Merry Christmas everyone!

Anyone seen a white Hyundai Getz?
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Arrived in Cairns in beautiful weather, very hot and sunny.  Had a couple of days in a hostel before Mum and Dad arrived, so we hired a Hyundai Getz and gotz out and about (sorry, I couldn't resist that one).

We visited some lovely places, including Babinda Boulders, Josephine Falls, Port Douglas and Mossman Gorge. With the exception of Port Douglas, these places are accessed by pathways through rainforests, so we got to see all sorts of wildlife, including some huge spiders. The first one was dead but it still managed to freak me out!

hmmm.....
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Mum and Dad arrived the day before Christmas Eve, and it was great to see them. We stayed in a lovely waterfront appartment, which was a definate improvement from the hostels we have been staying in!  Great not to have to share our room, and always knowing that our food would be there in the morning!  Someone very kindly let off some awesome fireworks to celebrate Mum and Dad's arrival, which was very good of them!

Christmas Day was awesome, we spent the day at Ellis Beach, about 20 mins from the apartment.  It wasn't very busy, and we had a picnic on the beach, and spent the afternoon sunbathing and swimming. It's such a hard life!  They have a problem with jellyfish there at this time of year, but keep a large area safe using nets, so it's not a problem to swim in the sea.

are you sure?
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We were rather overloaded and had to pay excess baggage from Melbourne to Cairns, so Mum and Dad gave us a snorkelling expedition on the Great Barrier Reef as our Christmas present. The four of us went out on Boxing Day, and it was just spectacular.  We saw some huge fish whose name I can't remember, lots of very colourful, friendly fish, and some enormous clams, so of which were up to a metre long, and could be up to 100 years old!  It was a really great day, and we have some lovely photos, courtesy of the underwater camera Rob bought Dad for Christmas.

Christmas Day was stressful
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We had planned to go up the Cairns gondola on one of the remaining days, but it was so expensive we decided not to bother.  Instead we went to the zoo, which was really good, they had loads of really cute Koalas, some not so cute crocodiles, snakes, spiders (one of which Rob got to hold) and all sorts of other Aussie wildlife.

We also went on a trip to Cape Tribulation, and on the way stopped to do a crocodile safari. Although we didn't see any huge crocs, we saw a few which ranged up to 9 years old and were big enough for me not to want to jump in with them!  Our guide was awesome, knew a lot about the local wildlife and vegetation, and pointed out loads of things to us, including huge fruit bats nesting in the trees, some of which were flying around in the daylight.  It was quite a strange site.

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Cape Tribulation was very nice, except that it absolutely chucked it down with rain while we were there, and we couldn't see a huge amount.  It stopped raining for a while so we went for a walk through the rainforest, so of course it started pouring again when we were halfway round! Oh well, at least it is warm rain and it doesn't take long to dry out.