Cairns

We left Singapore on an Airbus A380 with Quantas that was pretty well equipped on the entertainment front! Best thing of all was the 'aircraft cam'. They had a camera on the back of the plane so you could watch the entire journey! At times we couldn't watch especially when the turbulence was bad! It was probably better than the films we watched!! See pictures for that... Downside was that the food wasn't as good as BA it has to be said! Snob!

We arrived in Sydney (don't worry you're reading the right blog!) and got the most expensive hotel transfer! We thought the transfer was free, as the ride took about 2 minutes! The connecting flight the next day to Cairns was pretty uneventful and then we arrived in Cairns!

We got dropped off in town and walked around for an hour trying to find a room for £5. Unfortunately, we aren't in Asia anymore so it was £25!! Arggggghhh why did we leave!

Cairns doesn't have a beach, instead it has a saltwater lagoon on the sea front. Its pretty nice but it did feel like that was all there was to do!! In the evening the hostel put on a BBQ for $3 so we had some good Aussie tucker! They have free gas BBQ here, can't imagine Bristol City council agreeing to that. Not surprised though, I'd give it 1 day before the gas got nicked!!

The next day we had the mammoth of lie ins...3.30pm! We didn't even have a late one! We hadn't been feeling too great so if we slept that late it was obviously needed!

A pretty uneventful day apart from booking our Great Barrier Reef trip! We tried to work out how we were going to tackle the east coast of Australia but everything was shut!

In the evening we went to the Woolshed which does meals for $12 and includes a drink and dessert! Bonus! The meals were massive and the entertainment was pretty good.

The boat left at 8.30am out to the Barrier Reef. After about 30 minutes the boat was rocking from side to side and quite a few people were being sick. We tried not to watch people be sick but it's like a car crash, you can't not look! I got as far as having the watery taste and then the boat slowed for the first stop! Phew!

Our boat had exclusivity at the 2 reef spots (Hawkins & Saxon). The first spot was pretty good although comparable with Koh Toa. We did see 3 stingrays and a turtle from the boat though. Also a shark apparently swam underneath us when we were snorkeling but we didn't see it, the girl next to us saw it. The 2nd spot was really beautiful, just how the postcards show the reef! So many colours and varieties of fish and coral. We were snorkeling for about 1.5 hours at this site alone! There was a fish over a metre long that would let you stroke it!

We got back to shore and had to quickly find what we were doing the next day! Our options were cut short pretty quick as every single campervan and car was being rented out for the period we wanted! Apparently there were loads a few weeks ago and since then people have been taking them down to Sydney for new years! We went to a travel agent with long faces but by the time we left we had a plan of action! She had found us a cheap greyhound ticket, great, and also a car for us to hire for our trip to Cape Tribulation which is the rainforest in the north!
We headed to the woolshed for more good grub.

We checked out of our hostel and got picked up in our pensioners car! Emma's first serious question to the guy was 'can it go up hills'?! Looks were deceptive though and by the end up of trip we did like the Hyundai Getz! We had the car now all we needed was a tent! We got one for $20 from a Woolworth's type store.

The Captain Cook highway was labelled as one of Australia's greatest drives and it didn't disappoint! It followed the coast to Port Douglas and stopped at some great view points.

It took most of the day to get to Cape Tribulation as we kept stopping off at places. We bought some sausages and once Emma had pitched the tent right next to the rain forest, we headed for the BBQ spots. They weren't on the beach like we thought and none of bbqs had any gas in them (the Bristol kids must have got to them)! We had to cook in the gross kitchen back at camp. We persevered though as a just a small pizza at there restaurant was £15! As it went dark the noise of rainforest came alive and it was really really loud!! We both had a really good nights sleep despite our single layer tent ie. no inner tent!

The next day we got up and went on a walk around the rainforest. We didn't see any animals of interest, but it was really cool to see the rainforest open out onto the beach!! We stopped at a Creek which had a swing so messed around there before finding another campsite for the night. The campsite we stayed at was deserted! That turned out to be a good thing because as we were leaving for another rainforest walk we saw a Cassowary and it's 3 chicks! We had been on the lookout all day and then 4 just wonder into our camp!

The guy who ran the campsite was very friendly and helpful, he first of all gave us some free food, then on seeing our accommodation for the night he brought us a mattress and then when it started to rain he gave us a massive piece of plastic to go over the tent! Not sure it helped but he had good intentions! That evening he cooked us the largest burger plus a crazy amount of chips!!! Then it rained and rained and rained!! The tent got a bit wet at the edges but was ok!

The next day we saw another Cassowary walk on to our campsite before we headed to Mossman Gorge. We went swimming in the water which was icy cold.

As we drove toward Atherton tableland, we went past miles of forest which looked like it had been burnt in forest fires. It was quite eerie as the area was deserted with hundreds of ant hills covering the baron land. Our next stop was a mango winery. We've never been to a winery before, were driving past so gave it a go! We had tasters of pretty much everything they did and decided to buy a fizzy mango wine. We're planning to save it for Christmas day but as we write this the carry bag it's in is starting to annoy, so may not last til then!

We headed for a campsite on Eachman lake. Enroute we stopped at the 'Curtain fig tree'. It was huge - see pictures!

We pitched our tent and headed for a swim in Eachman crater lake. The sun was just going down and it was a great way to cool off! Not much to do in evening apart from cook our pasta and sauce! Yum yum, not.

The last day with our red car began with a trip to the Cathedral Fig tree. Again pretty impressive so see photos.

We stopped off at quite a few waterfalls the next day. The most impressive were on the 'waterfall circuit'. The first one was called Millia Millia falls, which is a huge traditional waterfall where we swam until Emma got bitten by something, she was told it was a leech! For all you Peter Andre fans (Atkins!), Millia Millia falls is where he shot the video for 'mysterious girl', hence the photo of me splashing water.

The next stop was an even higher waterfall! You could only access the top. I jumped over the barrier to stand on top of it and it was a long way down! Good photo though! (Kris is very small on right!)

We drove a long way stopping off at various lookouts and then we reached 'the boulders'. Massive boulders were in the river. Not sure how they got there, legend has it that an aboriginal woman went mental and threw them there. Well if King Kong and Godzilla are real, I'm a believer!!

We headed back to Cairns and got the Greyhound to Mission Beach. As we left the driver came on the radio and started laying the laws down. He ended with 'and you don't want to mess with me'! A nice warm heartfelt welcome to the greyhound experience!