The deep blue sea!

Hey folks

What an adventure we have been having this week. We finally arrived in Cairns and trusty Thundercat got us there in one piece apart from one burst tyre, so she has done us well. We checked the spare tyre which was bald and Gav managed to break the small wrench!! Thankfully we had another wrench which handled the pressure. The other one was called a certain name by Gav which I don't think I will repeat. I don't think I helped the situation as I was sniggering behind him. We are very sad that we have to sell our trusty steed but we have met a nice Italian man who seems as thrilled with her as we are so hopefully that will work out. If not the scrapers are awaiting her beautiful parts. We think Thundercat knows it is her last weekend with us as everything that is slightly not working is miraculously working again, eg, central locking and automatic windows!!

This week has involved loads of swimming and snorkelling in the beautiful blue seas of the Whitsundays and the great barrier reef off Cairns. On the Whitsundays cruise boat we did some sailing around the islands and visited the famous whitehaven beach.
Whitehaven Beach

Us mucking around!


We also had our first snorkelling experience which proved delightful. I took to the waters much better than I ever thought I would. The snorkelling allowed us practice for our big trip to the outer reef in Cairns.
All ready to go


The trip to the outer reef was out of this world. We would recommend this to anyone and you can't come to Australia and not do this. It was like a different world under the ocean, so peaceful and filled with the most beautiful fish. It was like swimming through an aquarium with crystal clear water. We are going to pick up our photos today so hopefully they will have turned out good. Since they are not digital we won't be able to post them but we will include them in our 9 hour slideshow on our return. (Tickets being sold now, money in advance please!!!). We saw so many fish and the coral was so brightly coloured, shades of pink, blue, orange, yellow and green all silently waiting to be admired. We saw huge giant clams, cuttle fish, a ray and loads of other fish which I have no idea of what they are called. The real bonus (for Gav) involved seeing a Black Tip Reef Shark! Crikey! I saw it first and alerted Gav by squealing, which in water is pretty difficult to do. We were so impressed we both actually started to swim after it but it disappeared in to the deep blue ocean which is probably quite good as I am not sure what I would have done had it turned round. hee hee. Well at least all I would have had to do was swim faster than Gav! It was like a ghost just silently moving through the water and was pretty impressive at 2m long. The dive crew told us we were very lucky to see it as they are being killed faster than they can reproduce.

We have also had a trip to explore the Atherton Tablelands which are the mountains behind Cairns. We heard a rumour that Australia had animals that couldn't kill you and so we went off in search of them. We found them at the butterfly sanctuary. What a delight it was to walk through a natural habitat where butterflies roamed free. As you can see some are quite tame and one came and landed on my hand. I was very pleased to say the least!



We also went to visit the Curtain Fig Tree which is a huge mass of vines that have overtaken one tree and strangled it.

The last few days will be spent in the deep jungle looking for crocs!! Hope you are all well and enjoying the spring weather.