After finally arriving in Cairns a week late, we felt we deserved a little good luck! The weather was fantastic and we were staying in luxury hostel, complete with gorgeous pool, with waterfall, huge room with double beds and very clean! As the weather was so lovely and we felt we hadnt seen much of the Great Barrier Reef in the Whitsundays, we decided to postpone our flight to Alice Springs and do a bit of snorkling!
I certianly did not regret this, amazing fishes, bright blue starfish and weird corals! Daisy even saw a small basking shark! Really was spectacular! After an excellent night out in Cairns, where we went to a wacky bar, bumping into some boys who were in our dorm in Airlie Beach, here there was dancing on tables and swinging from the beams!!
I loved Cairns and the weather made up for the rain that had swamped us and soaked us!
We left Cairns eventually, and arrived in Alice Springs, only to be greeted my swarms of flies and 53+ degree heat! A shock! Our hostel was not really up to scratch, a downgrade from Cairns would be an underestimation!! But we were up at 6 the next day for our three day tour of Uluru! Unfortuneately my alarm failed to go off fro the second time and we had 15 mins to pack and check out, RUSH RUSH RUSH!! but we made it!
Our tour guide Brian, was absoloutley insane, he introuduced himself as 'Im not one to go on tours, I only do adventures'. Uh oh We thought, but he highly entertained us, with dressing up as a withered old man, having spagetti races (if he could open 5 packets of spagetti and put them in the pan in uder 15 seconds), which he managed) and greeting us and 4.30 in the morning with shouting squeakly 'MORNEEEEING'!
We saw the sunrise and sunset over Uluru and the changing clours 'faces' of the rock, however when watching we were surrounded by many people on SAGA holdays with champange and parma ham treats, we made do with a previously purchased can of coke and pizza flavoured biscuits! YUM!
We decided not to climb the rock, after Brian telling us that only the highest men in the aborigianl tribe were allowed to climb it and how sacred the rock was to them! WE thought it disrespectful, and did the 3 1/2 hr bush walk instead, where we saw fantastic rock paintings and were attacked by swarms of bloody irritating flies! One dutch guy in our group did climb and deeply regretted it as at the top someone had written in black marker pen his name and the date, he was disgusted and jerome realised how disrespectful many people from the west are.
One of the highlights of the trip was sleeping out under the stars, although a little scared at first of all the bugs, looking up at the milky way and spotting shooting stars was more than a magnificient experience. However, one night i awoke to a scabbling, I turned on my head torch, only to be face to face with two ferral cats (smaller than cats we know, in england) poking about in the bin, well the torch scared them off. But we still heard them meowing nearby! Also the howling of the dingoes at night was worrying, Me and Daisy were very paranoid they were coming closer and closer and the prospect of being eaten by dingoes was definitely present!!
I have been in Melbourne for 4 days now! we found a place to stay, not realising it was in the middle of ChinaTown, and also that it was Chinese new Year! But we had an excellent view of the celebrations, banging firecrackers, drums and violent dragons! we even watched the Karaoke, which was hillarious and we picked up some very catchy tunes, however we wernt to sure of the words!! ha ha
I prefer Sydney a lot more to Melbourne, as although Melbourne is lvoely it seems rather similar to London! but I shouldnt be quick to judge so we will see! We went yesterday to the oldest prison in Melbourne- Where Ned Kelly was hanged, and are off this afternoon to the Melbourne Museum, which 'so the guide book says' is very modern and hitech!
Must be off and expensive internet! Thanks for all the comments! they are great!
Not long left in Australia now, time has flown by, we leave on the 4th of march, fiji for ten days and then fly to south america..a rather daunting prospect!
Much Love,
xxxxxxx
