last day!

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Its our last day! Boo!



As you can see I became very lazy with updating this again - apologies. Its a bit boring to sit on a computer when the sun is blazing outside and I have a tan to get - to prove all you non believers wrong! I've finally defeated those pale skin Barker genes!



Anyway, since the last blog we've done so much. We had our visit to Fraser Island and I was actually in the middle of writing a blog entry about it when the internet I'd paid for ran out and it angered me so I couldn't be bothered to do it all again! Fraser Island was incredible - we visited Lake Mckenzie, went walking through the forests etc and then on my birthday we went to 75mile beach, the Maheno shipwreck, Indian Head, Champagne rock pools, Eli Creek, Rainbow Sands and finished the day off with a visit from 2 dingoes at Eli Creek walking around us and sniffing out our food. Non of those places I've just listed are going to mean anything to you if you've never been to Fraser Island but Google it and the pictures speak for themselves! You're completely inundated with "dingoes are dangerous wild animals" and "keep far away from the dingoes at all times" warnings before you get to the island but when they were actually there in front of us its hard to remember all the warnings since they're so bold and just happily walk upto you and around you. They have actually killed kids on the island before so they are dangerous - but they look just like domestic dogs and they're not very big! So its hard to remember that they're dangerous! It was really amazing to see them so close!



After Fraser Island we headed to Agnes water. Nothing much here apart from a beach and a "town centre" which consisted of about 10 shops and a petrol station. exciting stuff. we only had a day there and then took the overnight coach to Airlie Beach was traumatic because a) paul nearly didn't get on because his ticket had the wrong date on it and b) it was meant to be a 10 hour overnight trip that ended up being 13 hours after it broke down in some middle of nowhere petrol station at about 3am so that was fun!! We finally got to Airlie Beach and the next day from there we headed out to the Whitsunday Islands! I can't really describe most of these places with words like "beautiful", "amazing" etc because it doesn't do it justice. You should Google most of these places and look at the pictures yourselves! So stunning! We went snorkelling on the reef which was incredible! Easily one of the best experiences we've had since being here and one of the best things I've ever ever done! Was just like how it looks on david attenborough documentaries! And then had the afternoon at Whitehaven Beach where the sand is as white as snow!



After our Whitsundays/Airlie Beach stop we headed to Mission Beach for 2 nights. It was so so hot and tropical and humid - like stepping into a hot steam room every time you moved away from air con! Lovely! we just spent our full day here sitting on the beach but you can't go in the sea anywhere in tropical north Queensland at this time of year because of the stingers (jellyfish to you and me). And they have box jellyfish hanging around in the waters in tropical Queensland so you really don't want to go in the water.

After Mission Beach we headed to Cairns which is more a large town than a city! But still a really fun and hot place with a really nice lagoon on the waterfront to make up for their lack of beach and again being unable to splash about in the sea! We had another trip out from Cairns where we went out to Green Island (again - google. also google "Ocean Free cairns" - that was the boat we went out on) on a sailing boat and spent the day snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef which was just incredible! We saw Nemo and we saw Crush! And to those who aren't familiar with characters from disney pixar films - thats a clown fish and a sea turtle! Was so cool! We also had an overnight trip to Cape Tribulation (google) and went on a crocodile river cruise on the Daintree River and saw lots of baby crocs sunbathing! We also went walking in the tropical rainforest and Paul survived his giant spider encounters at the lodges we spent the night at! the morning after our nights stay we took a double sea kayak out to the beach and went kayaking over the reef. If you've googled Cape Tribulation - we were kayaking in the sea thats in the picture! And then on our way back to Cairns from Cape Trib we visited Mossman Gorge. The rest of our time we spent in Cairns we sunbathed and swam at the lagoon and did a spot of shopping!

From Cairns we flew to Darwin which is where we are now! There's bugger all to do here if you're skint - like us! We had planned to get here and go on a trip to Kakadu national park or Litchfield national park but even 2 night tours are like $500 so we've spent our last days in Oz sitting at Darwin waterfront sunbathing, reading and playing cards instead! We did visit the Mindil sunset markets here. It was the opening night of the markets (since they only go from april - october which is dry season here) and the 25th anniversary so it was packed! But unlike the east coast, Darwin benefits from some stunning sunsets which we've seen every night since the night at the markets so that was definitely worth the trip here!

This afternoon we fly to Singapore and spend the night in a nice hostel finally! Although we're sad to leave oz we're not sad to say goodbye to sharing sleeping quarters with people who snore, people who stink badly enough to make you gag, people who fart, people who cough all night long and just generally people. So we're rejoicing at the idea of spending the night in Singapore in our own room! and its cheap enough to eat out in Singapore so no more bread and pasta (which we've been living on for 2 months) and no more cooking in kitchens crawling with ants, cockroaches and the occasional maggot! See Mum! You'd love travelling!

We get back to England on wednesday morning so see you all soon!!

and please Mum - don't make any pasta based meal for when I get back! 😊

Love Sarah xxxx

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