Voor vandaag hebben we een dagtocht geregeld naar het Daintree National Park en Cape Tribulation.

Om 7:55 worden we opgehaald met een klein busje. We zijn met z’n 5-en vandaag, een schotse, een engelsman, wij en de gids. De eerste stop is bij en bedrijf in Mossman, waar we de catering ophalen.

Al snel komen we aan bij de Daintree rivier. Een brede rivier, vol met krokodillen en het begin van het nationale park. We steken de rivier over met een pontje.

We stoppen bij de Alexandra lookout, waarvan we een mooi overzicht van het gebied te zien krijgen. De volgende stop is in een prive gebied waar geen enkele andere toerist mag komen, tenzij ver van te voren geboekt. We drinken hier thee midden in de jungle en maken dan een wandelen.

Cat, onze guide verteld alles over elke boom waar we langs komen. Wandelen door de jungle was nog nooit zo intressant geweest! Plosteling ziet Patrick iets bewegen, een cassowary en 2 jongen! Ze steken het pad over en verdwijnen tussen de bomen. Patrick wordt op z’n schouder geklopt voor zijn scherpheid en we gaan verder.

We zien eeuwenoude bomen tot een mega-klein boompje dat dodelijk is (zit cianide in). Aan het einde van het pad komen we terecht op een boomgaarde en daar zien we de cassowary weer. We lopen er heel voorzichtig voorbij. Het beest is ontzettend mooi, met z’n felblauwe kop. Op alle foto’s die we gezien hebben en gemaakt hebben komt dit echt niet zo uit, helaas.

We overleven de ontmoeting en gaan enthousiast verder. Volgende stop is Cape Tribulation. Hier ontmoet het regenwoud de reef, 2 nationale parken. Dit komt nergens anders voor in de wereld. In principe kunnen de bomen niet leven van zout water, maar de wortels zijn zo gegroeid dat deze ver weg de jungle in lopen en daar hun voeding krijgen, terwijl de rest van de bomen uitstrekt het strand op, om veel zonlicht te krijgen.

We zouden hier gaan zee-kayakken, maar helaas heeft de groep voor ons een ongeluk gehad. We zien de man, met zijn been vol met wonden en verband. Het blijkt dat zijn kayak lek was en zonk, terwijl ze zich boven het koraal bevonden. Eenmaal in het water liep hij dus lelijke schaafwonden op.

Helaas voor ons dus. Maar we eten een heerlijke luch aan het strand en maken dan een wandeling. Cat laat ons een nest zien van een beest dat lijkt op een mix tussen een kip en een eend. Deze grootte heeft het beest ook. Maar ze maken een nest die meer dan 3 meter hoog is! Het lijkt net een grote termietenberg.

Dan gaan we naar de ijsboerderij. Deze maakt zelf ijs van alle specialiteiten in het gebied. Iedereen krijgt dezelfde 4 bolletjes. Super lekker!

We rijden terug naar de Daintree rivier en nemen samen met de andere groep deel aan een krokodillen-cruise. We krijgen uitleg over de krokodillen die daar zijn en zien er gelijk 1. Een vrouwtje. Even later zien we het mannetje ook; Scarface genaamd. Ja, die heeft zijn naam omdat zijn ‘face’ vol met ’scars’ zit, gekregen van een ander mannetje dat 10 km. verderop ‘woont (genaamd Fat Albert, waarschijnlijk omdat die dik is).

We zien ook nog een jonkie en nog een vrouwtje. Ook zien we slangen, een pyton en een groene boomslang, een vogeltje dat speciaal in dat gebied voorkomt en een heel klein soort vleermuis. Het was moeilijk om die te ontdekken, terwijl deze voor onze neus hing.

Als we weer van boord klimmen zien we nog een groene boomkikker en dan stappen we weer in de auto en zijn we op weg naar Port Douglas.  Cat verteld hier dat dit pas haar 5e tour was, voor die tijd was ze duikinstrukteur. We waren onder de indruk van haar kennis en enthousiasme! We zijn ook blij dat we deze tour met gids hebben gedaan en zoveel hebben geleerd, in plaats van het zelf te doen en niet te weten wat je zien.

