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Published: July 10th 2006
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Dear all, hope everyone is well and enjoying a hot British summer. We have just spent the last week of our travels in Cairns, Queenslands most backpacker and scuba diving friendly city/large town. Its a great place and we had a fantastic time, the entire town is 100% geared up towards backpackers and people who wish to dive the great barrier reef. That was us on both accounts! We stayed in a great hostel (or backpacker resort!!) called bohemia where we had a tv,heat and actually room to walk around, which after our campervan experience was a godsend! We were also able to enjoy benifits of a swimming pool, a kitchen, so i could once again continually impress Nic with my variations on Spaghetti Bolognese. (believe me there are many variations!) The weather was once again great, thank goodness and we have resumed our natural brown colours! It was just great to be able to relax and explore the town without having the concern of looking after the campervan. We have also been watching quite a bit of Austrialian TV while in Cairns, and i have to say its absolutly fantastic, not only is Neighbours 3 months ahead and we now
know what happens to Paul in the coalpit and how his ex wife Gail comes back (FYI: this is the same Gail who switched on Cookstown christmas tree lights many many moons ago) but we also had the pleasure of watching the Austrialian News broadcasts. It would be extremly difficult for me to describe how entertaining this was, but i can only recomend that tonight you watch your local news only imagine that the presenter is shouting at you in a brassy, rougeish but entirely lovable kinda way. We found ourselves laughing at the most inappropiate times!
The second reason that we were in Cairns was for the Great Barrier Reef. It is truly one of the most amazing sights that the world has to offer. Some of you avid readers may remember that we had our first taste of the reef during our trip to the Whitsundays. We decided to take a small family run boat trip out to the reef with the intention of snorklng and diving. The first part of the reef we went to was called Michalmus Cay, and was a small (20 m) sandbank in the middle of turquoise blue waters. It was quite
amazing to stand on this sandbank and being able to see its entire area and knowing that no other land can be seen on its 360 horizon. This sandbank was surrounded by reef which was great for snorkling and we were able to snorkle of the beach which is always a pleasure! We took loads of photos of this sandbank but unfortunatly none of them done it justice, primarily because the 2 hours we where there seemed to be the only two hours in the entire week that the sky was overcast, but im sure you will still be able to see what we are talking about. Our second destination was to Hasatings reef, here we put on our scuba gear again and went diving through the reef. This was an amazing experiance and quite possibly the highlight of the trip so far. This area of the reef was so alive in comparison to other reefs that we had seen both in Austrialia and in Thailand. The dive consisted of a swim through cave type thing into this massive fish bowl surrounded by coral and some amazing tropical fish. A magical experience which i don't think you could ever put
a price on! We had a fantastic day here and for this reason decided to do another reef trip, with two dives, the first going to Saxon reef and the second going back to the hastings reef. (blow the budget- we're coming home next month!) Again we loved every minute of it and even had the pleasure of swimming with a large (3 ft) turtle, which was amazing! We seens loads of other fish including Clownfish, Batfish and Leopard cod fish, there was even reports of Minkie Whales in the area but we didnt see any unfortunately. This was our first dives since Thailand and we thoroughly enjoyed them, we even dared out on our own and navagated ourselves around the sea bed and reef, which we were very pleased with. Also while diving we practiced our underwater sumersaults, which i was undoubtly the best at! (yeah right!) It was like the fizzy lifting drinks in Willy Wonka! There were areas of the reef which do appear to be damaged, through wear and tear, which is a massive shame. This is a truly amazing world and all efforts should be made to preserve it, but in saying that if anyone ever has the chance of taking a trip here it really couldnt be recomended enough!
Unfortunatly we had to leave Austrialia, i believe we will definately be back some day, and hopefully we will be able to dive the reef again when we do. Its an amazing place and it is actually better than all the hype which surrounds it. But onwards and upwards and now we are in a very cold Zew Zealand!
take care and speak to you all soon
kyle and Nic
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Anne (ex-SPI)
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How on earth will you ever be able to settle back into so-called normal life again?! What fantastic experiences - hope you're considering writing a book!! Can I be the proof reader?!