Here I am in Cairns. Very sunny and warm and it's still winter. People walking around in bathing suits at the lagoon. I might do as well soon...

My tour with Uncle Brian yesterday was outstanding!

We went to various waterfalls, swimming and recreating Timotea ads, some rainforest walks, a volcanic crater lake and finally platypus spotting. We saw two platypus MATING! It was absolute magic!

Actually, the best part of the trip was just the SPIRIT. As Uncle Brian calls it, "the spirit of Gus the Bus". We sang songs, played games, talked and laughed and waved at the locals. The spirit is so hard to convey. It's really something that you have to experience.

I was inspired by Uncle Brian's desire to bring joy to people's lives through random acts of kindness. And by how he obviously enjoys himself. I talked to him about my desire to operate a tour in Canada. It's something I really want to look into. I'm going to start writing ideas down in my ever-open journal and see if I can put it into action when I get home.

Tonight, I'm going to Reef Teach to learn about all those amazing things I saw in the water when I was diving. It was recommended by Uncle Brian and some other travellers I've met along the way, so I'm looking forward to it.

Until then, I'm hanging out with my friend Jaap from the Netherlands. We hung out on Magnetic Island and did a crazy billion-hour walk across the island to all the bays and then also had a nice beach day together when we talked about Dutch food for about two hours.

Tomorrow, I'm off to Kuranda for the day.

Thursday, I take off for Cape Tribulation for a couple of days.