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Published: April 3rd 2009
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well my final oz experience bus picked me up from mission beach and i headed to cairns, but not before stopping at a crocodile farm. not sure if i agreed with it, they did tell us it was a working farm so the crocs there are bred for meat and skin just like any other farm but seeing this great animal in small pens still upset me a little. i did get to cuddle a baby croc so i hope i made him feel a bit better. also held a snake and a horny devil lizard!!
arrived in cairns in the evening and met some of the oz bus people for a few drinks, including trish who i met in sydney. also managed to purchase some ugg boots!! yey! half the price of the uk!!
friday was an early morning as i joined the boat that would take me out to the great barrier reef to find nemo and his friends!! the water was incredibly choppy as me and lovely girl i was chatting to found out when we were sunbathing at the front of the boat and got absolutely drenched!! when we stopped for snorkiling, the first thing i
saw was squirt the turtle!!! (just to mention, anyone reading this needs to have watched "finding nemo" to appreciate what i mean!) so excited!! then i was handed a snorkel, mask and flippers and told to get in the water. er..hello!! where was my stinger suit?!? all iv heard in queensland was about poisonous jelly fish and here they told me i was ok!! asked if he was absolutely sure, and the skipper said yes, i could even pick the jelly fish up if i wanted to. no thanks, especially when i got in the water and saw them, oh my god!! i may have freaked out a little bit as i was surrounded by jellys. seriously, it was awful and they kept bumping into me!! managed to forget about it long enough to go looking at some gorgeous coral and some big bright blue starfish. after an hour or so it was dinner time which was yummy and then back in the water to really find nemo and squirt again. i was told where to go to find squirt and must have spent over an hour swimming a figure of 8 around where he was suppossed to be but
i couldnt find him, i even had a HUGE beautiful fish (probably 1/3 the size of me) with a big smiley face helping me but no such luck!! im hoping nemo is now living in fiji.
the rest of the day on the boat was lovely and had a really nice time with some girls i met.
the evening was spent getting only slightly tipsy (2 4 1 drinks!!) with some friends from magnetic island, had a top night in the 'woolshed'. dancing on the tables...but to be fair that is the only place to dance.
on saturday i was up early again for my trip to cape tribulation overnight stay. did feel a little quesy on the bus, but i blame the windy roads and stupid driver, not the amount of vodka consumed the previous night!
went on a boardwalk tour of the rainforest which was lovely and its incredible to be in this thick rainforest but as you look through the trees you see the ocean and the reef. arrived at my accommodation for the night and was greeted by the biggest spiders in the whole world.. scared out of my wits!! and there wasn't just one,
there were loads hanging everywhere, including the entrance to my room!! luckily, i had wonderful roommates who kept me amused. we spent the afternoon chatting away like little old ladies by the pool and in the cafe. decided to have dinner and get an early night, but first was called to help an american girl who had ripped her leg open. not pretty, and did my best to hold the wound together until she could go to hospital for stitches. after all that drama i had inspired one of my roommates to be a nurse!! bless her!
the next day was more girly gossip by the pool and then picked up for the journey back to cairns via port douglas which was a nice little town and across the daintree river to mossman gorge. but is it really a gorge? it didnt look like others i have seen, it looked like a rock pool, a very cold one at that!! back in cairns i had a chilled out night with 2 girls i know from sydney before an early night and a stupidly really flight (5:30am!!) to aukland.
arrived in aukland in the afternoon and met jim and frankie,
cape tribulation
reef meets rainforest who i am proud to say are my family!! they are gorgeous!! they picked me up from the airport and we drove to their lovely house and made plans for the following few days. i was just excited to be staying in a real house with a real bed!! (i may have fallen asleep smiling when i got into bed that night!). in the evening frankie drove me around aukland to see the sights and pick up some dinner and we put the world to rights before bed. had a great nights sleep before an early rise to start our road trip around the north island. being driven around this gorgeous country was such a pleasure, it so green!! with fantastic coasts and fabulous little town. we stopped at one for breakfast and then headed to paihia at the bay of islands. checked into a sea view apartment (wow!!) and then before i knew it, frankie and i were on a boat about to go parasailing! attached to a tandem parachute and sent up into the sky! 1200 feet up in to the sky!! absolutely awesome!! the view over the islands was spectacular!! it was wonderful up there, so peaceful
me and frankie
ready to go parasailing and quiet. had my feet dipped into the sea and then landed onto the back of the boat. the afternoon and evening was spent drinking lovely wine, watching the sun go down from the view of our fabulous apartment.
an early start the following morning to go find some dolphins!! we joined a boat trip and just as we started to sail around the islands it started to pour with rain...and we couldn't find any dolphins!! after two hours, we were starting to give up hope of ever spotting any, never mind actually swimming with them when we suddenly came across a huge pod of them!! they were playing, jumping and showing off and generally just being very cute!! unfortunately, i couldn't swim with them because there were too many babies in the pod. the guides on the boat told us that baby dolphins have to feed from their mother every 3 min and if people get in the water with them, they get too excited, want to play, forget to feed and then if they miss even a few feeds their body temperature drops and they get really poorly. and as i didn't want the babies to get poorly
i was just happy to watch them from the boat.
after the boat trip it was back into the car to continue the journey up the coast. we stopped at another little town for a pub lunch, but not before stopping at a chocolate factory, yum.
then it was on to the kauri kingdom which is a really cool factory and shop that sells products made of ancient kauri tree wood, 45000 year old wood to be precise. then frankie drove us to our destination for the night, shipwreck bay which is the start of 90 mile beach. another stunning sea front apartment and a walk on the beach with frankie while the sunset.
the next morning we got up early and frankie drove us (frankie did an awful lot of driving in these few days!) to cape reinga which is the very tip top of new zealand. it was really lovely on the drive with some awesome views and cape reinga was fabulous, watching as the two oceans met and collided was really cool and we saw a gorgeous rainbow as we left. the drive down the west coast for the rest of the day was great too and
we managed to squeeze in a visit to a 2000 year old kauri tree.
i really wish i had longer in new zealand to see more of this fantastic country. i will certainly come back at some point!! if not just to see the lovely jim and frankie xx
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