Cairns!

After a very long and boring 11 hour bus ride during the day to Cairns we arrived in warm but rainy Cairns (The warmth there made it well worth it) Since it was late, rainy and dark me and a friend hopped on a shuttle to one of the hostels where I ended up staying 2 nights before going to the YHA nearby. The highlight of my stay in Cairns was definitely diving the Great Barrier Reef which was an absolutly amazing experience and is something I would love to do again in the future. I actually ended up doing two dives of about 25 minutes each that day and throughaly enjoyed both. Its considerabily better than snorkeling and is not as difficult as I thought it would be. We went to a depth of about 8 meters and saw a massive sting ray, lots of coral, Nemo, and plenty of other cool fish.

Despite it being a "cooler" day it was still 24c with the water being the same, so it was actually really comfortable. I don't think I ever had to put on a jumper or pants there. T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops (or thongs as they say in Australia) were sufficient day and night.
After that I had another two days in Cairns where I mainly just walked around the area and hung out with some friends that I met along the way. The city center has a nice layout and anything a backpacker would want is within walking distance. They also have live music daily to keep the good atmosphere and a nice pool to swim in as you can't really swim in the Ocean there. By night there was also plenty to do, and me and my friends went out every night while I was there. My favorite place was probably The Wool Shed which is actually where I celebrated Canada Day with some fellow Canadians and some Poutine!

Daily live music

The relpica of the Endeavour ship that Captain Cook used

Some of the Canadians I met along the way

Canada Day!!

Poutine anyone?

Sadly that night I did have to leave to go to Canberra. Unfortunatly all the flights I had booked through Tiger Airways were cancelled that night, so I had to quickly book another flight on Jetstar to Syndey, where I found someone else on my ultimate frisbee team who was going to Canberra and lived near the airport. So it actually ended up working out perfectly as I got to exactly where I wanted to go. Which is one of the things that I learned when travelling is that everything always ends up working out no matter how bad it may seem at the time.