Still in Cairns

Hello everyone, here are some random photos from the past few days..we are still in Cairns as we changed our flights so that we have a week here and then straight onto Christchurch, NZ. We got so fed up of long bus journeys that we decided to see less places and give ourselves more time, we have booked a day trip out to the great barrier reef but it has been rescheduled for friday. Liz is thinking of doing some other adventures (ie. skydiving or bungee jumping) but im not so sure! bungee jumping is definitely off my list of fun things to do but i might come round to skydiving..watch this space!

Looking through my photos i realise i havent taken that many of cairns , maybe im getting bored of photographing everything or maybe its just that things arent that different from home here. The beach is pretty awful tho so they have built a lagoon to swim in so we have been spending a lot of our time there and at the pool at our hostel making the most of the lovely weather before we go to NZ for an "English spring"Last night at Rhinobar in Cairns

Last night, at the WoolShed, their random games included a goldfish race where they auctioned them off to different people and then raced them against each other..there was Sushi from Japan and this was the Canadian fish..haha..unfortunately he didnt win

Night out at the WoolShed, Cairns

Arriving in Australia

Didn't see this sign until after we'd had a little dip...whoops...did wonder why we were the only ones there

Singapore's alternative to jet skiing..they just have wires that pull you round in a circle with jumps along the way..pretty cool, if we'd had more time we'd have had a go!

Liz in Singapore

Singapore looking lovely and green..i do like the trees here, especially as they provide so much shade from the intense sun

I wonder if they have any vacancies....not quite Shane's Frames but the only framers i've seen so far!

Cairns

hello everyone, sorry for lack of posts lately, just seems like we havent settled anywhere yet. We are in Cairns and have been here for a few days, mostly we are just shocked how expensive it is and recovering from our jet lag with lots of naps!
I do have some photos to put up but not enough time right now to add them all..i got pretty slack while Mark was here as i knew he would be uploading lots so to see some photos from Phi Phi and Phuket (we only spent a night there) go to Mark's blog "sparkybrand".
We bumped into some girls we keep seeing from Laos in the supermarket here yesterday, its amazing what a small world it is!
Anyway, me and Liz are fine, settling in here well and doing a day trip out to the reef on thursday, we have an intro dive for me and a cert dive for liz...im really excited and cant wait! We've met loads of people at our hostel which is great, pool, kitchen, bar etc..but the free meals are better advertised as free "snacks"...if that!!
hope you're all okay, speak to you soon, lots of love xxxxxxxxxx

Krabi + Khao Sok

We're in Krabi now, having just arrived yesterday from Khao Sok National Park, the cave was amazing- we had such a good time! We're off to Phi Phi today and then to Phuket, we only have a few days left here now and it wont be long until Mark heads home either!

Liz swinging on the hammock

Chilling out on the hammocks, listening to Jack Johnson

Massive spider in the cave

Our guide...me and Liz took a liking to him...can't think why! ;-)

Mark, Ross and the Dutch couple that we met

Liz hanging out in the jungle

Trekking through the forest at Khao Sok

Mark and his fantastic new sunglasses on the boat

Khao Sok Scenery

Breathtaking karst scenery at Khao Sok

Boat trip on the lake at Khao Sok N.P.

Beautiful sunset at Koh Tao

Koh Tao

We're on Koh Tao at the moment, we've been here for about 5 days and its gone so quickly, its so relaxing here and very beautiful..we could stay longer but we only have about 8 days left in s.e asia so we should move on!

We met a Scottish guy from Liz's diving group, Ross, that we've been hanging out with for the past few days. He's really lovely and we have hired bikes for us all to explore the island a bit more. This is a picture from last night at a nearby restaurant, i love the cushions-they look uncomfortable but they're completely the opposite!

Hill Top restaurant...the view over one of the southern beaches, me and Liz had to get off the bikes as the hill was so steep and they werent powerful enough! not much fun walking up there!

We were here for Thai New Year, the whole of Thailand celebrates with anything from 1 day to a week of soaking anything and everything! It was great fun and not long before we bought our own water guns..even if they were tiny at least we had something to fight back with!!!

The same day we joined Liz on her diving course so we could do some snorkeling, we headed upto Mango bay and spent the afternoon sunbathing, reading and checking out the coral...a lovely day! The boat was a bit of a party boat and everyone was getting into the new year spirit :)

Mango Bay

Making the most of mark having his laptop with him..although can be a pain hunting for free wifi sometimes!

We had a giant boulder in our bathroom...it was very cool...although the windows were very see-through and showering involved regular checks to see if anybody was around!!

Ko Pha Nang beach

Another pic from KPN, eating the delicious food at our hostel!

In the south

Hi everyone, just a quick post to say that we are all fine and that nothing unusual is happening down here in the south. We are far from Bangkok, Liz and I wont be going back at all as we are flying from Phuket to Singapore on the 24th to save some travelling time. Mark is heading back up but not until the end of the month, so hopefully it will have blown over by then. Liz is still doing her diving course, she finishes today, Mark and I are thinking of going off to explore some of the island but we're in relax mode, it's very chilled out here!! Tomorrow is our last day on Ko Tao and we're not too sure exactly where we'll be heading, Liz wants to go to khao sok national park but we arent so keen so we shall see, if we dont go we will probably head down to Krabi. anyway, hope to speak to you all soon, lots of love xxx

Also, congratulations to Vito and Christina on their engagement :)

Ko Phangan

Other than the Full Moon Party Ko Phangan was a lovely island, we hired motorbikes to explore a bit more and enjoyed the freedom to go wherever we wanted. Some of the roads were pretty rough but the roads were mostly quiet so a good place to practice. We stayed in a beautiful lodge, near to Ban Thai, which was very seculded and definately very close to nature. We had a rat in our bed the first night...which made me wake up VERY quickly and the last night i had a coke, took one drink through my straw and suddenly realised something was very wrong...there wasnt supposed to be anything big and lumpy in a can of coke!! I spat it our straight away and to my horror a giant bug crawled away!!!!! took me a good half hour to recover from how gross this was. Otherwise the place was lovely and the lady did the most amazing green curries that i had it twice in one day :)

Beach on the north of the island

Our hut

One of the great lively dogs...so so cute

Mark introduced these sweets to us..so good! check out the fashionable poncho :)

Full Moon Party

The Full Moon Party, Ko Pangan
Mark and I werent exactly rushing to go..especially after it was tipping it down with rain all day, but we made it there. It was interesting to see but not really our kind of thing, none of us were feeling brilliant and werent really in the mood..oh well!

This line of fire was ran over by so many people right after this photo...maybe after A LOT more to drink!!!

Liz getting into the mood with uv body paint