Weer terug in Port Douglas rusten we wat en maken ons klaar voor het eten. We gaan de stad weer in om onze vakantie goed af te sluiten. We drinken een pilsje bij de open bar en eten seafood op het teras van een ander leuk restaurant. Dat was het dan, 4 weken lol!

Het dodelijke kleine boompje

Cassowary en zijn 2 jongen

Lunch met aan de ene kant het regenwoud en de andere kant het strand

Al die gekkigheid komt waarschijnlijk door het aantal zonne-uren op ‘t hoofd

Cape Tribulation

Een krokodil!!!

Port Douglas, Australia

Looking for a place to chill out and feel the force of nature? Well, this is it! Spend your holidays at Port Douglas, Australia. Port Douglas Hotels offer simple yet elegant accommodation whether its near the beach, the city, at the tree house, views across the green canopy and misty vales to the ocean, sunrise and moonrise from the balcony or bed. A fabulous breakfast of local organic fruit and to-die-for homemade jams.Rainforest activities or even the creek levels and the pool is great for just feeling like you are on the edge of the world.

Visiting Port Douglas was a wonderful experience. The Great Barrier Reef, the Daintree rainforest what a terrific and fantastic getaway. With an array of fine dinings, bars, shopping stores, who will not fall in love with Australia. The atmosphere and climate was so good. Food was great especially the dessert! I still cant forget the best pizza I ever tasted in my entire life.

Port Douglas Hotels offer a romantic ambiance in their rooms, spacious,luxurious yet affordable. Pools were nice and clean with a superb customer service. Staff that always have their ready smiles at all times. Amenities were fantastic! Visit them now!

New image in the rivers photography contest

Part of the Mossman River in the Daintree Rainforest, Queensland, Australia. …
Daintree Rainforest photography picture

Avustralya faizi ilk artıran ülke oldu. Pek çok ekonomist dünyanın artık ekonomik krizi atlatmaya başladığını söylerken, Avustralya faiz oranlarını yükselten ilk gelişmiş ekonomi oldu. Avustralya’daki faiz oranları zaten pek çok Batı ülkesindeki oranların üzerindeydi.

Avustralya krizden çıkış stratejisini uygulamaya koydu. 2009′un ilk yarısında ekonomisi büyüyen Avustralya Merkez faiz oranlarını yükselten ilk G-20 üyesi oldu.

Avustralya’nın yarısına insan eli değmemiş Bir çevre araştırmasına göre, Avustralya topraklarının yüzde 40′ından fazlasına henüz insan eli değmedi. Pew Çevre Grubu ile Doğayı Koruma Vakfı tarafından yapılan araştırmada, sanayi uygarlığının değiştirmediği 3 milyon kilometrekarelik bir alana sahip olan Avustralya’nın, böylece dünyanın son vahşi bölgelerinden bir kısmını topraklarında barındı…

Avustralya medyası Kewell’i yazdı Avustralya medyası Kewell’i yazdı ‘Başlangıcın keyfini sürüyor’Galatasaray’ın Liverpool’dan transferi Harry Kewell, Kayserispor ve Denizlispor maçlarında attığı 2 golle takımına hayat verip, taraftarın sevgilisi oldu. Tecrübeli futbolcunun bu performansı, Avustralya medyasında da büyük yankı uyandırdı. Cim Bom’un Denizli’yi 4-1 yendiği maçı manşet…

Avustralya’dan yeni göç siyaseti Avustralya hükümetinin sert politikası eleştiriliyordu Bu karar, iktidar değişimi sonrası, ülkenin göçmenlik siyasetlerinde yapılan kapsamlı düzenlemenin bir parçası. Sığınma başvurusunda bulunanları özel hapishanelerde tutma uygulamasına artık sadece bu kişiler ülke açısından risk olarak görülürse; son çare olarak başvurulacak. İnsan hakları g..

