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Hey all sorry it's been a while but as promised I have some more photo's for you.

Since I last wrote I've played another game in the classic league which we won... oh and I got sent off hehe! So I've yet to finish a game in A-grade hockey. I'm getting used to the heat now the games are getting more and more bearable. Hockey here is played all that the same venue the CHA (Cairns Hockey Assoc) so there's no home and away games and there's only 4 teams in the league, but its a beautiful place to play with the mountains in the background.

Tim's been away with the Cairns U18 squad on the Sunshine Coast for the state championships they came 2nd which was a good effort and i taught Tim some North Notts songs to sing with the U18's. I think I've succeeded in getting Cairns to hate the Mansfield muppets!!!

We've just had 2 long weekends here, the first being ANZAC day on Monday 25th and today the 2nd which is May Day as in the UK. So in between these weekends i was invited down to Townsville to visit Julie who came to England with Tim last year. Just to give you an idea of how big this place is Townsville is about an inch away from Cairns on the map but it took the bus 6 hours to get there!! The bus ride wasn't too bad, I learnt to play Bantoomi on my retro 3310, I had some Iron Maiden on my MP3 player which is never a bad thing hobbit man!!!! Oh and they showed that film contact on the video, I saw about an hour of it until this Chinese guy with a massive football shaped haircut sat in front of me and blocked the whole screen... great! Never mind I've seen the film before anyway. So finally i arrived in Townsville and was met by Julie and Bill her boyfriend and was taken on a trip round town, I see why people in Cairns call this place Brownsville, it hardly rains and the grass is scorched! But apart from that its a really nice place, full of AJ's (army jerks) as there's a couple of bases around here so there was helicopters and jets flying around all the time. Tuesday Julie had to work so I went a wander round town on my own, after lubing up with sun cream I headed for Castle Hill which is a big rock in the middle of Townsville, to get to the top needed a 3km walk up a steep windy road which i did in ...... FLIP-FLOPS hard core or what eh! (I was later to regret this choice of footwear the next morning) on the way up i was attacked by a 3 inch dragon fly, probably the most scariest thing I've seen yet, it was so big it i heard it coming a mile off but I just thought it was a motorbike or something (for those of you who know me will realise that I'm terrified of insects - especially ones that are 3 inches long!!!!) but the hard work paid off as the views of Townsville and Magnetic Island were amazing. See attached photos.

Wednesday we went to the Billabong Wildlife Sanctuary with Kim (Julie's sister) and one of their mates. This was a really cool place we were there for hours, we got so see and hold crocs, kangaroos, snakes, lizards and for all you ladies out there ... a koala. The koala was funny, it poo'd on the German woman who was in front of me in the queue -

pure genius!!! The ranger who showed us around was leaving that day so a tv crew was and that night on the 6 o'clock news I made my TV debut trying to look hard in the back ground with a 10ft snake in front of me. So to celebrate we got a carton of lager (24 bottles) and 2 pizza's and that's the last I remember.

Thursday and Friday Julie was at work so i just took it easy and didn't really do anything except watch DVDs all day but Friday night we hit the town and was forced to drink rum again... not good at I don't remember much after 10pm and the next thing I knew it was Saturday morning I was still in my clothes from the night before with the WORST hangover I have ever had, but apparently I was on fire with some crazy dancing before retiring outside and falling asleep on one of the tables.

Saturday as you can guess I did nothing, I didn't dare move, but that night we went to watch a rugby league game, North Queensland Cowboys v Sydney Roosters - this is the main sport in Australia and I'm really getting into it, the match was even shown on Sky Sports I understand. Its a lot different to watching it on telly, these guys are brutal and just smash each other. Adrian Morely scored for the Roosters (he's the only guy from England playing NRL) which was greeted by about 5000 cries of 'pomme bastard', I kept quiet.

Sunday we headed back to Cairns which was a 4 hour drive through Sugar Cane Fields. Oh here's a quick story I found amusing.

Sugar cane is affected and eaten by cane flies so to stop this happening they introduced Cane Toads from South America which eat the flies, this however was not a good idea as these toads are poisonous to all other animals so as you can imagine in the wild they just devastate the natural wildlife so they are well hated by all and guess how the Aussies like to cull them?... by hunting them with golf clubs......BRILLIANT, imagine taking to the fields with an 8 iron and hitting a toad 150 yards stiff to the pin.

Anyway that takes you up to yesterday to which i was introduced to the "Sunday Sesh". So myself, Tim and a few others hit the town at 4pm in shorts and sunnies and drank rum watching the sun set and getting merrily smashed! Happy times.

Enjoy the photo's all

Taggie