Cairns

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G'day!

We arrived in Australia on 14 April. I had booked a hostel called Castaway's which I found on the net in Japan so we headed there. Good choice even if I do say so myself. The staff were great and really friendly and our dorm was only 4 beds so for 2 nights there was only us 3 in our room. For $20 a night you get free bike hire and a free evening meal - bargain! It was about a 10-15 min walk into town but we were quite happy about that and the hostel does a free bus throughout the day. We had to go to a place called the Woolshed for dinner that provides food for a lot of the hostels in the area. Surprisingly, the food was really nice so that has saved us a bit of money. The danger of having to go to a bar for dinner means you rarely go home and end up staying all night, getting drunk on the goon wine (which I actually really like!) and dancing on the tables until 2am!

On our first day we tried (and failed) to go bike riding. We attemped twice to head to the botanical gardens but both Deaks and I got flat tyres so we had to abandon that and instead we headed into town and went to the lagoon to sunbathe as it was a really nice, hot day. The people here are so friendly. Everyone is so happy and chilled out - must be the weather! That evening we had lots of homework to do to decide where and for how long we would stop down the east coast. Castaway's gave us a 6 week diary sheet so that we could get a rough itinerary so we spent the night consulting our Lonely Planet and deciding what we wanted to do. Very exciting!

The next day we headed off on a 2 day trip to Cape Tribulation. We booked it for Deaks's birthday. One of the girls that works at Castaway's, Nicola, came with us. We got picked up early and set off. We stopped at Daintree River on the way and went on a little cruise to search for crocs! We found 2 so that was good. We then went to Daintree National Park and went walking in the forest where we saw some MASSIVE spiders. I was a nervous wreck. I'm gonna have to get used to the buggers while I'm here but it won't be easy!

We got dropped off at our accommodation in Cape Trib at lunchtime. This was our first proper hostel experience. We were in a dorm with 7 beds and the people that arrived before us had left their stuff all over our beds - how rude! Later that afternoon we headed off on our first adventure - jungle surfing. You go zip-lining through the forest about 24 metres high. The last section we had to do upside down which was great. It was so much fun. Deaks and I loved it and were screaming to go faster but Suz, who has a fear of heights, found the whole thing quite traumatic but she was glad she did it!

We were promised great things about PK's - the place we were staying. It is the liveliest out of the 3 or 4 places to stay there. We must have picked a bad week - it wasn't that busy and there was hardly anyone around in the evening - they all seemed to be reading or asleep in their dorms. We attempted to go and find the beach so, once armed with a torch, the 4 of us set off. It was a long, scary little path through the forest to the beach and at the beginning of the path we shone the torch around, clinging onto each other, saw a massive spider web and screamed like little girls and ran back!!! Not very successful! We then headed for safety in the bar for a bit and chatted to a few people but seeing as there wasn't a lot going on and we were really tired we thought we'd go back to our dorm and make friends with our room mates. We got back at 10.20pm to find them all in bed - what is that!!! They were all about 5 years younger than us too (story of our lives on this trip!). We couldn't believe we'd managed to get put in the boring dorm. We headed to the toilet block to get changed and whilst in there the heavens opened and it started pouring down. I was in my pjs and flip flops and then a massive cockroach decided to join us so I was running around the sinks, trying to brush my teeth with this thing crawling around chasing after me. Eeeuuuw! Eventually we ran for it back to our dorm and got soaked and got into bed and one of the boys in our dorm woke up - Thomas from Whitechapel - so we ended up talking to him for a bit. He was a cheeky 20 year old that kept offering us a place in his bed with him if we wanted - I don't think so!!!

The next morning we got up for our second adventure - horseriding! It was amazing - we rode for nearly 2 and a half hours. We went through the rainforest and on the beach. I had a horse called Gonzo who was in love with Suzanne's horse, Popeye, so he followed him around everywhere which meant I didn't have to do much work! He didn't like getting dirty though so every time we had to walk through a puddle, he would walk around it and I would get bashed by the trees in the process! We cantered through the forest which was great but I should have taken my sports bra - not very comfortable! Gonzo was quite lazy and wouldn't canter when I kicked him so I had to hit him on the neck with a stick (which I was assured was less painful than kicking!). I wasn't expecting him to respond so fiercely and we'd go speeding off at quite a pace! After I'd got over the scariness I really enjoyed it and cantered through the rainforest screaming "yee ha". All good fun!

We headed home that afternoon and stopped at Mossman Gorge and Port Douglas which was nice. Went out for Deaks's birthday that night - to the Woolshed of course!! It was Ladies Night so we had free champagne from 10pm - 11pm. Obviously it was cheap, nasty stuff but Suz and I actually quite liked it so we drank loads and ended up dancing on the tables!

