And into Australia

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Cairns was an awesome city- great hostel, good nights out and ncie people. I went white water rafting on my second day ther which was fun but apparently the rapids normally get a lot better as the water level rises in a few months time. The trek through the rainforest to get to the start point was awesome- the guides pointed out some massive golden orb spiders and some trees that are apparently very poisonous to humans... crazy huh? The rest of the time in Cairns was generally spent relaxing, sunbathing and playing lots and lots of poker. After 6 nights in Cairns, I decided I'd had enough of sunbathing (which was just as well because the weather started to turn after then!) and headed down to mission beach. The highlight of mission beach was a 14000 feet (3 miles above the ground) skydive with a minute's freefall... the biggest adrenaline rush ever! Factor in the views of the great barrier reef anf rainforest on the way doen, as well as getting to land on the beach and you can see why this was one of my favorite experiences so far!

After mission beach I went to Townsville with a view to going to see Magnetic cIsland- just off its coast. Unfortunately the weather was pretty poor so stayed in Townsville and went to a museum with a wide variety of exhibits, but specialising in the story of HMS Pandora which sunk on the great barrier reef, just off Townsville. It was actually a pretty fun museum and one of the interactive exhibits was loading and firing one of the canons used on the ship at the time. The following day I went to the Billabong wildlife sanctuary where I saw and fed cassowaries (scary big birds!), wombars and saw some croc shows. Also I got to hold a koala (photos to follow) and feed some young wallabies which was quite cool too.

Rainbow beach was the next stop after an overnight bus jouney from Townsville. I had, however, cocked up monumentally. I arrived on Easter weekend, in a small town with 3 hostels (which were all, obviously, fully booked) without a reservation! Whoops! The next bus wasn't until 7 the following morning either... 23 hours away. Thankfully the lovely reception staff took pity on me and gave me a bed on the floor of their staff dorm, and they gave me it at a reduced rate! Yeah! Also, my main reason for going to Rainbow beach was to do a 4x4 trip to Fraser Island- a trip which apparently books up weeks in advance- especially over the Easter Weekend! Of course when I enquired, there was no space, but due to what I can only imagine to be divine intervention there was a cancellation and I managed to get booked onto a trip leaving the next day! The group I got put with was sound as well so I had an incredibly lucky day! After watching the safety video about not approaching wild dingos (they roam free on the island) we went as a group to buy out food and alcohol supplies. That night we had a few beers and all got to know each other whilst deciding the next day's designated driver (thankfully not me!)

The next mornign we packed up the 4x4s and headed off to Fraser- blessed with beautiful weather we drove to lake wabby- one of the strangest places I have ever been. It was a picturesque lake surrounded by desert! Kind of like an oasis, but with rainforest on one side. Anyways, it was perfect for a dip after a long days travel. We then set up camp, had a lovely BBQ and the drinking games commenced. I had volunteered myself as the driver for the next day so had to restrict myself to only a few cups of boxed wine (classy I know!) but that wasn't a problem because most of the people were, frankly crap at the drinking games so they did all the drinking for me.

During the night, the weather took a turn for the worst meaning pretty much all of our stuff got soaked. I had to round up the other 9 members of the group at about 7am with varying degrees of success- the most hungover ones were pretty much incapacitated so the other 7 of us packed the gear into and onto the landcruiser. We then headed inland to do some proper off roading which was great fun (although the hungover members of the group in the back didn't seem to think so! Ha!) We reached lake Mckenzie in the centre of the island and all went and had a swim, despite the continued rainfall. The place was beautiful and I think that had it been sunny, it would have been nicer than any of the beaches I had seen in Asia. After spending a couple of hours there in the unrelenting rain we decided to head to camp, a paultry 75km away... which ended up taking around 5 hours. Partly because of getting lost, partly because of the sand/mud made roads and party because of some lethal rocks which slowed us right down. We also stopped briefly on the way to see a beached shipwreck of some merchant vessel which was pretty cool. The camp we stayed in on that second night was run by aboriginies who taught us some digeridoo (cool) and kept dingos as pets (not so cool). The dingos were fairly domesticated in this case though- not like the wild ones on the rest of the island. It was another great night, followed by another early morning off-road jaunt, this time to lake Allom.

Lake Allom was pretty boring, there were some turtles and 3 people got leaches attached to their feet... which was actually quite funny! After lunch we headed back to the mainland and used the rest of the cash we had chipped in for the Fraser Island food to cook a massive spaggy bol for the 10 of us. We all cooked, ate and cleaned up together, which was a great end to 4 quality days with some really great people. I have already caught up with some of them again since, and am meeting some of the others later down in Sydney.

The next day, Duncan (friend from back home) and his girlfriend came up to Rainbow beach to stay for the evening. It was great to see them and share some travelling stories as well as remenicing about old times back home over a box of goon (boxed wine).

The day after that I left for Noosa, about 2hrs south of Rainbow beach and a really nice, upmarket town. I've only been here a few days but spent yesterday lying on the beach with my roomates from the hostel and went for a 14km hike this morning/afternoon round Noosa national park which had some great cliffside views of the bay and Pacific Ocean. Next stop is Brisbane tomorrow and then onto Byron Bay which has been the favorite place in Oz for just about every backpacker I have spoken to so far.

Well thats about it for now guys, I'll put my next entry up when I get to South America. I hope you're all doing well!

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