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Well- When we left christchurch to go to the airport we thought that we were going to be flying to Sydney then working our way uo to Cairns on the greyhound bus. HOWEVER- When we were in the checkout queue I realised that we actually had another flight to Cairns which would mean that we were getting the Greyhound from cairns to Sydney. Me and Tess found this very amusing as we had only just noticed. Good job that we didn't book a hostel for Sydney- LOL.
Our airport fun didnt stop there- when we got to the check out desk- we were told they couldn't find us for the flight- slightly worring. The women then said we might have to pay to get on the flight even though it was not our fault. BUT you will be glad to know it all got sorted out and we didnt ahve to pay any extra.
In our 2 hour wait at Sydeny for our next flight we looked in guide books in book shops and got some numbers and booked a hostel for the correct location this time- and it was cheap as well. Bonus We arrived at 10pm and checked in to our hostel and pretty much went straight to sleep.
The next day was pretty much a day of organising- as we did not realise we would be starting in Cairns- we have pretty much relaised that we need more time to do east cost aus- so we will juts have to try our best. After a hard day of organising we sunbathed in the really hot weather and had a swim in the swimming lagoon as you can not swim in the sea because of all the stingers. In the evening we wandered around the night market and got masses of Chinnese food. x sam
THE NEXT DAY... over to tess...
the next day we got up early to go do our barrier reef dive, all excited and not really aware why we were putting ourselves through it! sam wasnt feeling too perky from last nites chinese food binge, which was unfortunate seeing as we had filled a take away container unbelievably full f02 13 dollars, with a view to making it last both nites for tea!
with our bags packed for the day and our suncream on we headed to the marina to get on our boat! ... but didnt actually kno where in the marina we were supposed to go... yet again mine and sams organisational skills had faltered somewhat! lol. but after a bit of wandering around and asking other people sam bumped into a couple who looked equally lost and were actually on our boat too! bonus! see, we always get there in the end!
we checked in at the marina check in desk thing, lol, which we didnt even kno existed! got our tickets and went to the boat we were informed of, lol, and it was right at the end of a row of boats, we never would have found it! we hopped on and were in no danger of the boat leraving without us as people kept piling on long after us, i imagine they too were wandering aimlessly!
we had a briefing on the boat...this was not fun... they told us about a few of the dos and donts, hand signals, things that happen to your body when u dive, etc etc, me and sam looked at each other...bewildered and bemused, why were we here!!!???
me n sam both ended up in group 3 of 5 for the divng, and were told we could do a bit of snorkling first before they casll us back in to dive. we got our gear on, yet another attractive wetsuit combination, complete with flippers! as we waddled our way to the back of the boat to do some snorkling we stopped and asked what we were actually supposed to do... it seemed somehow we had missed the snorkling briefing... o it just gets better! one of the boat guys gave us a few quick how tos and we were on our way, with our humungous pain in the bum rented underwater camera in tow! our intro to snorkling was short and sweet and we saw a few fish, so got snap happy, then literally 5 minutes after getting in we were called out to dive! hmm.
we did not dive!!!... we tried, VERY hard, much to our instructors annoyance it seemed, but we just couldnt do it. firstly, all rigged up with weight belts and extremely heavy air tanks on our bags, and all kinds of things dangling around, we were assiste to the edge of the boat, the guys had to carry the weight of the tanks whuile we walked! sat on the edge we were told to put a hand on our mask, one on the depth-ometer-thingy and basically just forward roll into the water... ya right with about 3 stone on our backs!!! however we managed it after a deep breath!
once in the water we hung onto a rope at the side of the boat for what turned out to be quite a while, as the instructor got us to go under, and hold onto a pole undderwater whilst trying out all the necessary moves for the dive... me n sam were a bit rubbish! we kept getting water in our masks and couldnt get it out, no matter how many times our instructor told us the exact same thing (he wasnt very helpful) we just couldnt do it, and when your underwater and youve gort water swimmin around in your mask and around your nose, u cant help breathe it in, which affects the other thing in your mouth which youre trying to breathe into, its basically not very good, because we couldnt just pop straight up, we had to tell the guy and ease up because of your ears, and when you cabnt breathe properley you really dont wanna hang around and wait for the instructor to let you up! trust me! the other peroblem we had was our ears... i had trouble equalising mine because i dont like blowin my ears, and sams were really hurting i think maybe cuz she was still a bit snotty etc.
so, aftyer a lot of trying, dissapointment and a lack of reassurance and help from the stupid diving man, we reluctantly called it a divind day, and got out. just in time for dinner!
dinner was ace and me and sam crammed our bellies going up for seconds! (making the most of free food is absolutely compulsary!) there were fresh white baps, salads, pasta, cold meats, fruit, potato salad, coleslaw, it was all pretty tasty! after letting our dinnner go down (well not really, that would have taken 6 hours!) we jujped at the chance to do a bit more snorjkling, determined to make use of our chunk of camera!
we got back into our wetsuits, slightly tighted now! and plopped back into the water. we flipperesd and snorkled ourselves silly, and after about ten minutes realised further ahead was a spot where we were literally about 3 foot above the coral asnd lots of fish... you literally had to swim horizontal or youd hit the coral! we saw some amazin fish, well, they were pretty cool. we saw some nemo clown fish, a stripey zebra print one, a black one with blue glittery bits, lots of schools of little silver ones, a big hunumgour big lipped blue fish that we kind of stalked, until it swam straight at me and i decided to back off. lol. we took lots of pictures, which we will put on here soon, we forgot the disc just, sorry. and then when our time was up we got back onto the boat. we both loved the snorkling and felt satisfied with our sessio today, the diving just wasnt meant to be! we both agreed that if we really wanted to dive again we need a slower much more thorough approach to learning, and a better diving man! hmph!
after some more desperate sunbathing on the boat we got off back at the marina, and i spent the whole rest of the day and night, about another 6 hours, still feeling like i was on a boat, it was verrrrryyy weird, like being drunk when the rooms spinning, only not quite, it was very strange and freaked me ou a bit... good job me and sam just booked ANOTHER boat trip today...but thats another blog.
we didnt do much that night, nipped to the supermarket to get some necessities, i finished off my chinese food, sam had cheese n beans on toast, we showered ourselves clean, went to th night market again, accidently both purchased a summer top, then went on the internet for a bit and got all of our photos/videos etc from traveling so far, got put onto one disc! so i think we will be sending these home for you to hasve a nosey at! please understand that the fish pictures are a bit rubbish, lol, and i get a new mask part way thru so you have to work out whos who a lot of the time.
anyway, we went to bed, i wrote my journal, we packed our last bits in our bag, and prepared for an early morning bus journey to mission beach! bye bye cairns, it was fun! xxx tess xxx
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