Cairns turned out to be much smaller than I had imagined it to be and on our way into the town centre in a cab, I spotted a couple of signs warning against going near the bank of a river due to the presence of crocodiles. We really were in tropical north Queensland!

I had booked us into one of the YHA’s in the town centre. It was on the esplanade, which is host to many hotels, restaurants, gift shops and tour centres. We booked in and made our way into the hostel. First impressions were not good. We had to struggle up some steep stairs only to be greeted by a long corridor with rooms leading off it. This would’ve been fine if it weren’t for all the air conditioning units, they made the corridor so hot and unpleasant Lee-ann and I quickly dubbed the corridor ‘the hall of hell’.

Our mood was not improved when we reached our room. It was very, very small and we were dismayed to find no air-conditioning apart from one ceiling fan. The fan itself was almost a danger to me as the ceiling was really quite low and I’m not a short person. We then found out that there was only one male and one female toilet between about twelve rooms. Where had we booked into?

The part of the hostel we were in was affectionately called the ‘rainforest wing’ but we quickly changed that to the ‘prison wing’. We had paid for two nights but decided to stay no longer.

We were advised that the YHA on the other side of the town centre was much nicer. We booked in there but there was no room available until the night after we were due to leave the ‘prison wing’. This resulted in us booking into a nearby hostel for one night (we made sure it had air conditioning) and then moving onto the YHA the next night.

We weren’t hugely happy about moving hostel twice but we laughed a lot and made the best of it. The second YHA turned out to be really excellent so it all turned out well. We arrived in Cairns on the Saturday afternoon and that night we met up with Martin who was a friend of mine who I met in Sydney over Christmas. We had some food and ended up in Cairns’ only gay bar, the very tragic ‘nu-trix’.

We spent Sunday chilling out, checking out that were open and booking tours for the following week. A very helpful girl at the YHA booked all our tours for us so by Sunday night we had five days of excursions ready for us.

Our first excursion on the Monday was a trip out to the Great Barrier Reef. I was so excited to be going out to see this natural wonder of the world. The boat we went out on was quite small but full of staff and lots of other day-trippers. We filled out consent forms and Lee-ann and I decided to do an introductory dive each for an extra thirty dollars.

The two-hour boat ride out to the reef was fantastic and by the time we reached the reef you really felt that you were in the middle of nowhere. We were kitted out in wetsuits and snorkelling gear and soon got in for our first dip. Well, as sunny as it was the sea was nowhere near as calm as the idyllic island paradise of Moreton Island and it was really quite scary. We got a little way out and it got a bit too much for Lee-ann so we swam back to the boat. I could see her point, the waves washed over your face constantly and I kept getting water down my snorkel.

Lee-ann decided not to get back in the water for the dive so I nervously did it without her. One of the dive guides kitted us out with all the equipment and went through what it all did. He then explained and demonstrated three ‘tricks’ he needed us to do in the water before going down for the dive.

These were equalizing the pressure for your ears, how to put your respirator back in and get rid of the water if it gets knocked out and some hand signals for communication under the waves. I performed the tricks fine but at first I had some difficulty because I wasn’t used to the dry air from the respirator on the back of my throat.

It started to make me feel a little sick and I began to panic a little. I forced myself to calm down and slowly follow the guide down the chain attached the boat to the ten-metre depth of the dive, equalizing my mask as I went down.

I had the best time in the dive. At first we had to hold onto the guide but he quickly signalled for us to let go and we simply followed him around as he showed us the beautiful reef and even found nemo for us. I was thrilled to see a little shark and some of the fish were just amazing. I did take some photos with an underwater disposable camera but those pics don’t come close to conveying the sheer wonder of what you see down there.

I was so impressed that I went on a second dive in the afternoon. After finishing the second dive I couldn’t find Lee-ann on the boat. I was a bit worried at first but then saw her in the water. She gone back out snorkelling with a middle-aged lady she had got chatting to. I was very pleased that she went out again and got to see some more of the reef.

It was a fab day, the food was ok at lunchtime and one of the snorkelling guides was very attractive and spent most of his time out of the water topless, hhhmmmm. I was very sleepy on the way back to the mainland and slept extremely well that night.