Reef and Rainforest

After another long hungover bus drive, I arrived in Cairns. The city itself does not have much to see apart from good nightlife! It doesn't have a beach so I spent the first day chilling by the lagoon which all places with a rubbish beach seem to have!

I then went on an overnight boat trip to the Great Barrier Reef. We had to get on a smaller boat to drive out to a much bigger boat which is where I would stay. The boat was lovely and I had a room with a double bed and en-suite all to myself! After lunch I did some great snorkelling in a couple of different spots. There was then the chance to try an introductory scuba dive. This means that you go under the water for 30mins with an instructor who controls everything for you. All I had to do was breathe and kick my legs! However, I have decided that water activites are the kind of things that I'm most scared of and whilst I was sitting with the tank on ready to get into the water, I was more nervous than when I jumped out of a plane!

When we began to go under the water The realisation hit me that I could not pop my head out of the water every few minutes like I do when snorkelling and I freaked out! I felt very clostrophobic and scared that I would not be able to breathe nder the water! What a loser! The lovely instuctor calmed me down and we eventually went down to about 12m. I saw lots of lovely fish swimming above me, picked up a pineapple sea cucumber and saw a shark. It was amazing and Im glad I tried it (for the first and probably last time!)!

The day after the boat trip I went on a day trip to an area called Atherton Tablelands with Uncle Brian's tours. This is an area of rainforest and flat lands that were used for mining. We walked throught he rainforest and went to three differetn swimming holes. The first one was milla milla falls whihc had a rock slide that you could slide down into the river. fun! The next one was Josephine falls which is the waterfall where Peter Andre did the 'Mysterious girl' video! It was also where the herbel essences advert was filmed so the guide insisted we all have a photo taken flicking our hair out of the water! The last swimming whole was a lake in a huge volcano but I was too cold to swim by this point!

The scenery on this trip was lovely but it was the bus ride and the people that really made the trip. The bus driver was hilarious and made us play games and sing and dance. One of the games involved passing a polo around the bus using matchsticks in our mouths! There was also a point where the bus driver had us all ducking down and spying for animlas only for us to find a granny in the trees with soft toy animlas and a feather duster! I cannot describe how random and fun it was but would just say you have to go on Uncle Brian's if you are in Cairns!

I have also been to an area called Cape Tribulation which is where the rainforest meets the beach and the reef. It was nice walking through the Daintree rainforest but we didn't manage to see any crazy animlas. So, next we went on a cruise down the river to look for crocodiles. I saw a baby one on the bank and an adult female lazing in the water. The trip also involved another swimming hole and a stop off in Port Douglas which was very relaxing. A good day that everyone talks about but it didn't quite compare to the trip the day before.

Today I went to the airport to get a flight to Melbourne but when I got to check in, they told me it was the wrong day! My flight is actually tomorrow! I did know this but seem to be a bit of a dumb ass who doesn'yt know which day of the week it is! This meant I had abother day to chill by the lagoon and will hopefully get on the right flight tomorrow!!!

xxx