Leaving Australia

Our day at Mossman Gorge was not as fantastic as planned.  The main attraction for us was a 2k rainforest walk which was entirely unaccessable due to the fact that 'Rex Creek' bridge was closed for maintenance. Nice one dad!

On our way back we stopped at palm cove and Rachel was thrilled to gave returned to the restaurant she first visited in Australia over three and a half years ago. It was only when we settled the bill and left that she admitted it was most likely a completely different restaurant.

When we were almost back at the campground we stopped to use the Cairns Aboriginal Cultural centre as a boomerang shop. For those of you planning to do this I would like to advise that it is slightly frowned upon. Particularly when you suggest that you don't need to learn about there tribe because you already learned about another one!

On returning to our base at Lake Placid which may have seemed like a stupid place to stay but apparenty there are no crocodiles. That night was our last with Hunphrey and we packed our backpacks for the first time in 6 weeks.

The following morning we booked ourselves into te first hostel we have stayed in for 6 weeks and took Humphrey home. We were both sad to leave him but they assured us he was in safe hands. Rather symbolically, we started the walk home and the rain that the people of Cairns had been waiting some months for finally came.

Leaving the camper did suck a bit but all in all spirits were patucularly high. We had no more camp sites and a whole new adventure to look forward to.

That afternoon we met up with Dave and Ella and on clever Dave's suggestion we headed to the cinema to watch 'this is it' which was awesome. I wasn't originally planning to see the Michael Jackson show but after seeing behind the scenes I might try and get some tickets off eBay. After that we went for a steak and said another goodbye, this time to Dave and Ella but we will hopefully be seeing them in the new year.

We were up early the next morning to board the Osprey V for a day ontje Great Barrier Reef. If you put aside the seasickness, the nosebleed and the loss of the ability to hear for 6 hours I had an awesome day!

I went scuba diving for the first time ever and loved it! We saw some clown fish swimming around and touched a giant clam. The rest of the day involved some of the best snorkelling we have done so far and sunning ourselves on the deck of the boat.

That evening we returned to our hostel, had one last barbecue and beer then went to bed for our last Australian sleep.

A 3.30 start saw us flying to Sydney for a short stop befor flight number 2 to Auckland where we would begin the New Zealand leg of our great expedition. Incidentally if anyone is planning to watch 'The Taking of Phelam 123' don't it's rubbish!

Last night we had a walk around Aukland and obviously stopped in a bar to gain some new city perspective then had some more steak and went back to our room.

Today has so far been a good one. We had some concerns around our bus ticket and how we were going to cover all of our destinations. The nice people at the Magic Bus headquarters have now completely eliviated these concerns and three weeks of bus journeys are now sorted so all we have to do is arrive at the stops on time and enjoy the scenery.

I've just eaten too much chocolate cake and finishing my coffee may make me sick. Tonight we will be hitting up Sky City where I am planning to win 10,000,000 NZD at the poker table in the casino.

So far our time in New Zealand is looking like it will be time well spent!

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