I come from a land down under!

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Greetings from Oz! We've arrived in Mission Beach down the East Coast of Australia now, having spent the last 10 days between Perth and Cairns. As we mentioned in the last blog entry the rainy weather on our arrival in Oz was a bit of a shock to the system after the sunshine of Asia, but 3 days in the sun returned which was a new lease of life! The sunshine meant that we got the chance to hang out in King's Park in Perth with fab views of the city and was a real treat.

For the weekend we had in Perth we headed out to Fremantle - the Howth of Perth. It was a really cool little port town. The hostel we were staying in was brill also which really added to the stay. In the couple of backpacker hostels we had stayed in Perth before that,we were the only backpackers! The majority of people staying in them were long-stay; people who were working during the day and then living in the hostel of an evening. They weren't really too interested in us blow-ins who were only going to be around for a few nights, even though we had big 'eager to chat' heads on us!! 😊

From Perth we flew overnight to Cairns on the east coast (for my aunt Clare who is following us on her atlas, it's close to the top!). With the overnight flight and the 2 hour time difference from Perth we were a bit out of sync for the first day in Cairns, but when we got our heads back into things again, Francis organised a dive out to the great barrier reef and we booked a trip out to Cape Tribulation and Daintree rainsforest. Hang on and I'll ask Francis how his dives were....he says 'excellent' and 'amazing'...must have been good so!

The trip to Cape Tribulation was pretty cool also. There were a choice of 2 tours out..the guy described the cheaper one as a bit 'loud and boisterious' and the more expensive one as 'calmer and a bit more educational'. We decided we could be loud and boisterious. The travel agent needs to do a bit more research on the tours he sells as there were about 6 backpackers on the tour and the rest of the tour were a good bit older...as in high-waisted shorts and sandals-and-socks galore..I'm not sure that some of them didn't bring their own oxegen! We're lucky that the bus had 'Trip to Cape Trib' along the side otherwise people would have thought it was a old folks home shuttle 😊

Regardless, we stuck with the backpackers and had a cool day cruising along the Daintree river looking for crocs (the animals, not the shoes), driving and walking through the rainforest, visiting a local zoo, tasting some rainforest ice- cream and exploring the Cape Tribulation area and sights. The weather was pretty poor but the guide we had was truly amazing and it was a great day.

So, we're now in Mission Beach for 3 nights. We've bought a hop-on hop-off bus ticket to Sydney so we're working our way down the coast now ahead of our flight out of Sydney to Melboune where we are going to meet up with some truly awesome people 😊

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Photos

Cassowary Road Signs
Before and After