Cairn's & the Great Barrier Reef

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THE GREAT BARRIER REEF
Up early again today, gosh we are gluttons for punishment! We take a lovely early morning walk along the sea front, past the Lagoon to the Marina. We are the first here, so hop on board and grab a coffee & Danish for breakfast. We do like these trips that include loads of food! It is a god send really.

We watch everyone else board and grab there breakfast before the first briefing of the day, this is where they try to upgrade us (for a hundred dollars or so) to diving. But apart from it being cheaper, we decided that as the reef is so close we can probably see just as much. Although the dive mistress did have amazing boobies!

We sailed out to the outer reef for a good hour or so, picking up a glass bottom boat en route before dropping anchor and getting out first snorkel underway. Pass the full body condom, please. WOW! It was amazing, we were in the water for a good hour and a half, which passed in no time! We saw reef sharks, blue starfish, amazing coral, multi coloured fish but sadly no Nemo or Turtles. One man followed a turtle and we were jealous. We were then taken on a very informative glass bottom boat tour, it was great to learn about the things we were looking at.

We were dragged from the boat kicking and screaming for lunch, which was a Smorgasbord of fishy delights. Luckily for Charlotte they also had lots of bread and cold meats. Liam however was in seventh heaven and referencing Ben’s (best friend not brother in law) imagined envy and toasting him with prawns lots. Whilst we were eating the boat was being sailed by a very nice Scot to Una Cay, a sand island in the middle of the reef. Ocean Freedom is the only boat allowed to land there.

Back into the sea and this time the coral was even better (we could not believe it!), we spent hours floating around looking at everything. This is where the divers got to see the Sea wall, which we were told was amazing. We found Nemo too! We had got all wrinkly when Liam decided to get out and Charlotte refused so had an extra half an hour or so. On exiting we found we had missed the island stay which was a shame (but the reef was so good we did not want to leave!). Charlotte talked one of the staff into letting her go over to the island, just to take a photo as he was picking the others up for the return to the boat.

Charlotte jumped in, followed by a couple from Islington who went over for a quick smoke! That was the only place for the whole day where they could smoke. Thank God we had both well and truly given up! We got a little wet on the way out from a few waves that splashed over the tender, but hopping off, it was deeper than we thought and we got soaked!

Charlotte dried herself out on the upper most deck as we were speeding home and happily nibbled on the cheese and crackers handed around for afternoon tea, kidnapping a member of the crew on his rounds! This was followed by cake, yummy.

CAIRNS
Once we landed and after thanking all of the crew, it looked like a wedding reception line!, we walked back to the hostel via the Lagoon, but could not resist jumping in for a swim. Whilst floating around we saw a man in the sea! Not so strange you might think, until you realise that the Lagoon is there for a reason! Jellyfish (the really bad killer type) and salt water Crocodiles! The children in the area beckoned a lifeguard from the pool and he was soon wading out through the mud to get the guy’s attention to get him back in. This bloke was having none of it! He was quite happy wallowing in the mud and a little bit of sea. We think he must have been drunk or mental! Either way it did not look good for him! The life guard had no luck, so had to leave him to it. He was still there when we walked back to the hostel.

It was Chinese New Year, year of the tiger and to celebrate Cairns was having a bit of a do next to the Lagoon. We walked through the myriad of stalls, window shopping and stood around a stage whilst the Chinese community said welcome to the New Year and introduced the Dragon dances.

We picked up our bags we walked to our new hostel that Charlotte had booked a couple of days earlier. This was the Reef hostel, a new one in town, that also had free WIFI! Woo hoo! However on arriving we find that she had booked it for two nights from the following night, what a plonker! There is no room that night, so they suggest that we try the hostel next door “The Wood Duck”. We recognise it from our arrival in Cairns, they had a board and a minibus at the greyhound stop. So we think why not, it is only one night and right next to where we need to be the following day!

When we check with them, there is only two beds in a 9 bed dorm, so we grab them. Hmm, we go into the room and it is covered in clothes everywhere! There are so many on the end of Liam’s bed there is no where to climb up! Also when he drop’s his padlock and it bounces under the bed ,it takes ages to find it again amongst all of the clothes!

We grab our free dinner voucher from reception whilst trying to find out if we can get a good deal on the Karunda sky rail & train, but they could not help. We headed back to see Josh, but he could not help either, so we headed on down to the Woolshed. We upgraded our meal to Chilli Beef Nachos, yummy, we had so much we could not finish them. A couple of 2-4-1’s, they do cider on tap here too!, and we make our way back to the hostel and crawl into bed.

A couple of people are already in bed but as the night rolls on people keep coming in and turning on the light. Then Charlotte gets woken up at 3am with a couple of people in the lower bunk opposite making out, in goes the ipod and on goes the eye mask. Well that will be the last time we stay in a dorm that big! At least it was not as bad as Toni’s orgy room. You will find out more about that on our Adventure tour trip from Alice Springs to Adelaide. We get up in the morning and as we are packing up and stripping the bed’s Charlotte squashed two bug’s and is really glad to be out of there.

We run next door and drop off our bag’s before going down to the Lagoon for a bit of a swim, shop and lunch. Good old McDonalds. We get back to the hostel and check into our room, which is very strange. It is a room that seems to have been created from what was once a veranda. It had plywood up to create an outside wall, with lots of gaps. But hell it had great air conditioning and free WIFI!! Yeah. We spent two days and nights here chilling, shopping, blogging and doing laundry. We pop down to book the cheapest bus to the Airport with Josh and are soon heading off to Alice Springs.

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