Goodbye NZ - OZ here we come!!!

Hello everyone. Hope all is well at home etc...

After Fiji we just had a few days to say goodbye to our friends and sell our household stuff. Our last night it was near Bonfire fire night so 49 Duke street had a BBQ and set some fireworks off - A class night. How about this - On the day we left all our house mates woke up at 4:00 am and waved us off at the airport... We were very touched - we really liked NZ and met some great people who we will be friends for life with but after 4 months living here a contract at L'oreal and 2 footy trophies later I think its safe to say that NZ was a job well done.

G-day OZ

We arrived in Cairns and were greeted by the extreme heat!!! Jesus its hot over here and summer is only just starting!! - good job Amy got some free L'Oreal sun cream!! As we always do we booked 5 nights when we arrive in a new country/state so we can get our bearings and plan ahead.

On our first full day we did something that we both will never forget - We snorkeled out in the barrier reef!! We were on a boat that took us to 3 spots on the reef. It was ace! We saw great coral, fish, turtles and sharks, truely an amazing experience. There was one incident though; we were both snorkeling around and Amy wandered off. Apparently she saw a boat which was miles away and snorkeled to that boat. When she got there she noticed that it was the wrong boat as people were having morning tea in the lounge area!

Amy you take over...............

.......I clambered on (or attempted to with my huge flippers) and as a crew member ran over to see what was wrong I realised just how embarrassing it was going to be returning to our boat! I was driven back by dingy to the crew of our boat ripping it out of me - whoops!!

We spent the next few days around the pool and exploring Cairns. We took a walk to the botanical gardens and centenary lakes ( I have never seen so many bugs in a toilet in my life!). Then we had to sort out how to get around Oz, decide what trips we were going to do etc. We decided on the Greyhound bus and ended up booking a trip to the rainforest. This was awesome. We went to a croc sanctuary, had a guided walk through the rainforest and stayed in Cape Tribulation. Its really funny here because they have brilliant beaches but you can't swim in the unless there's a stinger net because of all the box jellyfish and croc's!!! We drove through the little town of Port Douglas and saw where Bill Clinton stays, a gorgeous little town only for the rich though!!

Cairns was full of backpackers, the first place where we have really felt like true backpackers!! We got a free meal every night at a pub near our hostel and a lot of the other hostels offered this too so it was pretty packed. One night we won a fish in an auction and had goldfish racing, she did us proud coming 2nd, it must have been a fix.....

On our last night here we found a BBQ which seems to be quite a regular thing in Oz, always near a beach or lagoon there's 3 or 4 BBQ's for community use, you just bring your own meat - its great. We tucked into some sausages looking out to the sea - what a great life they have over here!

After Cairns we headed to Magnetic Island which is another (!) island Captain Cook discovered in the 1800's (is there nothing this lad didn't discover!). It was beautiful, full of little bays and walking tracks. We hired a 4WD so we could get off the beaten track and see wild kangaroos. We drove down a dirt track in the evening and watched the sunset on a remote beach having a little picnic.

On our second day is was our 8 year anniversary so we went to an animal sanctuary where we got the chance to hold a croc (a baby one named Barbie!), a lizard, a python, and last of all (our favourite) a Koala named Barney. He was so cute!! That afternoon we went up to a secluded bay where there were rock wallabies that you could feed, the were so tame they were taking carrot out of our hands!

After the past 2 weeks we really do feel like Mr and Mrs Irwin (Crikey!)

Now we are in Airlie Beach, a nice little sailing town with a really pretty lagoon that looks over the marina.

The next few days we'll spend sailing around the Whitsundays just off Airlie Beach, we'll update you all when we're back

All our love

Team RA
xxxxxxx

Ps. We thought We'd play game very now and again called "can you Guess what it is yet?" We'll take a picture, then you guys have just got to guess what it is..

Here we go ... Picture 1