CAIRNS & THE ATHERTON TABLELANDS
22ND - 28TH FEBRUARY
We arrived in Cairns at 17.55 and were immediately reminded of what tropical weather was all about - hot and humid!!! We’d booked into a hostel which allowed camping and gave you a free pickup from the airport. At last we thought! We have found a nice hostel in Australia, the girl who picked us up seemed very friendly and the lady who booked us in was also very friendly, and even some fellow hostellers actually smiled and said hello!!! Amazing, it seemed we’d found a hostel that wasn’t full of pretentious people! The hostel was a pretty kind of place and it had a good vibe. We got talking to a bloke who worked there about diving and generally what there was to do around Cairns. He advised us of a couple of good companies and said there were some good deals at the moment, which got us thinking! I had never really thought about actually going diving. I guess due to my dislike of fish at close range, I had presumed we would go on a boat trip rather than actually having tocome face to face with the little critters! I guess really neither of us had given it much thought as to what we were going to do, so we were open to suggestions. Rob was getting very enthusiastic about the possibilities of a diving trip and I was a little more sceptical, but thought well I suppose if your going to dive, then there aren’t many places better to go than the Great Barrier Reef! After gaining as much information as possible we went to pitch our tent and have a think about the options, to be honest I think Rob had already made up his mind and I just needed persuading! We both thought that if we were going to do it, then we would have to do it the next day as this was our only free day in Cairns. I also thought that if we did it the next day, then I wouldn’t have much time to worry about the prospect of let alone diving but swimming with fish and possibility sharks - yeak! So that was that, Rob was over to the see the man in a flash and came back with us booked onto a dive and snorkelling