Cairns & Great Barrier Reef

So, got off the plane and walked to the terminal building down a covered walkway. No point in covering the walkway really as in Cairns you're either wet with rain or sweat and it really doesn't matter which!

Our apartment for the 8 days in Cairns was great. Very big, very cheap, good aircon and piped movies on two channels for lazy evenings and days where it's just too wet to consider stepping accross the front door! Found ourselves needing to hire a car. As nice as Cairns is there's not a lot to do there and the day trip prices are very steep indeed!

Pretty lucky with the car really, got a free upgrade to the next size up so Corrolla for the price of a Micra! Not bad at all....

Cairns is all about two things, the reef and the rain forest. We went into the rainforest several times. Firstly we ventured to Kurunda (a mountain town spoilt by tourism). The journey to and from Kurunda were the highlights on an old train there and the Southern hemisphere's biggest cable car back!! Whilst we were there we went to Barron Falls (Huge waterfalls in the rainforest) which were spewing tones of mud out into the ocean especially for our reef trip it seemed. Back into the rainforest to visit Atherton (capital of the Tableland region) and to Rainforestation (An Adventure Park in the rainforest where you can learn to play didgereedoo and throw boomerangs as well as see traditional dances and wildlife up close and personal). This was pretty good and saw loads more Koalas.

We also used the car to get to Mossman, Cape Tribulation and Port Douglas although it rained pretty much all day spoiling the scenery somewhat.

The highlight of the trip was undoubtedly the boat trip to the Great Barrier Reef where Karen snorkelled and I tried my hand at scuba diving. I actually swam with a Reef Shark and about a million other fish on two fantastic dives!!! I found the experience very scary at first but once I was under I took to it well. As long as you don't think to hard about what you're doing and the trouble you could get yourself into It's great!!!

All in all a really good week. Picked up the Campervan on time and met some Irish couples with whom we'd spend most of the next 3 weeks together on our way back to Sydney! Pity Cairns has horrible weather and is all about the tourist buck as it's actually a nice place with generally friendly people and some good watering holes (pity the budget didn't cater for it!).....