Yesterday was our last day in Cairns and as we had to check out at 10am and our shuttle to the airport wasn’t until 11.30pm, we had a long day of waiting ahead with no room to chill in.
The weather was (obviously) pouring again and so after sorting out all of our plans at the travel agent and sneaking our way back into the hostel so that we could use the kitchens there to make lunch, we went off to the cinema.
After watching Bad Neighbours a new film with Zac Efron (who we all obviously adore) we headed back to the hostel in the pouring rain to chill for as long as possible, trying to make dinner as late as possible.
There was a live band in the hostel and it was nice just chatting, eating our $3 dollar meal, listening to music.
The rain was torrential and we (bizarrely) decided to run to another bar and have a dance, we got soaked and soon came back to Gilligans, just in time to watch the catwalk going on in our hostel bar. We were so exhausted and fell asleep in the airport waiting for the check in desk to open! Then we slept again in the departure lounge and luckily as the flight was hardly full we all had three seats to lie down on.
At 5am we arrived in Melbourne and got a taxi to my friend Sylvie’s house. She’s my roommate from Whistler and it’s literally so nice to see her and to stay in her beautiful house in the centre of Melbourne. She’d woken up so early to welcome us and had the spare room with a massive double bed ready for us. The house is beautiful, full of aboriginal art and so clean – the complete opposite to a hostel!
After a very needed morning nap, we woke up, showered, breakfasted and then Sylvie got out google maps and showed us around and suggested where we should go to explore this afternoon. We got on our first Melbourne Tram and headed to Chapel Street, a famous street for shopping visited by celebrities! We found a cute little sushi shop, that sells massive sushi rolls for $2 dollars and then headed off to shop!
A girl that Juliet worked with in the pub in Harpenden is from Melbourne and has invited us out for her birthday tonight, so Sylvie is going to show us this city this evening and we can head of to celebrate Juliet’s friends birthday with her.
So far so good Melbourne!

It’s such a bizarre feeling to have left the East Coast now, as ever since Sydney we’ve made friends and met people who we know we’ll see again as everyone is travelling upwards, doing the same thing. We’ve made so many friends and there’s been a lot of them who we have got so close with and travelled a long way with. As Cairns is the top, everyone was there and it’s been a great week seeing people from home, old friends, making new friends and catching up with roommates from previous cities. However now we’ve left Cairns, and the east coast, we’re back at square one, in Melbourne and it feels like the start of a new adventure. It’s weird to think that the people we left in Cairns we will probably never see again. It’s even quite sad, but now we’re in a completely different place, a 4 hour plane trip away, with new people, in a new environment, so we’re excited to explore and see what this part of Australia has to offer!

Yesterday at 11am we were picked up from the hostel by a van covered in pictures of people hanging from ropes (bungee cords) and had other bus drivers telling us “good luck, you’ll need it” and “oooh dangerous” so nerves were obviously higher than normal. I wasn’t actually feeling too bad about it and was quite excited and so was giving Juliet and Nicole advice on what not to do, ie don’t over think, just jump when you’re there, don’t stand and contemplate it too much or you work yourself up.
We arrived at A J Hacketts, walked up the 129 steps to the suspended bridge over a small lake and got harnessed up.

We had no choice about how we bungeed (sometimes you can chose between a stomach harness and a foot one) however here, we had to jump head first and have the bungee cord attached to our feet. I was first up and when I got to the edge of the platform I freaked! All the advice id given Juliet and Nicole went out the window and I completely forgot it. I was looking over the edge with this towel round my feet with a heavy bungee cord attached to it and I was panicking. I wasn’t even worried about the height or the jump or safety or any of that, I just couldn’t work out in my head how I was meant to dive off it. I asked them if it was like a swimming dive and they said yes and no, and I asked if I could sit on the step and then fall that way and they said no. (Ha) Then I started thinking that if I jumped feet first by accident I’d suddenly get a jolted flip to turn me around and I didn’t want that. Basically I over thought everything and it all went very down hill from there. It was actually quite comical, Juliet and Nicole were laughing and the bungee men were pushing me so I got angry! Then they said I had three seconds to jump or I couldn’t do it, so obviously I had to jump. Three, two, I didn’t even wait for one I just dived off and it was so much fun!