A couple of days later we went on a day trip called Uncle Brian's Fun, Falls and Forest. It was recommended to us by lots of people at the hostel so we thought we'd give it a go. It was a long day, we were picked up at 7.30am in Gus the Bus driven by Finlay (Uncle Brian). There were 19 of us. We spent the day going to various different places including lots of waterfalls which we had to swim in. They were all freezing but Uncle Brian said we weren't allowed to called them that - we had to say it was a "funny feeling"!! I licked an ant's green arse which the Aboriginals discovered was a cure for the common cold. It tasted like lemon!! We went up to the Atherton Tablelands where we had lunch. We went to Josephine Falls where we went rocksliding. It was so slippery. We had to swim over to the rocks and climb up before heading down the big slide. We had to crawl up on all fours - not very attractive for the person behind!! I was the second person going up and just as Uncle Brian was telling us to be careful and not fall down before we got to the slide I slipped and went hurtling down the wrong bit! I freaked at first thinking I was gonna kill myself and then once I realised I was safe I cracked up and went hurtling into the water only to resurface to Uncle Brian thanking me for my demonstration of how not to do it through lots of laughter!! We also headed to Millaa Millaa Falls where Uncle Brian told us that Peter Andre's Mysterious Girl video was filmed and so was the Timotei advert. Suz and I very excitedly got in and tried to recreate the advert - not quite as sexily as the blonde girl in the advert but all good fun though! We went to Lake Eacham after that for another swim and then went platypus spotting on the way home but we didn't see any. Got home about 7pm. It was a good day. The group had bonded quite well by the end of the day and we were playing games on the bus and it was a funny day.

The next day we had another early start for our Passions tour. We went on a catamaran to the Great Barrier Reef where Suz and I went diving. We did our first dive at Michelmas Cay. There were only 4 certified divers on the boat so it was a nice small group. We hired an underwater camera this time too which was fun. Our second dive in the afternoon at Paradise Reef was brilliant - this time it was just me and Suz and Manuel our Italian instructor. He took the camera off us and we went exploring and he kept taking lots of funny snaps and we had a good laugh under the water. Have got all the pictures on disc which is cool. We were trying to feed nemos and all these other fish came from nowhere and started biting me for some food - in the end I had to throw it at them and swim away as I was getting pecked from every angle!! We sailed home for 2 hours and the sea was so choppy the boat was literally jumping along. I'm not usually one who suffers from any sort of motion sickness but I felt so ill - it was torture! Still a good day though and the diving was brilliant. Our instructor said we were great divers considering we'd only just been certified and these were our 5th and 6th dives which was nice.

After we returned from the barrier reef we were walking back to our hostel when we spotted Peter Andre's brothers' restaurant (Uncle Brian had pointed it out to us the day before) so, very excitedly, I rushed in to see them. Only one of the brothers was there, Danny, and he was really nice. I waffled on for about 10 minutes about how I loved Pete and how cute Junior was - much to the girls' amusement. I had my picture taken with him and then we were chatting about how we'd been to the place where Mysterious Girl was filmed the day before and Danny cracked up and said that Uncle Brian was having us on and that Mysterious Girl was in fact filmed in Koh Phi Phi in Thailand. What a filthy liar!!! We were very distressed that our Uncle Brian lied to us. Danny said that Pete and Katie were coming out in 4 weeks but obviously we'll nearly be in Sydney by then - gutting!!!!!!!! he he.

We went out for our last night to the Woolshed that night. All the Castaway's staff were in there for a bit but after they left we danced with loads of randoms before heading home at 2am and sitting by the pool with some of the staff who were still up. Will be so sad to leave Cairns tomorrow - I love all the staff here and could quite easily stay put and work in the hostel - very tempting!!! During our last drunken night out we decided that we wanted a bit more time in Australia so that we could fit Ayers Rock in. I love it here and could easily live here and I've only been here a week!!! We had a very stressful morning before we left Cairns the next day running around trying to get our flights changed. It is safe to say I won't be returning home when you all think!!!!!!! Oooooh the mystery!!!!

Next stop will be Townsville after 6 hours on the greyhound bus where we'll jump on the ferry to Magnetic Island.

xxx

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Comments

[Nicola Harvey]

Great pic's
Hey Lisssaaaa, love reading all your blogs. The pics from Oz and the great barrier reef are amazing. Very funny pic of you and the sea cucumber, made me laugh. Keep em coming babe, miss ya xxx