Avustralya Büyükelçiliği, Türkiye, Vize, Göçmenlik ve Vatandaşlık, Genel Vize Bilgisi. Avustralya Büyükelçiliğinin Vize, Göçmenlik ve Vatandaşlık Bölümü sitesine hoş geldiniz

James Cook University Lisans, Master ve Ingilizce Dil Kurs, Cairns & Townsviile, Kuzey Tropik Queensland.

AIEC Avustralya Eğitim Merkezi, Budapest, Macaristan.

Ort: Cairns > Port Douglas > Daintree NP > Cooktown > Atherton Tableland > Cairns (AUS)
Zeitunterschied: +8 Std. MEZ
Wetter: Open-air duschtauglich

Australien. Endliche Weiten. Wir melden uns von der Kommandobrücke von Spaceship BELKA unserem Zuhause für sechs Tage im nördlichen Queensland. In Cairns hatten wir uns einen Toyota Estima aus der Camper Van Flotte des Verleihers Spaceship gemietet. 2007er Baujahr, 25cm Bildschirm mit DVD Player und zeltähnlichem Heckanbau für noch mehr Platz und bessere Belüftung zum schlafen. Also eigentlich überhaupt nicht raumschiff-like aber sehr fein und hochwertiger als der Schrott, der hier sonst so durch die Gegend fährt.

Doch der Reihe nach. Am besten einen Kaffee holen oder noch schnell einen Toast mit Vegemite machen, heut wird es etwas länger.

Nach Mission Beach ging es in die beschauliche Großstadt Cairns. Dort sollen ja angeblich 300.000 Leute wohnen, wovon allerdings nichts zu merken war. Auf dem Rusty Markt gab es lecker Frischobst und Gemüse günstig zu erstehen, an der Strandpromenade wurde der öffentliche und zudem auch kostenfreie Pool probiert und einem Sonntagskonzert gelauscht. Aber alles, sehr gemächlich.

Doch in Cairns gab es auch ein großes Hallo mit Dina’s Mama und Jürgen, sowie den zwei Reisebegleitern Michaela und Ullrich. Nach über sieben Monaten das erste persönliche Treffen, das dann auch mit ordentlich Schmaus und Kaltgetränken gefeiert wurde. Unser erster Restaurantbesuch in Australien! Doch das Wiedersehen währte nur von kurzer Freude, denn nicht nur sie, sondern auch wir hatten Reisepläne.

Und so ging es dann an einem Montag im September los. Unser Spaceship abgeholt, dann erst mal an Linksverkehr und Automatik-Schaltung gewöhnen, einen Tramper aufgesammelt und ab nach Port Douglas. Port hatte schon ordentlich Vorschußlorbeeren einsammeln können und konnte diese auch bestätigen. Zwar ist das kleine Kaff recht touristisch, aber optisch ganz weit vorn dabei. Auf der Hafenmole konnte man den Angler im Schein der untergehenden Sonne zuschauen, am 4 Mile Beach abhängen oder im ANZAC-Park einen der öffentlichen Grillplätze nutzen. Wir waren ja erst seit 60 Minuten Camper und hatten daher aus Bequemlichkeit schon mal vorsorglich einen Riesenpott Curry vorgekocht, der dann nur noch warm gemacht werden musste. Auch hier nochmal Anerkennung für die Instandhaltung der öffentlichen BBQs und Toiletten. Sauber, keine stumpfen Graffiti-Tags und nicht verwüstet, wie man es zuhause ja gern mal vorfindet.

Wir hatten dann auch den Tipp von Ben, den von uns in Cairns aufgegabelten englischen Tramper, bekommen, es am rechten Ende des 4 Mile Beach mit wild campen zu probieren. Ein ruhiger Platz, wo keine Pozilei vorbeikommt, denn auf “für lau pennen am Straßenrand” stehen zwar nicht drei Jahre Kinderbergwerk aber immerhin AU$150 Strafe. Erst am nächsten Morgen bei Tageslicht wurde uns klar, was für ein wunderschönes Plätzchen wir uns da empfehlen lassen hatten. Direkt am Strand. Jaja, schon wieder Strand wird der regelmäßige Leser bemerken, da wurde doch die letzten Male häufig mal gelangweilt gemeckert. Aber dieses Mal anders. Hier oben sind wir nämlich in den Wet Tropics, den feuchten Tropen also, und das heißt Regenwald, der widerum direkt bis an den Strand reicht. Amazing. Awesome. Wonderful. Nachdem uns dann die schwärmerischen Adjektive ausgegangen waren, um diesen feinen Ort zu beschreiben, ging es dann weiter gen Norden. In den Daintree Nationalpark, der für sich den Titel des ältesten Regenwaldes der Welt beansprucht.

