Magnetic Island & Cairns

Ok, now we have came as far north as our Australian trip will take us. We are in Cairns at the moment and will be flying south to Brisbane today. We were three days on Magnetic Island, which is a nice place to spend a beach holiday. Magnetic Island was also very relaxing and our major activities were hanging around the pool or on the beach. We also did one hour of kayaking and went snorkling there. The water wasn't as clean as it was in the Whitsunday so snorkling was not as good. Although you don't meet Finnish travellers very often we met one Finnish girl working on the small Island. She was really kind to us and offered us a bit of extra food and drinks for free just because we were Finnish. It is sometimes a benefit to come from a quite small country. Magnetic Island was definitively a place where I could have stayed longer.

After a very relaxing weekend at Magnetic Island we continued with bus up to Cairns. Everyone that we had met on our way up kept saying that it was raining all the time in Cairns. Yes, it is the rainy season but we have been lucky as the days have been sunny and it has been raining only during night. Yesterday we were on a boat to the outer reef and went snorkling there as well. The waves were quite big and the trip to the reef felt like being on a rollercoaster for a couple of hours. The reef was beutiful and we took a lot of pictures. I was a bit scared of meeting sharks, and when I saw a big black thing in the water I almost panicked. Well it wasn't anything exciting since it was only the pontoon of the boat =) and my wild imagination.

From Brisbane we will travel south to Byron Bay where we will be spending x-mas and celebrate Piritta's birthday party this friday. I also want to go surfing after christmas so hopefully we'll be able to. Well come back to Brisbane with Juha for new year and from there I don't have any plans yet.