Nicole was up next and id given her a perfect example of what not to do and so from the bottom I saw her bend her knees, and dive high into the sky and perform the perfect bungee! It’s also so funny to watch from the bottom as I saw her ping back up and her whole body be thrown around and spun as she fell back down, only to be pinged back up again!

Nicole also did a second jump, as she won a free bungee voucher, and so she did the roof top run. This is where she climbed to the very roof of the bungee building, with a stomach harness this time, and basically just ran down a ramp onto nothing and fell into the bungee that way! People also do stunts off that ramp, such as bmx biking off it. She looked so funny falling towards us and it seemed a lot more fun!

Last up was Juliet, who screamed the whole way down and pinged up so high she was nearly back where she started! The way you get out of the bungee is also hilarious as a man on a little boat rows out to whoevers bungeed, so Juliet here, and then tries to grab her hand as she’s swinging around red in the face from the blood rushing to her upside down face. Once he’s grabbed Juliet’s hand, she’s lowered by the bungee people at the top and basically ends up lying in the little boat, still with her legs tied together. Then the man rows back to shore and unties her!

So that’s it, all my extreme sports in Australia completed! A sky dive, white water rafting and a bungee, now let’s see what South America has to offer…

Yesterday morning we overslept. Our bus to the Atherton Tablelands was meant to be in ten minutes and we were all still in bed! After we realised we obviously shot out, we were running around getting dressed, brushing teeth like mad people and then we remembered that Katie isn’t in our room and DEFINITELY isn’t awake! The bus was now. So Juliet ran to Katie’s room while Nicole and I ran to the bus to try and stall it. Luckily we had a really nice bus driver / tour guide who said he wasn’t leaving without a member of the tour! And so he went to another hostel to do his last pick up then said he would come back for us. This was good for me and Nicole as it meant we could go to the bakery and get fresh pastries for breakfast while we waited for the other two and the bus.
After about an hour of introducing ourselves on the bus, telling stories and listening to music, we arrived at our first destination. It was a freezing cold lake and the weather really wasn’t that nice either. We decided that as the whole day is about swimming in waterfalls and lakes, we can’t let the weather or the temperature of the water stop us – we’d do nothing all day otherwise, so on the count of three we all jumped in, screaming! Once you’re in the water it’s so much better but it was still absolutely freezing swimming around in the lake, and we found a massive tree to climb and sit on while the crazy Danish boys (and Juliet) climbed all the way up it and then jumped down into the lake!

On the way to our next stop, we picked up the lunch that we’d ordered in the morning and my name on my little sandwich parcel was spelt the best way I’ve ever seen…

This is because all the German people we’ve met pronounce my name “shhtefaani” or “shteffi” as that’s how they say it in German, so now everyone calls me that the whole time and the sandwich people clearly picked up on it!

Our next stop was Josephine Falls, a massive waterfall with a huge rock slide!

The current here is so strong, and to get across to the waterfall slide you have to dive in at an angle and swim really hard against the current and then grab the rock. One of the guys from our tour who basically couldn’t swim, decided to attempt this and obviously it didn’t work out too well, he was flapping about in the water being pushed away by the current, so two people and our tour guide had to swim over and basically hold him up as he was exhausted and then drag him over to the rock. Nicole then went and had her turn sliding down while we all watched and climbed the rocks in the waterfall.

Then after that the drama started, obviously the guy who hadn’t been able to swim by himself was not stranded on the rock and couldn’t get himself back. Then it started to pour torrential rain and so the current and the waterfall got way stronger, making it more difficult for him to get back!