Das Gebiet gehört zu einem der touristisch erschlossensten Gegenden in ganz Australien. Daher war es nicht verwunderlich, dass sich die Pfade nicht etwa wild mitten durch den Dschungel bahnten, wie wir das aus Bolivien kannten, sondern schön ordentlich als Wanderweg auf Holzplanken angelegt waren. Also schön für den Massentourismus gemacht, dass auch Oma mit dem Hackenporsche mitkommen kann. Das soll aber gar nicht so negativ klingen, denn die drei Boardwalks (Jindalba, Marrdja und Dubuji) waren wirklich gut gemacht und mit Infotafeln bestückt, so dass man nicht unbedingt dümmer aus dem Busch kam.

Zu den bemerkenswertesten Entdeckungen zählte mit Sicherheit die Würgefeige, die teilweise gigantische Ausmaße annehmen konnte. Es beginnt immer mit einem kleinen Samen, der sich in mehreren Metern Höhe auf einem Ast irgendeines Baumes absetzt. Mit der Zeit wachsen die Wurzeln der Feige nach unten und nehmen im Verlauf den ganzen Baum in Beschlag, was soweit führen kann, dass der Baum, der zuerst da war, wortwörtlich von der Würgefeige stranguliert wird und abstirbt. Faszinierend, was sich die Natur da wieder ausgedacht hat. Auch Mangroven mit ihren Kabel- und Schnorchelwurzeln sind ein erstaunlicher Lebensraum, der bestaunt werden konnte.

Zum berühmten Cape Tribulation ging es dann natürlich auch. Auf dem Weg dahin gab’s einen Stopp im Bat House. Dort werden flugunfähige Flughunde aufgepäppelt und gepflegt. Und wir haben mal wieder etwas für’s Klugscheißen am Frühstückstisch gelernt. Flughunde haben nämlich im Gegensatz zu Fledermäusen kein Sonar und fressen auch keine Insekten, sondern sind Vegetarier. Das gab gab schon mal Sympathiepunkte bei Dina. Ihre nächsten Verwandten sind die aus Madagaskar bekannten Lemuren und gelten hier mittlerweile auch als bedrohte Tierart. Sie haben schon auch einen kleinen Vampirstatus und werden als Überträger von Krankheiten angeprangert, wo es nur geht, obwohl das nicht ganz stimmt. Naja, Old Boy hing auf jeden Fall ganz gemütlich in seinem Netz im Bat House und nachdem er einem Apfelstück den Saft und das Fruchtfleisch entzogen und den Rest ausgespuckt hatte, präsentierte uns der kleine Racker sein überraschend großes Gemächt. In menschlichen Relationen gesprochen, würden wir hier eher von einem Oberschenkel, als von einem Unterarm reden. Jaja, wer lang hat, der kann auch lang hängen lassen. Ein putziges Kerlchen.

Doch genug der Angeberei, es ging wieder zurück in die Zivilisation, nach Port Douglas um genauer zu sein. Am nächsten Tag stand dann der für australische Verhältnisse lächerlich kurze (250 Km) Road Trip nach Cooktown an. Es hatte seit Ende Mai nicht mehr geregnet, alles war trocken und die Klimaanlage im Spaceship bewahrte uns vor dem Hitzetod. So war es auch kein Wunder, als auf einmal ein Buschbrand in nahe Ferne rückte und sich die Rauchschwaden über die Fahrbahn zogen. “Licht an und schön sachte durch die schwarzen Schwaden” war die Ansage der Brandschutzbeauftragten und es ging weiter nach Norden. Thematisch passend passierten wir dann die Black Mountains, die wie ein überdimensionierter Holzkohlehaufen aussahen. Und jetzt kommt gleich nochmal eine Netzer-Delling-Überleitung, denn das passende Grillgut gab es auch noch dazu. Auf den letzten 50 Km vor Cooktown gab es den Todestreifen, denn alle paar Meter hatte sich ein vormals lebendes Känguruh in Roadkill verwandelt. Überall lagen tote Tiere herum, an den widerum die Raben nagten.

