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We flew from Singapore to Brisbane and then from Brisbane to Cairns so by the time we arrived we were pretty tired and just wanted to chill for a bit at our hostel. We stayed at Caravella's which was nice and clean and only a short walk along the esplanade to the lagoon. As we have begun to realise you can't swim in much of the sea in Queensland because of the jellyfish and sharks so the lagoon is very much appreciated, especailly as it is so hot!
Cairns itself is actually quite small but has a lot of backpackers as it is the gateway to the Daintree Rainforest, Cape Tribulation and the Great Barrier Reef. We spent most of our days at the lagoon because we could tan and then cool off in the water. It's a good opportunity to meet other travellers and spend some time relaxing. It had a lovely view out to the harbour of all the boats going to the Great Barrier Reef and of the rainforest and mountains in the distance.
We made good friends with Lucy, Natalie and Carleen from our hostel and as they had all travelled up the east coast they gave us good tips on where to go and what to do in whilst travelling down the coast. We knew there there were definite things we were going to do whilst in Australia so we decided to book them all at once with a travel agency as it's cheaper. We weren't sure which bus to travel with as there are a few different ones but we eventually chose Oz Experience which is the most expensive but apparently the most fun and the best way to meet other backpackers.
We also booked a dive trip to the Great Barrier Reef as this is something we had really been looking forward to since getting our PADI in Thailand. It was a bit of a bumpy journey to the reef but once we got there we put on our stinger suits, bcd's and flippers and we were ready to go. We decided to go down with a guide because we had only just learned to dive and didn't know the good spots in the reef to dive to. He was really nice and on our first dive we went to we saw lots of different fish (which we cannot remmeber the names of but were really quite pretty and colourful!). We also saw a clam, sea cucumber and the most exciting of all- a sting ray! We got quite close Steve Irwin style although didn't attempt to touch it! Whilst we were descending Harri had some trouble equalising as Britt is her buddy she stayed with her. We got down a few minutes after everybody else but it turns out we missed the shark that was swimming around. Britt was a bit disappointed but Harri was relieved and couldn't think of seeing anything worse! On our second dive we saw some equally bright and big fish swimming around and were quite impressed with some of the coral we saw too. We saw another clam this time but it was massive and when we touched it it closed up which was quite fun. We also saw a trigger fish which is really terrotorial and some silly boy in our group didn't see it and the fish got really angry and put his trigger up ready to attack. We thought it would have been exciting if he had attacked but unfortunately he didn't. We had an underwater camera with us and got some photos (mostly of us being silly in our scuba gear) but some of them aren't that clear because we found the visibility wasn't as good as in Thailand unfortunately.
Even though our hostel had two big kitchens we got a free meal every night at The Woolshed which is a restuarant that turns into bar/club at night time. Some people complained about the food but we were always very impressed, not going to turn down a free meal with our budgets! We spent a few good nights here having some drinks with the new friends we'd made. Some we're a bit too much fun, like the night we went out the day before we were supposed to leave! Let's just say we got in 5:30 and pretty much passed out on our beds completely sleeping through our 6am alarms and missed the bus to Mission Beach. Bad times!
We're leaving Cairns now and heading straight to Townsville where we'll get the ferry to Magnetic Island for a few days.
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