In the end they had to get a massive cord and get people at different stations to hold it taught so that he could use it to lever himself across but he still wasn’t strong enough to do that by himself! He nearly got dragged by the current and then had to go back to his rock. At this point a massive tour group arrived and so he had an audience. Our tour guide had an idea and so ran off to the bus to get some floatation devices. While we were waiting for his return we realised Nicole had four leeches sucking in between her toes and on her heel, I also had one on my foot! It was such a horrible feeling and I had to rip Nicole’s off her while she screamed and squealed. Leeches are probably the most disgusting animals and once we’d ripped them off us and chucked them away, shivering with disgust, where they had just been on us would bleed loads as obviously they’d broken the skin – such a pain.
Anyways back to the dramatic incident…

Our tour guide had now appeared with a noodle that the guy could use and as he swam over to him with it, they both got into the water and attempted to get across the current together – our guide basically holding him up. Anyways eventually he did manage to get back and it was all very dramatic and everyone cheered, but fancy jumping into a waterfall if you can’t swim?!
We were all absolutely drenched, the rain water drops were massive and fast and even though we were in bikinis we were more wet than if we’d jumped into the waterfall! So we all ran back to the bus to get dry and eat our lunch.
The next stop on the agenda was another massive waterfall that you can swim behind! It’s also the waterfall that features in Peter Andres music video to mysterious girl when he appears out of the waterfall running his hands through his hair. We all jumped in the FREEZING water in the rain and swam over the waterfall where we reenacted his music video, flicking our hair and singing mysterious girl! We also had massive group photos and actually swam underneath it, it was so cool.

There were two more stops on our adventure day at the Atherton Tablelands, a massive lake that was full of turtles swimming around and a huge 500plus year old tree that grew around another tree, killed that tree and now stands so talk and hollow and you can stand inside it!

It was a really great day, once again made absolutely hilarious by the pouring rain and the dramatic incidents that went along with it!

Since travelling there have been a lot of days, like yesterday where we literally have nothing to do, and so to stop ourselves from going crazy, you have to make something to do!

First up, and obviously mine and Juliet’s favourite thing to do when there’s nothing to do, is sunbathing! But unfortunately the weather isn’t always going to be nice, and right now in Cairns it’s actually pretty awful so the idea of sunbathing is off the table.

Second there’s playing cards, another one of our favourites. Especially the game Spies and Malice which involves two packs of cards and Juliet and I get very competitive!

Next, catching up with writing journals, postcards, letters home etc. When you’re travelling you don’t actually have that much time to yourself just to write a postcard or a quick message in your journal about what you’ve been up to, so lazy days are best for this!

Fourthly, and what we spent most of yesterday doing, you can catch up on tv series. This only works if you’re staying in a hostel with good wifi but if you download your favourite tv program from home, that you’ve been missing, you can all sit in the dorm and watch it around an iPad or laptop.

Another one of my favourites is, do a wash. We actually did this yesterday aswell, when you’re busy you don’t think about how gross all your clothes are cooped up in that backpack, but after doing a massive wash and tumble dry for 4dollars, I always realise just how nice it is to have clean clothes.

On the same sort of topic, it’s also a nice feeling to completely unpack and re fold all your clothes before packing again, it’s a sort if like tidying the mind and it makes it SO much easier to find clothes!

Lastly, the most common and most done thing by a backpacker when there’s nothing to do is: sleep. When travelling you never really get a good nights sleep, what with other people in the dorms, snorers, people checking in and out, people moving around, so a nice, long lie in (basically sleeping all day) can do wonders!

Today was another early start for us as we had a 7.30am ferry to… The Great Barrier Reef!
It was such an awful start to the day, we all got SO seasick as the wind was up to 50knots so the waves were so choppy. People we’re being sick left right and centre and plates and bags were falling off tables and drinks we’re being spilt. Once we arrived at our first destination, we were all a light shade of green and Nicole and I decided that we needed to get off the boat as soon as possible so got our wetsuits on and jumped straight into the water for a snorkel.

Things immediately turned around when this happened, I felt so much better and the Barrier Reef was amazing. All around us was a ring of waves breaking, where the Great Barrier Reef makes the sea shallower and the coral and fish that we saw from simply snorkelling a few metres away from the boat were incredible!

I was contemplating not even bothering scuba diving because the snorkelling was so impressive, but when we I’ll have the chance to scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef again? So of course I did. (and thank god I did!)

