Anyway, after our 3 days in the desert and heat of Ayers Rock, Ben, Jemma and I flew off to Cairns for a few days. I had to be in Airlie Beach to meet my lovely boys, Huggs and Walshy on Feb 14th so I only had a few days to spend in Cairns. We flew in without having a hostel booked and picked one from the board at the airport.. Asylum!! Not entirely sure what we were thinking picking a hostel with such a name but off we went. I'll be honest.. there are a lot of good things about said hostel, lots of freebies etc but in truth, the place is grim and i was really glad to only be staying a couple of days (aside from it meaning i was parting with Ben and Jem that is). A little anecdote about the flight.. the crew turned out to be the same one as on our flight from Perth to Alice Springs.. when Jemma was poorly.. she obviously made quite an impression as they all remembered her and gave her a goodie bag full of airline minatures guaranteed to make her poorly again!! 
Anyway, we arrived in the evening and took advantage of the free 'meal' - and i use the word meal loosely! - at a bar in town, vouchers given by the hostel, travellers special... IE; not that nutritious or tasty but hey it filled a hole! We had a few drinks after and some silly dancing then braved sleeping in the Asylum!! Our first day in Cairns was really just spent exploring and wandering round the town, Cairns is ok but I don't think it's one of my favourite places, really i was there to see the Great Barrier Reef and Cape Tribulation. We discovered that Claire and Rob, another couple that had trekked with us in Thailand were also in Cairns so we also went to visit them at their hostel (which was far nicer than ours!), was lovely to catch up with them having not seen them since I left Chaing Mai in November. That night was spent having a BBQ at the hostel and eating gorgeous ice-cream and milkshakes if i remember correctly!
The following day we'd decided to hire a car and take a little road trip to Cape Tribulation for a couple of days, the idea being we'd do a Reef trip from there then head back to Cairns in time for me to leave to meet the boys. We got ourselves possibly the smallest car on earth (not intentionally!) and as I was the only one over 25 I was designated driver... i didn't mind, I've missed driving so was quite looking forward to it. We set off early and spent the day making our way up there stopping off at various gorgeous beaches along the way.. they're beautiful beaches, the only downfall being that you can't swim at any of them thanks to Box jellyfish and Crocs!! Jem and I did manage to crack open a coconut between us though.. yes, the one she's holding in the pic - unfortunately, after all our effort, it wasn't edible!!
We did get to swim in the end however, at Mossman Gorge, inland lake in the rainforest, the water was freezing but it was awesome, Ben swam off and ended up getting stranded way up stream but he made it back in the end! We also went for a little walk in the rainforest here which was amazing.. after this we headed for Cape Trib and our plan was to kip in the car to save some money - we figured we'd be up early for the reef trip anyway... what we didn't figure on however was the reef trips from the cape being so expensive and our car being so small, oh, and the unbelievable heat!
Anyway, we decided we'd wait and do a reef trip from Cairns so instead we booked ourselves on the night-time rainforest walk..... OH MY GOD... What was I thinking!??!! Now, most of you will understand what an achievment this was for me given my ridiculous fear of spiders... I think i must've taken leave of my senses when I signed up for this one but anyway, along with another couple we set of with our mad guide equipped with nothing but a torch a torch into the dark forest... in order to actively LOOK for Spiders - why, why would anyone do that???!!! (and in Flipflops too.. I forgot my trainers!!) As you can see from the pic's we were (perhaps unfortunately) successful in finding those spiders.. this particular little gem is a huntsman eating a cockroach... hmm... nice!! It's actually disturbing me that I'm even putting a picture of this on here so you can imagine what i was like at the time!! I had however drummed into our guide exactly how scared i was so I think he knew better than to play any tricks, thankgod! In fairness though, now that it's over and I survived I have to admit it was actually really cool - was scared senseless at the time but am really glad i did it, would have been a shame to miss it, the rainforest is really impressive and the wildlife that lives there is amazing.. we saw various other things too, lizards, frogs etc ... no snakes this time although they are lurking in there somewhere!
After we'd made it out of the forest alive we attempted the whole kipping in the car thing... we lasted about an hour then gave in and checked ourselves into PK's hostel - who's car park we were parked up in. It was sooo nice to be in a bed, in an air conditioned room!! The next morning we went for brekkie then went for a drive to see the view of the beaches, it really is stunning up there. Afterwards we went for a little walk to a waterhole for a swim, it was dead clear fresh water and you could feel the little fish nipping at you. 
After drying off we set off back for Cairns. I'd decided to head off to Airlie early the next morning which meant I didn't get to do the reef trip but I wanted to get there and play a little trick on the boys!!
Our last evening in Cairns was spent just having something to eat and gossiping. It was strange leaving Ben and Jemma, seemed I'd been with them for ages.. Ironically, I'm going to shut up now as I have a bus to catch in an hour to Surfers Paradise where I'm visiting Ben and Jemma for a few days! This'll be the first time I've seen them since I left Cairns.. so am looking forward to it (although am not happy that Kate left me a few hours ago, I miss her already!!) Anyway, that's enough for now.. I'm getting there on the updates thing!! xxx
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