Australia - Cairns

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We arrived in Cairns at 6.30pm on Sunday 24 June and checked into Bohemia's Resort. We spent the evening at the resort bar where unexpectedly, we met a friend of Ian's and her friends. On Monday, I sat out on our balcony reading and writing before we walked into town along the esplanade. After walking around the shops, we spent 3 hours on the internet and then got some dinner before walking back to the resort. A few of our friends that we had made along the east coast were in Cairns so we bought some beers and joined them at their hostel for the evening. At 11pm, we all crossed the street and went to the Woolshed bar where we stayed until 5am. We woke up late on Tuesday and went for a walk to get breakfast. At 3pm, a few of us took the shuttle bus into town and booked a day of scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef for Friday. We all went to an Irish pub for dinner and then walked around town for a bit. At 7.30pm, we met our other friends who were leaving the following day for Asia and we joined them at dinner (although I didn't eat). On Wednesday morning, six of us hired a mini van and we set off on a 2 day trip to Cape Tribulation. We stopped at Port Douglas and Mossman Gorge along the way and eventually reached Cape Tribulation at 4pm where we checked into PK's resort. After an hours sleep, we sat outside the bar for dinner and a few beers before going to sleep at 11pm. I was up at 8am on Thursday and went for a morning stroll along the beach. We then drove to a creek where we took a short walk through the rainforest to a secluded spot on the creek. Our next stop was Cape Tribulation and after walking along the section of beach here, we all fell asleep for an hour while sunbathing. Three of us then went to a cafe for lunch before following a trail to some swimming pools in another creek. We spent an hour here before going to meet the girls on the beach where we found a small dog that kept us amused for another hour or so. All of us then decided to go on a 45 minute boardwalk that explained how different parts of the rainforest had been formed over millions of years. At 5.30pm, we decided to begin our journey home and on the way we stopped a couple of times for photos and to watch sunset. We got back to Cairns at 8pm and we all went for Domino's pizza before returning to our resort. Ian and I then went to our other friends room and we chatted for a couple of hours - mainly about our day on the Great Barrier Reef the next day. We woke up at 7am on Friday and drove into town to return our minivan and board our boat for our day on the reef. On our journey to our first diving spot, our instructor went through the basic instructions and necessary skills for diving. Our first 30 minute dive was fairly tame and although we saw lots of fish, we didn't venture far from the boat. We then spent another half hour snorkelling before getting back on the boat for lunch. Our afternoon dive spot was called Turtle Bay and we were not required to go through the skills again so this allowed us a lot more time to swim around the reef. As well as numerous different fish and lots of amazing coral, we were lucky enough to swim with a sea turtle. In all, we took about 150 photos with our underwater camera. We got back to the pier at 4.30pm and went straight to the camera shop to get our photos put onto CD. After dinner and a quick internet session, we walked back to our resort. That night, we drank a few bottles of beer in our friends room before catching the 11pm shuttle into town. After going to a few different bars, I ended up in the Woolshed. Out of money, I left the bar at 5am and realised that I had to catch a 6am bus from my resort. Unable to catch a taxi home, I was forced to run all the way back and quickly pack my bag before checking out and boarding our tour bus to Darwin.

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