Und so etwas tot kam uns dann auch Cooktown vor, denn aus der einst zweitgrößten Stadt Queenslands, deren Bevölkerungsboom der Goldrausch in den 50er Jahren hervorgerufen hatte, ist heute nicht viel übrig geblieben. Nur noch 3.000 Einwohner wohnen in der Stadt, in der man nur leben kann, wenn man entweder verrückt ist oder bereit ist verrückt zu werden. So jedenfalls erklärte uns das Gernot Jander, ein 72-jähriger pensionierter Aussteiger, den wir über das Couchsurfing Netzwerk gefunden hatten. Und was er für Geschichten erzählen konnte, ganz zu schweigen von seinem selbstgebrauten Bier und der italienischen Torteletta, die er uns am Abend auf den Tisch zauberte. Schade, dass wir nur so wenig Zeit mit Gernot verbringen konnten, denn wir hatten am nächsten Morgen die preisgekrönte Rainbow Serpent Tour von Guurrbi-Tours gebucht. Der 5-stündige Ausflug unter der Führung von Elder Willie Gordon gab uns einen mehr als interessanten Einblick in die Spiritualität und Philosophie der Aboriginies. Wir wurden zur Geburtstätte seines Vaters in den Bergen um Hopevale geführt und haben uns in die darum gewobenen Geburtsriten entführen lassen. Das hier widerzugeben scheint unmöglich, wer mal in der Gegend ist, sollte es sich auf keinen Fall entgehen lassen.

Dank Gernot ging es am nächsten Tag zielgerichtet zur Granite Gorge bei Mareeba im Atherton Tableland. Dort gab es einen entspannten Campingplatz in der Nähe von riesigen Granitfelsen, der das zuhause von handzahmen Rock Wallabies war. Die kleinen Scheißer sehen aus wie eine Zwergenversion eines Känguruhs und springen mit Leichtigkeit von Fels zu Fels, während sie nur darauf warten von Touristen mit speziellen Pellets gefüttert zu werden. 100 Punkte auf der Niedlichkeitsskala, obwohl wilde Tiere füttern eigentlich nicht so unser Ding ist.

Zum Abschluß gab es noch ein paar Abstecher zu Curtain und Cathedral Fig Tree (Vorhangs- und Kathedralen-Würgefeigen, Anm. d. Red.), deren Wurzeln bizarre Ausmaße angenommen hatten, wir haben den kurzen Wanderweg um den Kratersee Lake Eecham gemeistert und beim anderen Maar namens Lake Barrine stopp gemacht. Es wurde natürlich alles angemessen bewundert.

Ja und dann waren die sechs ereignisreichen Tage auch schon vorbei und mit dem Spaceship wurde wieder der Heimathafen namens Cairns angeflogen.

Unsere bisher mit Abstand beste Zeit in Australien. Endlich haben wir das Australien erlebt, dass man in tollen Reisereportagen bewundern kann, das Australien, das mehr als nur shiny-happy people und no worries ist, das erste Mal, dass uns Australien wirklich etwas gegeben hat.

Hello Roamers,

One of my aims is to promote unusual tours, especially within Australia-tours that you will not usually find advertised except when you get to that area.

Today I have loaded some information on 2 such tours on to the club site.

One is Jungle Surfing and the other is Night Vision tours.

Go to the site and have a look from the Australian Touring button.

Let’s Roam Australia!

http://roamersclub.com

So, remember the movie FernGully: The Last Rainforest?  Cute animated movie from the early 90’s?

Yah, that’s pretty much where I was for a month.

Yes, I saw magical fairies.

