Scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef

I can't believe it is a week today since I left my mum and meggie at Kings cross.This week has flown by. I haven't really done much since I arrived on Wednesday. There were a few little bits I needed to do like sorting bank accounts and sim cards, boring stuff that needs to be done.

The first thing I did when I got to the hostel (apart from take a shower) was ring my mum and cry lol. I just felt really lonely. I think it was the jet lag, I knew I was being stupid I just couldn't seem to stop myself.

After i put the phone down to my mum I made myself go over to the communal area and I was glad I did as I met two girls from Norwich, Laura and Kaziah, and they made me feel better and took me under their wing. They've been here four months and so far they aren't missing home at all. It was good because as soon as that initial barrier was broken it just seemed really easy to keep meeting new people and there's a nice little group of us now. Laura and Keziah have headed off down the east coast now but I think I might try and meet up with them again at some point if I can.

I had my first night out last Thursday and we went out again on Saturday. It was good but stupidly expensive, $7.50 for a pint of cider (about £5) so I was unusually dignified by the end of the night!

Today was the best day so far, I went scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef. It was pretty amazing. I had a mini panic attack when we first got in the water. I felt like I couldn't breathe which made me panic and then it was even harder to breathe. One of the girls in our group didn't even end up going but i'm happy to say I manned up and carried on and ended up really enjoying it. I wanted to do the second dive at the next reef but all the spots went before we got chance. We took an underwater camera with us and we will get the pictures back from that tomorrow so i'm pretty excited about that :) really gutted we didnt get to see a turtle. Typically we paid extra to go on the marine biology tour and we were the only group who didn't see them!

I've decided to stay in Cairns till friday at least. I really like it here. it is so chilled out. A few members of our group leave on Wednesday but Louise is working here so she is sticking around and me and rach are on about getting a job so we could both be here a while and there's people joining us all the time.

Me, Rach and Lou are going to hire a van and head up to Cape Tribulation on Wednesday, this is where the rainforest meets the coast I think. I'm looking forward to that because I've been wanting to do that since I got here but the trip is usually like $150 and it should only cost us about £50 each at the most to hire a van and drive there. I'm hoping we go through Port Douglas on the way as I really want to see that too.

anyway, I'm sure I've bored you all enough so I'll leave it there for now.

Love to you all xxxxx