Cairns: Final Destination of Oz

Our final stop in Australia was Cairns which is a cool town with a huge manmade lagoon overlooking the ocean. We spent the first night exploring the town and the night market before going for dinner in the Woolshed, a backpacker bar that quickly became our local for the 5 days in Cairns. We spent the following day lounging by the lagoon in the sun - after all of the rain we had in Airlie Beach, it was good to be back in the sunshine!

On our second night we were booked onto the infamous Cairns pub crawl. There were about 100 backpackers taking part and we were driven around Cairns in the party bus - an open top double decker kitted out with disco lights and a huge sound system! We stopped in 5 clubs that featured table top dancing, drunken party games, a live band and masses of free pizza!

The next day we treated our hangovers with a picnic and more laying around by the lagoon. That evening we had an all you can eat chinese buffet and had an early night to prepare us for our early start the next morning for a Great Barrier Reef sailing and snorkelling trip.

The trip started out a bit cloudy, but the sun soon came back out and after about an hour of sailing we got into our wet suits, flippers and snorkels and went for a swim with the fish! The water was a bit murkier than our snorkelling trip in the Whitsundays, but the coral reef was still amazing, and we were soon surrounded by a school of huge fish when the captain started throwing shrimp into the water to attract them!

After an hour or so of snorkelling, we stopped off at Green Island, where there was a stunning beach surrounding a tropical rainforest. We then sailed back to Cairns and headed back to the Woolshed for a Chilli and a beer.

We spent the next couple of days between the lagoon and the Woolshed and on the the morning of our 6th day we jumped on a flight to Brisbane, waved goodbye to Australia, and caught our flight to New Zealand.