Nat and I (for old times sake… and it being cheaper) took a two day train from Brisbane to Cairns early one morning.  It was a loooong train ride.  I was excited at first… a chance to see beautiful Aussie scenery and make brief stops in tiny towns on the way up, just to be able to say i’d been.  (Step out of the train, “Wooo!!  I’ve been to Bundaberg!”  Three hours later…. “Woo!!  I’ve been to Tully!!… anywho, you get the point.)

For two days, heading north, the scenery doesn’t change much.  Just in case you were wondering.  Dry land with brown grass and lonely skinny trees for hours, then sugar cane fields for hours (with that terrible mollases smell…).

Anyway, we finally got to Cairns, and I’m really excited to stretch my legs and walk around.

“How long is the drive from Cairns to the Daintree?” Me, excited to finally be out of a 3 by 10 cell.

“About two hours.”

Waah wah waaaaaaaaaaaah.

So two hours later, a ferry ride across a croc ridden river and a extremely windy drive through the middle of a forest we finally made it to… the pub.

Yes the pub.  The meeting place of Cow Bay.  Where everyone knows your name… and everything else about everyone else.  It’s where all the locals go and drink bad Australian beer and smoke hand rolled cigarettes after a long (actually …short…they don’t have much work ethic up here) day of work.

Natalie and I stayed with Nats dad, Chris, his partner Kerry and her son Cody, in Kerry’s extremely beautiful balinese style house at the end of a dirt road, surrounded by the beautiful trees of the rainforest.

The Place

Once you pass the river (that yes, does have crocodiles in it…one kid has been eaten… beware!) you are in the rainforest.  Unfortunately (for the animals and the soil) there is a long (recently) paved road that runs through it, beginning at Cow Bay and finishing at Cape Tribulation. Unfortunate for nature, but lucky for us tourists.  After the ferry, you come to Cow Bay first.  I like to think that the heart of Cow Bay is the tea farm.  It’s the only organic tea farm in Australia and it’s a family run business.   The fields of deep green tea surround a hill.  At the top of the hill is a beautiful house where my favourite residents of Cow Bay live.

My first full day there, I went to the top of the hill to meet Babe.  That’s not her real name, but once you meet her, you’re just like, yah!  Babe!  She is this fabulous, bubbly, positive, upbeat woman who is so encouraging and insists that everyone “Rock on!”  (This one time, I went to the school to pick up her little ones with her, and as soon as she stepped foot on the school playground, kids started surrounding her and hugging her “Hey Babe!  Hi Babe!”  Once we’d collected Ben and Eva and were walking out the gate, the school children all shouted, as we left “Rock On Babe!!!”  hahahah!).

Anyways, if you keep heading north from the tea farm, you pass a few restaurants (one of which I worked at, serving tourists their burgers and milkshakes and kangaroo and teaching Americans where Toronto is and meeting Australians who know where Kitchener is and meeting Canadians that had job offers for me for when i get back ) and come to the road where Kerry lives.

Interesting thing about the rainforest, if you live there, your house has to be green or brown and can’t be seen from the road.  This is the same for the resorts that run along the road further up; so that when you drive along the road, all you see is trees to your right and left and trees growing up above the road, creating a beautiful green tunnel.

This place is absolutely beautiful.  Second day: Beach.  Oh my god.  The beaches.  They are absolutely breathtaking.  This is where I meet Shorty.  Cow Bay’s favourite grandpa.  He’s an older man, a Vietnam vet, who has retired to the rainforest, and spends everyday (actually, EVERYDAY) on the beach, drinking VBs.  Only VB.  From when the sun gets up to when it goes to sleep, Shorty is drinking VB, working on his tan and taking walks along the beach.  (If it’s raining, he goes to the pub).

The rainforest is a whole other world.  The people that live there, live in a certain isolation.  The only connection is Telstra (I’m Virginmobile, so i had no reception for over a month) and the only good internet is at a few of the backpackers (first time i used the internet i had to walk 2 hours and pay $10 an hour).  Even the residents admit that you have to be pretty unique to live up there.  I spent time with some of them, Babe, Will, Adam, Ed and Simon, and they were all definitely unique.

