Blogs from Cairns City, Cairns, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 63

Sorry for being so lazy at writing, I have been told off by my mum again! Here goes.. I'm now in Cairns after have spend 5 nigths in Magnetic Island. It was such a beautiful, tropical and relaxing place. The hostel I stayed in was right by the sea and I could have spend a lot more time there. I met a really nice English girl that I hired a little toy car with.. It really looked like barbie's car.. so funny! I loved it and would do anything to get it transported back to England:) We drove around discovering the Island which was perfect in this car. We also went on on a 2 hour walk to a beautiful view point and on the way we saw the cutest little koalas. The were pretty hard ... read more

We were up early in Medan and after saying our sad goodbyes to Una, we were back at the craziness that is Medan International Airport. After more negotiations over bag weights (Despite a major repack the previous night) with Air Asia; more excess baggage charges were handed over and we soon arrived back in Kuala Lumpar. From there we made straight for the city centre and after a bite to eat we caught a bus to Singapore. After arriving at what we thought was the Singapore Border we hopped off and took our luggage only to figure out we were simply at the village preceding the border. Cue panicked running with our rucksacks back to our bus. Our driver thought the whole thing was very funny. When we reached the actual border we allied ourselves to ... read more

Soooooo...where do i start?! Get picked up by Cairns dive centre, pretty pumped and ready to go! Fill out heaps of paperwork, boring boring, watch some videos about the equipment, boring boring, rig up all the breathing equipment and stuff- all good. Have a 10 minute treading water test and 200 metre swim test- all good. Do some snorkelling with the mask thing on and fins...hmmmm "laura, u seem to have naturally boyant feet"...my feet kept floating to the top. Ok, so i don't have the hang of this! Oh well, its pretty fun. Get fitted with the huge cylinder of gas on my back...breathing through that tube is a bit weird- in and out of your mouth? whats that all about then?! So we go underwater with this thing on...and im like...ARGH BUBBLES...wait...its all up ... read more

Been in Cairns (or KENS as they seem to call it), for 3 days now. The night i arrived there was rain. Rain? In australia? Still nice and warm though...but humid and damp. Spent the next day wandering round town, getting my bearings. Its a nice town, quite big...but mostly filled up with japanese people and booking offices for various activities. Hostel is right on the esplanade, which overlooks the beach...this would be nice if there was a beach! there's a tiny tiny bit of sand and the sea is a no-go area because of the stingers! Its ok though, right at the end of the esplanade is "the lagoon"- basically a big swimming pool for all to use! It gets pretty busy down there but its nice! Yesterday...at 7.30am...I jumped 14,000 out of a plane! ... read more

We touched down down under and were convinced we had made a massive detour back to the UK. Rain was bouncing off the runway and our little faces dropped. Our sunshine adventure seemed all but over. Rosie didn't even have a waterproof :( Nevertheless we battled on and spent 2 days in rainy Cairns, mostly drowning our sorrows. One night we ended up having a lock-in in a bar/internet cafe where we had spent a lot of time. As the live music ended for the night, the musicians and bar staff gradually congregted around the prettiest(/only) girls in the bar and the real entertainment began. We were treated to some genuine Aussie tunes and banter, ranging from 'Give me a home among the gumtrees', complete with ridiculous actions, to Britney, to Savage Garden, to Adam Sandler's ... read more