfish (that can kill in seconds) think, oooh no I gotta get away it's officially the end of season I'm not ment to be here. I think I'l give the sea a wide birth for a few more weeks. So we basically kept ourselves by the pool. Â
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