It's alright everyone, I found Nemo, he was in Australia

---

For all of the hype that Cairns gets, there's actually nothing to do there. It's the adventure capital of Australia, but you have to drive at least an hour away for any kind of adventuring. Not to mention the rain. I was fine wandering around the city, swimming in the lagoon (yes, they have one too), and pretending to be interested in buying any of the overpriced souveniers at the nightmarket until the rain started. At first it was just a light drizzle, but withing ten minutes I was in a torrential downpour. It rained six inches in a n hour, there were rivers where there used to be streets and it was nearly impossible to see from one street corner to the next. Umbrellas sold like hotcakes for about three hours before the rain died down.
I only had one full day to spend in Cairns so I asked everyone I met what the most unforgettable thing to do was. Almost everyone agreed that it was well worth it to go for a day trip snorkelling the Great Barrier reef, even if I'd already seen it in the Whitsundays. It turned out to be a fantastic choice. The reef in Cairns is different from the island chain of the Whitsundays. There are mounds of it here and there surrounded be a creepy, endless blue. The boat hands push you off into the deep creepy part where I'm sure sharks were lurking in the distance waiting for a chance to have some Amber-lunch. I hung out with some Irish boys who also aren't fans of endless dark water and we swam swiftly to the reef patches. The reef around Cairns in much more full of life than in the Southern parts of Australia. I would almost even say that the reef felt crowded with all of the fish. The colors were brilliant and I used up all of the film in my waterproof camera at the first dive site. I even spotted little clown fish poking in and out of anenomies. On the way back to the boat, while swimming through the unnerving vulnerable area I saw a dark shape looming in front of me. Before I could freak out to a proper extent I found out that it was just a gigantic seaturtle ripping apart a box jellyfish, one of the girls got stung by the tentacles. It looked like a bunch of blisters all over her neck and she had to hold a vinegar cloth on it for the rest of the trip. The boatride to and from the reef was pretty rough. We were the first tour in over a week that made it without anyone throwing up. It rained again that night but the girl that got stung (Julietta) and I had a BBQ at the lagoon anyways. Most of the towns in Queensland have free BBQs all around the beach areas. The next morning I headed back to Sydney for two days before my Fiji flight. I stayed with the Irish people I met camping on Fraser. They were fantastic, they let me stay in their place, cooked for me, and did my laundry. The night before my flight we went out on the town and headed to the rocks because they had heard that was the place to be. We agreed to stay out just until the bars closed down, it turns hout though that the bars at the rocks don't close at all so we ended up getting back to the apartment at 6am and I headed out to the airport at 6:30. It made for a relaxing flight, all I did was sleep.

---