Julie and I immediately had to remember what we’d learnt doing our PADI in Thailand, putting all the equipment on and completing our buddy check. We entered the water with a giant leap and the whole time I was panicking about my ears and whether they’d equalise okay because they’ve been hurting recently. The Great Barrier Reef seems to just make everything better and as soon as I was in the water they didn’t hurt and I had absolutely no problem equalising as we sunk under the water.
Literally two seconds after we started swimming in the deep blue of the Great Barrier Reef, our guide turned and made the hand gesture to signal shark, I thought he was joking! Until I actually opened my eyes and there, right in front of us was a reef shark!

I turned and looked at Juliet, her eyes wide with fear underneath her goggles, we both actually couldn’t believe that we were swimming with a shark… And the guide followed it! Once the shark had disappeared we set off exploring the Great Barrier Reef to see what other magical creatures we could find.. And low and behold, soon after that we saw a turtle!!

It was just sitting on the coral, minding it’s own business and it didn’t move, even when our guide stroked it! We saw so many other fish as well, nemos swimming around in anemones, we held starfish and we even played catch with a big ugly black Sea cucumber! After about thirty minutes Juliet gave the signal for low on air as she was down to 50bar and so she swam to the surface while we carried on exploring. Under a rock in the deep of the ocean was a massive white stingray and I didn’t even realise so I went so close to it! When I saw what was there I freaked and screamed under water but on second glance it was so chilled and cool, just waving it’s whole body, lying under the rock. Ten minutes or so later all of us were low on air so we did our 5metre, 3 minute safety stop and then surfaced.

After a delicious lunch on the boat (I still find it incredible how they cook such nice food in those tiny kitchens) we decided to go snorkelling again. I was swimming with Katie this time, while Nicole went for her first dive! After making sure Nicole wasn’t going to panic (I really wanted her to be able to experience the reef underwater like me) and watching her gradually sink under then swim off with her instructor, Katie and I jumped in. We swam around the reef, even through some parts and around others as the Great Barrier Reef really is a barrier and saw the biggest fish I’ve ever seen in my whole entire life – it must have been bigger than me! We freaked a bit then, so we swam away from the reef, took off our life jackets and just sat on them, floating in the ocean. It was such an amazing end to the day, just lying in the sea in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef. I’ve seen some unbelievable sea life, sea life that I never dreamed I’d swim with, and had a great experience in one of the worlds most iconic places.
Our journey back to Cairns was completely different to the way there, as we had country music played live to us the whole way home… And no one was sea sick! It’s funny how situations that seem so bad at the beginning soon turn around and become a seriously amazing day.

After a day of doing absolutely nothing (when I say nothing I mean, the only time we left the hostel was to do a big food shop in the morning) we made the most of our hostel free meal, which can be upgraded to a massive meal for 3dollars, and all had a lovely meal of Pasta Napolitana. After then getting roped into partying (again) we’re up at 7am this morning to go scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef!

Yesterday morning we woke up to a cloudy Port Douglas day, a bit disappointing after w’d been told that Port Douglas has the best weather in the whole of Australia. We were also absolutely covered in Mosquito bites, the most I’ve ever been since travelling, Nicole’s legs were the worst but all of us were unbearably itchy and uncomfortable.

We first went shopping to try and take our minds off the itchiness. We visited the boutiques and small shops on a strip and as we were browsing the expensive clothes (Port Douglas is an expensive holiday town) the sun decided to come out! We were so happy so we practically ran to the beach and spent the rest of the day there, lying in the sand and catching some rays.
On the way back to the hostel we walked way to far and ended up inside the five star mirage hotel, very lost! Thankfully the staff there were nice to us, even though we’re measly backpackers – and gave us a lift on their golf buggy back to our hostel! So that was a nice surprise.
At 6pm we got the bus back to Cairns and our friends there and had a good night partying in Gilligans which was so busy, obviously the place to be on a Saturday night.