The People

Will was a young guy in his early 20’s and I was shocked that he chose to live up there.  After asking if he gets lonely (there are about 5 people in their 20’s in cowbay…if that…), he replied that he enjoys solitude and has his two dogs for company.  Will had this huge property full of gardens and trees and an open house… the only covering was the mosquito net on his bed.   There was a funny outdoor toilet and shower, and from the house you could hear the waves from the sea. He enjoyed good coffee, card games and smoking his bush pot, so we got along well.

Simon was cool, and i met him on the beach one afternoon, when we were all sitting around a campfire, drinking and smoking funny bush pot (i might as well warn you now, there was a lot of ‘funny bush pot’ up here).  His kids, Oscar and Tilly, were the cutest kids of all and Simon was super friendly.  We hung out a few times, and he would make me fresh salads from the stuff we would pull from his gardens and give me bowls of ice cream with fresh passion fruit on it.

Ed was a quiet guy with a boat.  We also got along well.  He would often find me sleeping on the beach or walking towards the beach, and then would take me out on his boat.  His house was full of aboriginal arts and crafts and he always made me drink too many strongbows.  He loved having me around, cause I’m a really good fisher.  I don’t want to be, but I just am.  I guess fish know that I’m not there to harm them or their home.  (I did eat one of the fish i caught, and ended up being sick that night… then i took another chance, tried the fish again a few days later, and was sick again… i get the point, Universe, and I’m sorry!).  He took Nat and me out on his boat for a two day trip to the reef, it was amazing and nauseating.  For a few days after I could hardly walk straight.

Adam was a guy in his 30s who had a job helping his friends run their resort/restaurant.  He is originally from Melbourne, but moved up to help out his buddies.  Adam would pick me up in the mornings and take me for walks along the beach with his dogs, where we would go crocodile hunting (we really did see crocodiles).  He drove me into Cairns a few times.  He goes their often because his partner lives there.

The Atmosphere

Everyone here loves a little solitude.  They all live on their lonesome on these huge properties and the only way to get power is to run generators.  I could go on and on, talking about the craziness of this place, but my word count is already ridiculous.

The Daintree is quiet, and I got to do a lot of thinking, writing, reading, walking and time on my own.  It’s nice to be in a place where you are constantly surrounded by beauty.  I enjoyed my job a lot; it gave me a chance to converse with people and keep myself from going crazy.  The people that owned the restaurant were awesome too.  If it got too busy, they gave me a XXXX (beer) and the chef made me delicious meals everyday.

I could seriously keep telling stories about my time up North.  I feel like I have barely said anything.  If you’re interested, we’ll sit down and chat about it, cause I’ll be home in TWO MONTHS!!!!

(geschrieben am 25. Juli)

Die Zeit in Australien ist dann doch schneller zu Ende gegangen als wir gedacht hatten. Jetzt verbringen wir schon unseren dritten Abend in Hawaii und sind voll von neuen Eindrücken. Da wir hier aber wieder direkt in unserer Unterkunft Internet haben, können wir ganz in Ruhe die letzte Woche Australien nachtragen.

Auf Magnetic Island schien die Zeit stehen geblieben zu sein – die Tage verliefen alle irgendwie gleich, irgendwo baden, irgendwo wandern, abends kochen in unser schönen Unterkunft. Wir haben auf der Insel Paul, Arthur (wie Julius 6 Jahre alt) und Maddy aus Sydney kennengelernt und besonders die beiden Jungs hatten viel Spaß miteinander, vor allem mit dem morgendlichen “Legobausatz” von Arthur, der das Frühstück beider Familien sehr entspannt hat. Vor allem an den letzten Abend, den wir gemeinsam auf der vorderen Terasse mit Blick auf das Meer verbracht haben und an dem wir alle unsere Fragen über Australien los werden konnten, werden wir uns gern erinnern.

