Australia

So we eventually managed to drag ourselves out of Asia and into Oz, although it was abit touch & go at Immigration. It appears my new Bohemian travelling look isn't to everyone's taste and suggests that I may be someone who carries a backpack full of unsavories. After a thorough searching of my bag and Marks trainers making a brief trip to quarantine for a scrub up we were welcomed into Oz with open arms. (mental note to self: smarten up general appearance and maybe run a razor over my chops more than once every 6 weeks to avoid this embarrassment in future)

Our first stop was Cairns, now there isn't anything particularly wrong with Cairns but there isn't anything particularly right with it either. It's essentially a purpose built holiday resort, abit like Blackpool but with better weather but bizarrely despite being on the coast - no beach. We did find ourselves a decent hostel and spent the next few days exploring, sampling the "colorful" nightlife on offer and an awful lot of time complaining like two old women about the price of just about everything. It's going to take us a while to get used to 1st world country prices again.

After a few days Jules (Mark's girlfriend) Rich and Lisa (2 of our mates from London) flew out to join us for a three week holiday. They were allowed 2 days to get over their jetlag and then it was time to move on.

Port Douglas

It's fair to say Port Douglas went down alot better than Cairns. It's a fairly small town popular with the well-heeled Aussie (so why we ended up there is abit concerning). The place itself has a real community vibe going on, everyone seems to know everyone else and spend alot of time hanging out chillin - I don't think anyone there has a job.

The main attraction of "Port" is it's easy access to the Barrier Reef so we wasted no time in signing ourselves up for some diving the following day. The company we had arranged to dive with had a brand spanking new boat with all the mod-cons so we cruised into the reef in fine style - very Port Douglas. We had all opted to do 3 dives so it was a pretty hectic day but all the crew were really organised so it all ran very smoothly.

Our dive boat

The first two dives were at the same site but exploring different parts of the reef. Obviously the main attraction is beautiful coral which was stunning but we also saw some excellent sea life we hadn't seen before. After lunch we did our third dive where we moved to a different site and were taken out on a small boat to the middle of the reef. We then spent the dive swimming back to the main dive boat against the current. It was pretty hard work but a good experience, plus we got to do a James Bond style backwards dive into the water which was cool. This was our best dive in terms of sightings. We saw all types of different fish - Stingrays, White-tip Sharks, Triggerfish, Parrotfish, Clownfish and Sea cucumbers. We all really enjoyed the day and were really chuffed to have dived the Great Barrier Reef - it was a great experience.

There was an underwater photographer taking photo's as we dived so I though I would have loads of wicked photo's to post on my blog. Unfortunately, I have never been the most photogenic guy and there wasn't a single decent shot out of seven he took. Infact, on each and every one there is a look of sheer, unparalled panic on my face. This was abit gutting for me as I always imaged myself looking alot more sexy whilst I'm diving.

Mission Beach

We began our journey south down the East Coast stopping off first at Mission Beach as it had been recommended by some Aussies we met ages ago in Vietnam. We got off the bus, checked into a hostel, went down to the beach and then wondered where the fu*k everyone else was...! I appreciate the place only has a population of 1,090 but we haven't seen a single other person in nearly 48 hours. I'm convinced we're being Punkt and Ashton Kutcher is going to appear from underneath a palm leaf any minute now.

We tried to escape today by booking a day trip to the nearby Dunk Island just so we could try and integrate ourselves back into some sort of normal community but "apparently" the boats weren't running (we're suspicious of the guy who runs the hostel - he has sneaky eye's). So we went for a rainforest trek instead. Apparently there are loads of sightings of the infamous Cassowary birds in the forest so we trekked for 3 hours, camera's poised, did it makes an appearance? Did it Fu*k..!

Our next stop - The Whitsunday's.