Oz Experience-Part 1-Cairns, Mission Beach & Magnetic Island!!!!!

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Can't wait to get to Oz to finally see what the big deal is!!!! i know its gonna be big but don't think its gonna be that amazing but i will soon see!!!!

I'm flying into Cairns and then partying my way down the coast all the way to Melbourne!!!! Hoping to do some diving at Great Barrier Reef, go to the Whitsundays and Fraser Island, Surfers Paradise, the Gold Coast and Byron Bay plus also Sydney of course and then Melbourne...plus some other places i'm gonna find along the way.....bring it on lots of australian beer n sun awahooooooooooooo!!!!

Know quite a few people that are over in Oz at the mo so gonna hopefully see some old faces n friends and perhaps stay with some relatives when im totally fed up of hostels!!!!

Ok well ive arrived in Cairns early on a Monday morning having not slept much on the plane slightly jet lagged, got the shuttle bus to the centre with another english girl i have met Anna who is 20, daughter of a cow farmers.

Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww is my opinion on Cairns so far!!!!! So its like a small americannny old style town, very small not much too it really, a few streetsd with cafes and restuarants and loads of travel agents selling all the stuff you can do which all basically lead down to the Lagoon. The lagoon is like a big public swimming pool, basically cairns beach is pants so they made the pool ot make up for it right on the coast by the beach so that's cool. Spent most of mon feelign jetlagged and wandering about having a look around the town, researching all the trips i want to do which is loads and unfortuantely its not that cheap either so my budget is gonna be tight but blow it im only doign this once (probably maybe twice tho he he). So yer got soem idea on prices and what i want to do and where i want to go etc. Had some dinner wuith Anna and two oldish australian guys who are in our dorm at the hostel. Oh yer Gilligans Hostel is like the best Hostel ever its really lush n modern n funky n only 10pounds for a bed in a dorm which is more like a hotel than a hostel so thats all good, well impressed with the hostel.

So monday night very tired we decided to have a few drinks at the bar which was alos fairly pricey and then we headed to the famous woolshed bar/pub, where luckily the drinks were very cheap and they had 2 4 1 offers so even better, had no intentions of having a big night out but me and cheap drink uh ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, i got totally smashed!!!!!!!! met some cool australian footblallers who had been out on a 3 day bender as they had lost a game and so out of the league, so ended up spending the night with them which was well fun!!!!!!! Got totally hammered, went to another bar/club Rhinos where i saw Pete & Laurence from uni!!!!!!!!!!! So funny bumping into them we were all pretty drunk so big funny chats, they both look really well and been enjoying travelling for 5 months now.

God i'm so tired now tonight, its tues night and ive basically spent most of the day in bed today or being sick lol!!!!!! light weight!!!!! so yer really good night, got too drunk n suffering for it today. Got up this afternoon and had soem dinner and booked my diving!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh how exciting i'm doing my PADI Open Water Diving Course on the Great Barrier Reef!!!!!!!!!!!! 5 day cours, 9 dives, one night dive and you live on a boat out there for 3 of the days and two nights and gain the qualification!!!!!!!!! quite pricey but it should be worth it. So ive ended up stayin gin Cairns longer than i thought i would due to drunkeness and diving ill be here a week now and then i will get my coach ticket and start heading down the coast where i know there are soem awesome trips and adventures to be had!!!!! wishing i had way mor emoney but heyyy im gonna do as much as i can anyway!!!!!!!! Also been reading up about the kiwi and fejeee experience which are bit cheaoper and look way cool so i know i have a good few months of fun ahead of me!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Ok so its now Thursday already and today has been so gutting, i went to start my PADI dive course and they are really strict on the medical over here, i put down that i have mild asthma and they are so strict they said that i would have to pay $110 to do a provocation test, i thought they were just trying to scam money out of me but apparently they are strict on asthma here with diving, so i had to spend about 2 hours at the doctors surgery inhaling some rubbish that would set off my asthma so they could monitore over time as they increased the dosage, how much it would effect me and yes it effected me too much to dive!!!! i was so gutted!!!!!!

So my time in Cairns went from jet lagged, to seriously hungover, to headachey and trying to do washing and book trips to then being told i couldn't dive so wasn't too impressed!!!! But i decided to book some other stuff for further down the coast to cheer me up, i decided to snorkel instead of dive and i have now booked my GreyHound Coach ticket which is like half the price of the Oz Experience ticket, a night at Mission Beach, 2 nights at Magnetic Island, a few nights at Airlie Beach, 2 nights/3days sailing on the Whitsundays and 2nights/3days doign the Fraser Island trip, so now i have way more to look forward to despite being gutted i can't dive in Australia, so i'll give you the verdict on all this once ive done some of it................!!!!!

Right so snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef............so had to get up and leave at like 7.50am was feelign slightly hungover after free champers all night at the woolshed, also have this annoying fuzzy weird dizzy headache thing, so got the boat out to the reef, a very nice snazzy boat but really had my nose rubbed in it as there were people diving off the boat as well as snorkelling and i wanted to be diving not snorkelling!!!! The reef was really quite impressive, so many different colours, so beautiful and mulitcoloured, didn't see as many fish as i thought i would but pretty cool and big the ones i did see!!!!

Friday night was then my last night in Cairns, i really liek this town, its small and got a good buzz to it, plus the weather is awesome and i met nice people and had a cool time here, would def like to come back!!!! Went out fri night with the australian guys i had met on my first night, very good night very drunk!!!!

Sat i left Cairns at 1pm on the Grey Hound bus which i had chosen over oz experience as less than half the price!!!! First stop down the coast on the bus from Cairns was Mission Beach. Was only here for one night which was nto enough time, Scottys hostel very cool and chilled out, beach was lush and sun was beaming so disappointed i only had one night there!!!!! But i can make up for it down the coast, it was due to the guy who helped me book it all that i only had one night there, i found from his advice i spent 3 afternoons on a coach out of 4 so quite annoying but ive leanrt from it!!!!! do what you wanna do don't always take people advice!!!! do what you wanna do!!!! one night in a hostel is not enough, you need at least 2 to feel you've been there but 3-4 is better!!!!

So Mission Beach down to Magnetic Island which is just off the Coast at Townsville, again didn't have time to see Townsville as had to straight away get a ferry over to the island, which was very lovely, fairly small and not that much to see or do, would have been even better if the weather had have been sunnier as it was overcast. Still have a funny dizzy headache tho which i guess could be from jetlag, ahngovers, period, no diving stress, coach journeys, boat trips and generqally being tired, also tryign to eat n drink lots of right stuff to help it but still there!!!! So Monday 1st Oct hired a pink scotter named jessica to go exploring the island on!!!! that was cool caught the sun a bit and really felt like id seen the island!!!

So really liking australia but it does feel more like a luxury hol at the mo not backpacking!!!!!

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Comments

[Alisa]

GO LADY CLARA!!!
Clara, im so proud of you my love, i bet you totally understand now what me and Amy Sole were telling you all the time! You will never wanna stay in england again now! I'm getting more and more excited about going, 5 weeks to go. Just been to Sicily for a week with mum and am now house sitting all the animals. Weather is shit, been raining all day, its really cold and windy, the horses have rugs on day and night! Your missing out on NOTHING! Am well impressed with your blog, deffo be reading them all the time, don't worry your not boring anyone, don't cut the info down, its wicked, its like reading a book! haha! I'll leave you to it babe, keep up the good work, savour every moment, it will over before you know it, hopefully see you in Oz in a few months babe.LOVE YOU! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx