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In the evening Claire & I sat on the balcony of the hostel & made friends with a lovely Irish couple. We went into our room & made friends with our six other room mates, 2 Korean guys, Veronica, a snorer from Ireland, Ross from Bury, (he went to the same school as Claire!), Odid from Israel & James from London. We all had such a laugh & Claire & I managed to get drunk & entertain everyone, I think we had both missed meeting people & we had such a good night.
Saturday we spent the day recovering from our hangovers & organising our adventure down the East Coast, we booked our bus ticket to Sydney, a couple of dives on the Great Barrier Reef for Monday & relaxed around Cairns Lagoon on the seafront in the sunshine. It was such an effort to get ready for the pub crawl we had booked ourselves on & at one point I didn't even think we'd make it but I thought at least if we go for a bit we would have tried. We met in a bar & you had to have either a red or green sticker
to advertise your status as either single or taken, I had two red stickers; it was like one of those pub crawls from when I went to Magaluf or Gran Canaria when I was 18! We had a few glasses of wine & got into it a bit & got to go around Cairns City Centre in an open top double decker bus blasting out music, I don't think Claire found it as amusing as me; I sat & waved at everyone & joined in with the singing. We played a few of the games that were respectable & got talking to people, it was fun & we went around about 5 different bars in the open top bus.
I overheard some boys at the bar talking & had a 'local' accent, so I asked them where they were from & they told me Penkridge, I couldn't believe it & told them I was from Telford. We had a good old chinwag about V Festival & if they knew my cousin's Jordan & Daniel, etc. We stayed with them for the rest of the night as they were quite amusing & we watched the FA Cup Final in
an outside bar as it was still warm despite it being about 2am in Cairns! I think I got to bed about 3.30am after ringing Mom & Dad whilst under the influence, (I have the best idea's when I have had a drink!)
The next day, Sunday, I felt ill, I think I was getting old & couldn't hack the pace like I used to when I was at Uni. We managed to hire a car for Tuesday & booked our trips around the Whitsunday Islands & to Fraser Island & relaxed around the lagoon again in the sun. On Sunday evening we had a quiet alcohol free evening in preparation for our diving the following day.
Monday we got picked up at 7am & taken by bus to Port Douglas, about 45 minutes north of Cairns, where our boat would depart from to take us diving in the outer reef. I'd heard so many reports from people about being disappointed by the state of the reef but was presently surprised. We had a lovely big boat for the day which took us first to Agincourt Reef & then on to St. Crispins reef. We saw
one shark, loads of little rays, millions of fish but by far the best thing was the amazingly colourful coral. After our first dive we got to go snorkelling & it was really nice to see the reef from on top of the water & from down around the seabed & along the walls. The second dive was along a massive wall of coral & we saw the biggest fattest moray eel amongst loads of other creatures; it was great. We had a beer on the boat on the way back & had a marine biologist telling us loads of interesting facts about what we had seen.
Our room mate from Friday, James had come back from his dive trip & Claire & I had obviously made an impression on him as he asked to come back in our room, (obviously we were very funny when drunk on Friday). We told him what we had been up to & our plans for the next month, James said he would try & get on the same trips around the Whitsunday's & Fraser Island with us. We just spent Monday evening packing & talking to James & two of our
other roomies Rachel & Alice.
Tuesday morning we got picked up at 7am by the car hire company & taken to the office to complete paperwork. We were on the road in no time, heading up the coastal road to Mossman Gorge which was beautiful & we had breakfast there before heading up to the Daintree River which we crossed on the 'world renowned' Daintree River Cable ferry which was interesting & obviously very environmentally friendly!
We stopped off at Cape Kimberley Beach, (which we had to ourselves!), Walu Wugirriga, (Alexandra Range lookout), which had amazing views, then up to Thornton's Beach for lunch then up to Cape Tribulation to Myall Beach & had a little walk through a swamp. It was a lovely day & the views & scenery were spectacular, on the way home we stopped off at Port Douglas & had a wander through the shops by the port & had another look at the boat we had been out on the previous day. We dropped the car back & walked to the hostel, had tea & chilled on the balcony waiting for 12am to arrive, for our bus to Townsville. It was
a long wait as we were both shattered & kept falling asleep. Once on the bus we were able to sleep for a bit & arrived in Townsville at about 6.45am.
Cairns had been a totally different experience from the quiet West Coast although I think we needed a bit of fun & madness after the 3 weeks we had spent in the campervan, even if I am getting old & can't deal with hangovers the way I used too!
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Andy
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Where's the photos of the pub crawl!!?? Or are they too racy to publish? ;) And you wore two red stickers! I am a lucky boy! xxx