After probably one of the best and longest sleeps I’ve had since travelling, we all woke up fresh and ready for Jungle Surfing! This is effectively zip lining through the canopy of the Cape Tribulation rainforest and it was a lot of fun! As well as learning about the trees etc (which Nicole, Julie and I were less interested in) we zipped so fast from tree to tree, together, alone, upside down, backwards, you name it! It only took a couple of hours but we covered a huge area of the rainforest and saw some amazing views.

Once our jungle adventure had finished we decided to carry on our Australian jungle experience by going to a local cafe and eating the local Aussie animals!!! We shared two burgers of…. KANGAROO AND CROCODILE! And they were actualy surprisingly nice! The general agreement is that we all preferred the crocodile, but they were both delicious.

This afternoon we were back on the tour bus and visited the best ice cream factory in the whole of Cape Tribulation. A local lady sources all the ingredients and makes the ice cream by hand, and the flavours depend on the season and what sources of produce are available. Nicole, Juliet and I all had locally sourced honey ice cream which was so delicious, and although this might sound stupid it actually tasted so much like real honey!

The next stop along the way was Mossman Gorge, a beautiful crystal clear lagoon connected to a waterfall where we had the opportunity to swim! The water was ice cold so we didn’t actually swim in it ourselves but we did dip our feet in and climb the water fall’s boulders. We then went to a look out point and saw the amazing Great Barrier Reef.

The Cape Tribulation Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef are the only two world heritage points in the world to actually touch and we were able to stand right in between them, looking over both.
Now we have a night in Port Douglas and we’re all curious for the morning, to see what it has to offer!

After a night celebrating Nicole’s arrival in Australia and our last night with our jersey friend Emily, this morning was a mad rush. We overslept, hadn’t packed our small bags for our tour and needed to check out. We were meant to be being picked up at 7.25 and we were very proud of ourselves that we were only five minutes late! We sat at the front of our hostel waiting for the bus and when it didn’t arrive for fifteen minutes, Juliet went to call the company. Unfortunately the bus had come and gone and we’d missed it (so typical) but luckily, it was coming back to get us, so all was not lost!
After a scenic drive along the coast up to the Cape Tribulation rainforest and a short coffee and toilet break, we arrived at our first stop: a crocodile boat tour. We all boarded the boat and set off down the most highly populated (by crocodiles) river in Cape Trib. Within five minutes we had seen our first crocodile, a huge, light grey female, lazing on the banks. Soon after that we saw another two and even a baby! Crocodiles really aren’t that exciting as they literally just lie there looking like logs, I actually didn’t even see any of them move. However I’m glad I’ve seen one in it’s natural habitat in the rainforest, even if it wasn’t lashing out, hunting for food. Our next stop after that was a board walk through the mangroves and some amazing species of plants. We learnt how the aboriginals used the different plants to help them in life, as obviously they didn’t have shops, doctors or electronics. We learnt about the long leaves of a tree which have tiny little spikes on them, and the aboriginals tied them round their heads if they had headaches and the needles worked like acupuncture. There was also a wide leaved tree which is very sensitive to change in the air when a storm is coming. This is because the cyclones in Australia would literally destroy it’s wide leaves so when the plant senses a storm, it rolls all of it’s wide leaves up and bunches them together – so amazing! Obviously this meant that the aboriginals could tell when a storm was approaching, simply by looking at the plant. We also saw medical sap, house making branches and many other natural things which are a part of the every day life of an aboriginal.
When we arrived at the hostel around lunchtime I was so exhausted and actually felt quite ill so I literally slept all afternoon. The hostel is in the middle of no where and as it was raining there wasn’t much for the others to do. I had a lovely snooze though!

After lots of games of cards and chit chat, dinner time finally came around and we set off to find our restaurant. We’d heard about one called Whet that does good food and so we set off in the dark and the rain down the rainforest road to try and find it. It did feel a bit like a horror movie walking down the road with no one around, no lights, no people, no nothing but about ten minutes later we saw the restaurant. Unfortunately, after our serious bravery trying to get to the restaurant, we discovered it was fully booked (how, I have no idea as there’s literally no one in the jungle…) and so we had to take the walk back to our hostel. We’d built up a good appetite and so just ate there.
It’s 8.30pm and we are all in bed! It’s the earliest night I’ve had since travelling but living by the natural jungle light makes it feel a lot later than it is, and despite the fact that I slept all afternoon, we were all struggling to stay awake at dinner. Jungle life is exhausting and the prospect of a 12 hour sleep ahead is a very very exciting.

