We made it through what we anticipated to be the worst flight out of the many, left a thunderstormy signapore, landed in Darwin at 2.30am and then got back on the plane at 5.30am through to Cairns where we arrived at 8.30am..… Got held up a little at customs who took our elephant riding photoframe as the frame was made from elephant dung!! And its illegal to sell any produce of elephants (any endangered species) and so they confiscated it! Bit sad, spec as we meant to send it home in a parcel from KL but forgot! Oh well! So out the airport we waited for the shuttle bus to our accommodation we booked the night before!! Texted family and friends back! We arrived at travellers oasis and were soooo happy, it was the start of only good things accommodation wise. Guy on reception was welsh and super friendly and helpful, the whole place was really really nice, kitchens, common areas, loads of outside seating, pool etc. tick tick tick!! We then slept. A little. Then got up and made ourselves walk around Cairns. Had some lunch and walked to lagoon by the sea. As its stinger season not a soul was on the beautiful beach, but there was an impressively nice man made lagoon that everyone was in or lying on the grass nearby. Relaxed in the sun there for a while and then started heading back… via shops, via a travel agent that we stumbled upon which had a great deal on the greyhound bus we were on our way back to book! So booked that! We were going to book the great barrier reef trip through our place as the guy seemed so helpful but thought while we were there we might as well have a look…. Found a really good one, focused on snorkelling that went to one particular site that no other boat visited which had unbelievable snorkelling (which was true!!) So we booked! And then ate! Ate in a place where $10 got you any main meal, drink (including alcoholic!) and a dessert! Result! And it was yum and I got wine. All in all very successful! And THEN headed back!!
Next day we had to be at the dock for 7.30 to check in for the boat. We were the last in the queue loll it was so hot at 7 it was crazy..…. So we got on the boat, had about 80people on but you wouldn’t of known and then filled in health forms, let them know if you were snorkelling, and they had the opportunity to do a free first dive which you could extend if you liked, we both planned to do this but when filling the form in you had to answer lots of medical questions and if you answered yes to any of them you couldn’t. Unfortunately I answered yes to 2 with asthma and previous perforated eardrum. Both really gutted but hey ho thats why we picked a good boat aimed at fantastic snorkelling so only james did the dive.
We had briefings on snorkelling and diving and the coral and after 2 hours we arrived at our first site. A boat took us to the beach, STUNNING!!!! where I then snorkelled around for aaaages and it was absolutely incredible. The array of fish, some of them were so big I stopped breathing and froze hoping it’d swim by quickly and some were beautiful that made you stop and just stare. James dive went really well, bit freaked out at first but after the first 10 mins and his ears were equalising a little better he was fine and ended up absolutely loving it, the instructor guy showed them what coral they could touch and he put your hand in a giant clam type thing, and came up really impressed so we both had a fantastic time and couldn’t of been happier with what we saw. well thats not entirely true as neither of us found a turtle!
I got on the boat, felt sick, was VERY sick, then 20mins later we arrived at our next site. I only snorkelled for a bit here, it was a very different location, the coral was a lot further down in A LOT deeper water but lots more tiny fish. James snorkelled for this bit. I was then sick again, the water was so calm and having never been sea sick before on boats in a storm it was really unusual and we had to put it down to a bug. We then sailed home for the last 2 hours which was lovely in the sun. Then got an expensive taxi back to our place as I still wasn’t feeling so great! We then had to move accommodation as our place only had room for 1 night so we just went around the corner, literally, to this big old house, ryans rest, it was like a huge big old house with old furniture, did the job! We were meant to go to our travellers oasis bbq at 6.30 but I put my head down at half5 and only woke at 8 so that wasn’t to be! Instead we went somewhere nearby that did great kangaroo burgers, YUM! So we had that for dinner and sat with 2 germans and an aussie! (so drunk he enjoyed calling james simon and me sheila haha) Had a great laugh with them, they’d been working on a shrimp boat for 2-4 months so it was their first night on dry land for a while! Good funny night still in the end!!
Left the next morning at 8ish and had to walk back down to the dock where the bus station was. Died in the process. Made our first greyhound bus though and after a seriously fast 2 hours arrived at Mission Beach.
Best of Cairns pictures can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/itsbeenemotional/sets/72157622747097121/
We’ve now got the ‘Our Photo’s’ link at the top right of the website working so this will now always show all of our most recent pictures so is the place to keep an eye out for!!
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