14th -20th July - North Queensland, Australia

I categorically retract any comments I have ever made about not being very interested in visiting Australia! - we've had a fantastic, if short, time here.

Within in a couple of hours of landing in the refreshing climate of Cairns we were trundling up the stunning Captain Cook Highway coast road towards Cape Tribuation. A very sparsely populated area marked by the crocodile infested Daintree River, the far north of Queensland is one of the few places in the world where tropical rainforest comes right down to meet the sea. Crossing the ferry over the Daintree we read large signs telling us to beware of the salt water crocs that live in the creeks, water holes and even the open sea around the area. Luckily or unluckily, depending on your point of view, we didn't see any of these prehistoric carnivores in the wild - although I'm sure we were were watched by one or two!

Our first wildlife spot came completely by chance as we wandered down a pathway to our beach hut in the middle of rainforest at Cape Tribulation. Pol heard a rustling to her right - now bear in mind that we were on high alert for salties, snakes, spiders and any other dangerous creatures we could think of! - and there in amongst the thick trees and vines was a fully grown Cassowary forraging for lunch! It was only later that we found out how lucky we had been to see one - and also that we hadn't tried to get too close as they can rip you open with their claws!!

The beach hut at Cape Tribulation was lush! - and the scenery even better. We have never seen a sea so flat and blue - it was almost mill pondy - all the better for spotting any prying saltie eyes or nostrils floating towards us! The place was deserted too so we could stroll along the huge open beaches in complete peace. Walking up into the bush again we quickly got used to the thought that we were surrounded by snakes and spiders until Pol stopped in her tracks and pointed up a tree shrieking "baby crocodile!, baby croc!" - luckily it was just a lace monitor lizard coming down for a feed!.

The following day we headed back down to Cairns to get ready for our 3 day Live Aboard dive trip to the Great Barrier Reef. Despite planning it for ages we had waited till we got to Cairns to book up the trip - a good wheeze as we saved a couple of hundred dollars in the process! After an evening out in Cairns we got our heads down ready to wake up at some unsociable hour of the morning to meet our dive pick up.

It was still dark as we stumbled into the minibus and met up at the Pro-Dive shop in Cairns to be fitted up with wetsuits and the rest of the paraphenalia! By about 7 we were on the boat heading out to sea and munching breakfast. At first the sea was lovely and flat but as soon as we got beyond the headland the swell started and a fair few faces started to turn green! It took about 3 hours to get to the outer reef where we moored up in much calmer waters for our first dive.

....Mine was one of the green faces (Pol here now)!

We were really lucky on our way out to the reef as we watched about five Humpback Whales larking about for ages. Absolutely amazing!!

The diving was wonderful - not as brightly coloured as Fiji (how spoiled to I sound?!) but the waters were filled with massive bommies (huge tall and wide coral areas) and heaps of fantastic living things to watch amble or zoom by....turtles, nemos, cuttlefish, huge bumphead parrot fish and Maori wrasse and lazy sharks loafing on the sandy bottom.

We did our first unguided dive too. It was certainly an interesting experience to add to our repertoire....picture this.... an animated stroppy Pol engaging in a full on one-sided argument of newly designed scuba hand signals, random gesticulations and who knows what being said into my regulator! Poor James - all he´d done was swim off at full pelt without me so that by the time I´d caught up I´d used most of my air and was sweating like I had been in South East Asia. He soon understood my frantic gestures and since then we´ve been excellent underwater buddies!!

We also did two night dives - something I never thought would appeal - and strangely it still doesn´t that much - although with a little mental discipline I did manage to dispell the images of gigantic toothy creatures looming into view in our piddly little stream of torch light. I kept telling myself they wouldn´t be sending us down in the dark if things really did find you more tasty when you can´t see them coming. Nevertheless, it was worth the adrenaline and I may be tempted to do it again sometime. But with Steve´s Big Bertha (a mother of a torch for those who haven´t met her!)

After dithering about whether to splash out on underwater housing for our camera we regretted not getting one! We borrowed the gear from the dive boat (at huge expense) for two of the dives and were amazed at the quality of the pics. Defo wish we´d had one for all the dives as I loved taking off in hot pursuit of the turtles and lying in wait for the nemos. But all my skills were lost with concentration on the camera and I found myself bobbing about like a cork most of the time so I need more practice with the camera. Quel domage - will just have to plan another diving holiday!

To top things off the food was totally lush too!! All in all another fab adventure marked with rubbing our tummies-like-drums and curling our toes with glee at the end of each day!!

Once back on dry land we phoned home (for the first time since we left - mush mush!) to wish the birthday girls a belated good one and it was lush to have a natter again!!