18 05 03. Despite being the ‘red-eye’ flight our onwards journey to Australia was pretty good, not Qantas as expected but Australian airlines, a smaller subsidiary. The downside was that we landed at 5.30 am, so we had to hang around in the airport building until the sun came up and we could head into Cairns to find a room. We ended up paying more than we wanted but what the heck, the room was nice and clean and we felt like something a bit better after some of the places we’d been staying in through Asia. Once we were settled the first thing we did was head down to the seafront and get a huge plate of bacon, eggs, sausage – the whole shooting match, it was just fantastic, the first real bacon we’d had since leaving England! Over the next few days we just chilled out around Cairns, the weather was red-hot so most days we wandered down to the lagoon and sunbathed there (as there’s no beach in Cairns, just miles of mudflats). On our third day we booked a days diving out on the Great Barrier Reef with Cairns Reef Dive. We had a great day and I couldn’t believe how calm the sea was, it was like a millpond, despite us being miles offshore. We dived Thetford reef, just south of Cairns. To be honest the first dive was disappointing, the visibility was poor, maybe down to eight metres (due to the huge amount of plankton in the water), plus the corals were mainly dead, it was quite upsetting to see. There was also a distinct lack of marine life, although I did spot a nice nudibranch on the way back to the shot-line. The second dive a little further down the reef was a lot better, the corals were beautiful and there were some fantastic swim through’s. Once again though there wasn’t a great deal of marine life and the ‘viz’ was only slightly better. When we got back to Cairns we decided to move into a cheaper hostel to conserve our cash, we found a room at the back of a dorm called Rosie’s. The place was pretty cool, we even got a free meal thrown in with the room! We had to queue for it down at the local pub, but so what - it was great, a huge steak and salad – heaven! We spent our remaining time in Cairns chilling by the lagoon as before just to make sure we both had a nice tan for Nick & Kerri’s wedding.
On the 22nd we headed over to the airport to catch our flight down to Brisbane. The flight was great and we could see the coastline the whole way down, we flew over Magnetic Island and the Whitsunday’s where we planned to visit on our return north. Seeing Nick and Kerri again was great, they met us at the airport and it was brilliant to all be back together. Needless to say, within ten minutes me and One-Eye were messing around and giggling like school kids, at things that weren’t funny to anybody else. When we got to Manly, we met Anne-Marie (Rammy – Kerri’s Sister), also Casey and Morgan (Kerri’s Neices), who we were staying with until after the wedding. Maureen and Jeff were also at Nick and Kerri’s and it was great to see them again too. They both looked great, Mo – bless her – had brought me a jar of Marmite over to Oz, so I wouldn’t have to eat that Vegemite rubbish that all the Aussies eat! Kerri’s Mum (Mary) and her partner Cheryl also popped in to say hello later, which was really nice. It felt great to be somewhere homely again, a proper bed, a nice shower and friendly faces – I can’t describe how great it was. The next night was the Stag night which I’d been looking forward to for ages, Me, Nick, Des (Kerri’s Dad), Jeff and Dan headed into Brisbane for a major session, Sarah headed off with the girls to Oxford Street 152, a nice restaurant for a meal and a few drinks. All I can remember was that the night out was great, Me and Nick rolled in at five am after drinking enough to float a battleship, I can remember the bar we were in last, but that was it – I can’t remember how I got home, how I got to bed – nothing! I do recall eating a volcanically hot kebab though after leaving the last bar, naturally I’d managed to spill chilli sauce right down my shirt – just to keep up my personal tradition of ruining a shirt every time I go out for a drink! Sarah had a great night too, her meal was great and I think she’d really enjoyed some girly company for an evening. Needless to say next day was a complete write off – even hair of the dog couldn’t shift my hangover. Nick faired worse than me and spent the entire day in bed – the great wuss.
The wedding day was fantastic and I could write a whole separate journal about it. The Governors retreat where it was held was beautiful, situated on top of Tamborine mountain. The ceremony went like clockwork, Kerri looked lovely, as did Sarah in her dress from Vietnam. My speech went OK, I’d written it the night before the wedding, after Nick had dropped it on me at the last minute that I was indeed best man and he would like me to do a bit of a speech - nightmare! I was pretty nervy to be honest and didn’t touch a drop of alcohol all day – but as you’d expect I made up for it once the speeches were done. It seemed a bit strange staying in such a nice place after being in backpacker hostels for the last few months. We had a huge four-poster bed and a log fire in our room plus a massive spa pool. We got in the spa after the reception and Sarah nearly knocked herself out when she didn’t fill the tub up enough before turning on the water jets, the central jet blasted her straight in the face – very funny!
A couple of days after the wedding we headed down to Byron Bay for a few days with Nick and Kerri. They’d arranged a holiday unit on a caravan park which was really nice, we spent the next few days chilling out, getting to know Kerri a bit better plus doing a bit of sightseeing. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t so good, it literally poured with rain the whole time we were in Byron. We did manage to get out and about though in the breaks and got up to the lighthouse, sadly the sea was too rough to spot any whales but the views from the top were spectacular, despite being nearly blown away by the raging gale that was blowing. We also visited Surfers Paradise which, is a bit like a high-rise Blackpool. We also visited Ballina and Lennox Heads which were further along the coast which were nice places. While we were in Byron we had a beer at Paul Hogans bar, pretty cheesy I know – but you have to do these things when you’re traveling eh. We stayed with Nick & Kerri until the 11th. We generally just chilled out and had a few days out around Brisbane with Nick, as sadly Kerri had to go back to work after Byron. We did have a great day out with Peter and Sharron on their boat whilst in town, Pete took us all out to Stradbroke Island which was a kind of pre-taster for Fraser Island which we intented to visit later. Later we sailed around the back of South Stradbroke Island and snorkelled, afterwards Pete got the kneeboard out and we blasted up and down the stretch of river there. Needless to say, being the cocky sod that I am I started to get a bit clever, carving the board in and out of the wake when I hit a wave and got the high speed slapping of my life – I had water coming down my nose for about 3 hours afterwards! One nice bit of info Pete saved for us until after was the fact that a bloke got eaten by a shark there only two weeks since – nice! We also spent a nice evening with John (Charlie) and Kay, John cooking up some of the fish he’d caught on a fishing trip a few weeks previously – pretty good it was too. (John, if you read our traveljournal I haven’t forgotten about the one hundred pound bet we had over who will win the Rugby World Cup - after that caning we gave the Wallabies last month are you sure you don’t want to hand over your cash now and save yourself the pain!)
Soon enough however the time for us to leave came around. It was a nightmare having to re-pack everything into our rucksacs. We booked ourselves a one-way ticket on Mcafferty’s Greyhound bus up to Cairns with a few stop off en-route (Sarah managed to get us a whopping discount with our fake Student cards we had made in Thailand! We also booked a 10 day travel deal with Tiny Tim’s travel in Byron Bay – which turned out to be almost unbelievable value for money, however I’ll write more about that later. Saying our goodbye’s to Kerri’s family were not too bad as we’d promised to pop back in on our way south. It was pretty sad though saying bye to Nick And Kerri as we weren’t too sure we’d get to see them before they left for Perth then the UK. It was a pretty glum moment when Kerri dropped us off at Roma street Station, Nick as always lightened the moment though when we stopped for toast at a road-house further north and I realised the little shit had stolen my jar of Marmite - import as well!
|  | 
|