Yesterday Juliet and I were up early once again, but this time to go extreme white water rafting! We were picked up from our hostel and driven to the rafting base where we checked in, signed wavers and awaited the bus to the river. At the river we were given helmets, life jackets, thermal tops and paddles and put into our rafting teams. We had the funniest water rafting leader called Macca, he’s actually called Mark but your can’t spend your days touring the white water on the river and be called mark when everyone else has bizarre names, so Macca it is! As soon as we were on the boat and had started rafting we hit our first bit of white water, and we’re immediately thrown into paddling hard, ducking in the boat, smashing into rocks and soaring down the river and that’s pretty much how the day went on!
At one point the boat even flipped and we all fell out on top of each other and floated down the rapids! As we came up to the biggest rapid there is, called the Corkscrew our boat hit a rock and as the name suggests, we started spinning and crashing down into the rapids, so hard, the boat was tipping and being thrown around and before we knew it one of the girls had fallen out. I literally only saw her shoe fly off and then a pair of legs disappear into the river and as the river was really strong and we were still in the rapids it was very scary! She was being pushed by our boat down the river and she had no control, at one point she even hit a rock! Luckily she was such a great sport and wasn’t injured so everything was fine and as soon as we got to the deep pool at the bottom she was pulled back into the boat. At different points down the river there were times when we could get out of the boat and float down the river, to do this you simply lie on your back (you float because of the life jacket) and then lift your legs up, as there is shallow rocks and it’s better to scrape your bum than your shins! There were also small cliffs at different points that we could climb up and cliff jump off, it was so scary taking a leap of faith into the river but so fun, especially since the life jacket just makes you bob up again.
The morning rafting was by far the scariest as we were new to it but also the rapids were faster and steeper with a lot of massive drops and crevasses. For lunch we stopped at a bank on the side of the river and hot dogs and burgers were waiting for us, so yummy.
Lunch was short as we still had a lot of the river to cover and more rapids to conquer! Soon after we set off we came across a natural river slide, a flat piece of rock that’s called The Drowning Simulator! I was actually the only one in my boat to try it but basically I had to float up to the top of the drop, it honestly looked so scary, and then take a deep breath. As I slid down the water rushed in my face and soon I was at the bottom. The reason it’s called the drowning simulator is because at the bottom the water is so deep and the force of the water coming down the slide is so strong that it pushed you right under and you normally stay below water for 8 to 15 seconds. I was under for 10 and it was actually such a weird feeling because I had no idea where the top was, I was so deep, just waiting for my life jacket to do it’s job and float me up. After (no joke) ten seconds, I finally surfaced, my ears popping and my helmet crooked over my eye. It was an amazing thing to have done but I’d never do it again! At the next set of rapids and white water, Macca said as I was clearly crazy, I could sit on the front of the boat (with my legs dangling over the front) through the next set of rapids. It sounds a lot scarier than it actually was but it was so much fun crashing through the white water straight on and having the waves splashing up in my face while I just sat at the front watching it all from the best view in the house.
The last non rafting agenda was when we came across some flat rapids that actually looked quite small but there was a lot of them, here we were all made to get out of the rafts, and float down! It seemed like a relaxing exercise but when we arrived at the rapids they were actually huge and the current was so strong we were going so fast! The rapid water splashed in my face every time I surfaced and then pushed me under and every time I tried to take a breath my mouth filled with water! It just shows that our judgement on small or big rapids is very imparted.
After a few more sections of white water and another boat flip (that we all weren’t expecting) we finally made it to base after a great day on the water. Surprisingly the extreme rafting wasn’t as extreme as we thought but that’s probably because Juliet and I freaked ourselves out massively before! It was a lot of fun though and a great experience.

Then we boarded the bus for Cairns where Nicole was waiting for us!!