Cairns

The best thing about Cairns was Adam and Fiona visiting us there, we all rented a super apartment with a pool and air conditioning (essential in this part of the world!)! Cairns is super sticky hot and unfortunately as its stinger (jelly fish to the rest of us) season there was no chance of swimming on the beaches. There is however a fantastic huge swimming lagoon built just off the beach thats free for everyone and has great bbq facilities surrounding it!

We all headed off on a boat trip to the Great Barrier Reef, the boat was fantastic and not too bumpy (on the way back anyway!). Meals were great but unfortunately the outer reef was quite rough and this made snorkelling quite difficult. A reef shark swam past us but that was about it. We did a scuba dive which was going fine until Orla got seperated from the rest of the group (scary!) but sure it was all fine in the end!

We also did a rainforest tour into the Daintree forest (after a few too many drinks in a bar the night before - painful!) which was great (too many mosquito bites after though), swam in a lovely creek (great for the hangovers) and saw the creepy eyes of some crocodiles on a boat trip down the river.

All in all there wasn't much to do in Cairns and the weather wasn't great (what can we expect in the tropics) but it was great to have some Irish friends with us and we certainly ate (and drank)well for the week! Next stop Singapore for some proper travelling (We've had it quite lazy for the past month!) so hopefully the next leg will be as great as the last one!