We were back on the mainland today for another 7 hour drive to our final destination of the tour, Cairns. Home to the Great Barrier Reef, it's safe to say we were equally excited and sad about arriving in Cairns as the trip was swiftly coming to an end. We didn't really do a lot on our first night apart from our included dinner where we all tried Kangaroo (when in Rome!) which tasted just like steak but was lovely nonetheless. After dinner we went for a wander around the night market and me and a few of the girls decided to pay for a Chinese massage. I clearly thought I was in Thailand for a second because I assumed it was going to be this amazing experience where they would use oils and I'd come out feeling like a new woman. Instead, we basically went behind a curtain with 10 other strangers and they gave us a massage ON TOP of our clothes and it was SO painful. Not only because he was pressing really hard on my sunburn (note to self: don't fall asleep on a beach), but it felt like he was bruising me and I spent the whole 10 minutes wishing it would end.
Stupid tourist 0 - 1 Chinese masseuse. We grabbed an ice cream on the way back to the hotel (which melted within SECONDS - no word of a lie it was like 30 degrees at 10pm) and called it a night.
The next morning we headed out to the number one thing on everyone's bucket list - the Great Barrier Reef! For once in my life I was actually prepared so the second I stepped on the boat I popped a few sea sickness tablets and was good to go! Me and a couple of the girls rented an underwater camera for the day to take snorkeling and scuba diving, but looking back I REALLY wish I'd bought a GoPro beforehand. The water was a bit hazy so the photo's weren't the best quality and it's really hard to get decent photos of yourself when 3 people are sharing a camera. Even so, scuba diving was one of the best experiences of my life! I was pretty scared at first (more scared than I was for my skydive!) because it's such a weird sensation having to breathe normally underwater without holding your breath! Luckily I got the hang of it beforehand when I was snorkeling, but scuba diving was another level of scary! We were taught all of the hand signals to use underwater in case of an emergency, but I really panicked when we were practicing taking our regulators off underwater (the thing in your mouth that gives you oxygen and keeps you breathing). When I tried it the first time, I didn't do the technique right so I ended up inhaling water and frantically floating to the top gasping for air. I find it so bizarre that you can remove your regulator underwater when it's the only thing keeping you alive! A trained instructor took us down 2 at a time so me and my friend Connor held on to each arm as the instructor guided us deeper. A lot of my friends paid for 2 dives but it was quite expensive so I decided to just do the 1. Definitely regretted that afterwards! I loved every minute of scuba diving, so much so that I'm planning on getting my PADI Open Water Diving licence in the foreseeable future!
We spent the rest of the afternoon soaking up the rays, eating endless buffet food, listening to music, chilling on a glass bottom boat and squeezing in some last minute snorkeling before we headed back to the mainland. The staff were so lovely (and as always the guys were very easy on the eye!) and they really made us feel at ease the entire day. When the boat docked, the staff lined up at the exit and shook our hands one by one as we departed which was really cute! Later that evening we all bought our passes for the bar crawl which was by far the best deal we had of the entire trip! $30 for dinner & an alcoholic drink at each of the 6 bars on the bar crawl - all for the equivalent of £15! I had the BEST night - plenty of table top dancing, drunk piggy back rides and Uptown Funk lovin'. At one point I had 3 vodka soda cranberries in my hand so yeah, things got messy.
Tomorrow we're going White Water Rafting down the famous Tully River!
xxx
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