Am Tag unserer Abfahrt von Magnetic Island haben wir noch das Aquarium in Townsville besucht – von Townsville geht die Fähre nach Magnetic Island ab. Die beiden großen Becken durchquert man durch einen Tunnel, sodass die Haie, Rochen, der Sägefisch und die Schildkröte aus dem ersten Becken direkt neben und sogar über dem Betrachter schwimmen. Sehr beeindruckend. In dem zweiten Becken auf der anderen Seite sieht man währendessen die bunte Welt des Korallenriffs mit vielen kleinen Fischen. Außerdem gab es viele kleine Becken mit kleinen Höhepunkten: Clownfische, ein Babyhai, Babyschildkröten, Seepferdchen und “Nautilusse“, die ich bisher nur als Fossilien kannte.

Unsere nächste Station für eine Nacht war Ingham, eine kleine Stadt ein paar Kilometer vom Meer entfernt auf unserem Weg nach Cairns. Hier haben wir in einem tollen alten Hotel (Art Deco, ca. 1920) geschlafen, mit beeindruckender Vorfahrt, einem richtigen Teesalon und historisch eingerichteten Zimmern – leider sehr unpersönlich und noch halbe Baustelle von der gerade abgeschlossenen Renovierung. Wir haben uns trotzdem wie bei “Vom Winde verweht” gefühlt. Aus dem geplanten Abendspaziergang durch die Stadt ist eine Zuckerrohrtour geworden, weil wir hier ein ganzes System an Schienen von den Zuckerrohfeldern hin zur Zuckerrohrmühle entdeckt haben. Allein der süßliche Geruch in der Stadt hat uns sehr beeindruckt. Wir konnten sehen, wie die vollen Wagen vom Feld abgeholt werden und in der Mühle ausgeschüttet werden und wie der fertige Zucker wieder in Wagen gefüllt und abtransportiert wird. Die kleinen Wagen und Lokomotiven waren für Julius ein Traum und er will jetzt Zuckerrohreisenbahnlokführer in Queensland werden.

Am nächsten Tag auf unserer Fahrt zu den Wallaman Falls konnten wir dann noch das Ernten bestaunen und uns hat ein freundlicher Australier erklärt, dass wirklich die Felder vor dem Abernten abgebrannt werden (historisch damit die Schlagen in den Feldern getötet werden bevor die Arbeiter mit ihren Macheten in die Felder mussten), dem Zuckerrohr schadet das nicht, nur die äußeren trockenen Blätter verbrennen, das Zuckerrohr selbst ist zu feucht. (Wir probieren das beim Kauen auf einer von Ingo geklauten Stange selbst aus – das Rohr ist voll süßem Saft.)

Die Wallaman Falls sind toll. 270m fallen sie in einer an sich schon tollen Schlucht in die Tiefe. Rund herum ist wieder Regenwald, wir sind beim Hochfahren zum Lookout sehr erstaunt, dass plötzlich aus dem lichten Eukalyptuswald, dichter Regenwald wird. Und richtig – die Wallaman Falls gehören zu den Wet Tropics – also zu “unserem” Regenwald.

Wir haben so viel Spaß bei der Fahrt durch den Regenwald, dass wir spontan beschließen, unsere letzten Tage in Queensland noch mal im Daintree zu verbringen. Diese Entscheidung bedeutet eine lange Fahrt quer durchs nördliche Queensland und die Ungewissheit, ob wir wieder eine so schöne Unterkunft finden werden – unsere Hütte ist besetzt, das wissen wir, aber vielleicht hat unser Gastgeber eines der Zimmer im Haupthaus frei? Als es dunkel wird (was es schlagartig um 18.00 Uhr wird), rufen wir unseren alten Gastgeber an – bei ihm ist nichts frei, aber er besorgt uns eine anderen Unterkunft. Bei der Ankunft sind wir begeistert – zwei große Zimmer mit eigenem Grill mitten im Regenwald.

Und noch mal machen wir alles, was uns im Daintree so gefallen hat, baden an dem wunderschönen Strand von Cow Bay und wandern durch den Regenwald auf einem der Boardwalks. Und wir haben Zeit für all das, was wir beim ersten Mal nicht geschafft haben, wir suchen den einzigen (!) Geocache, den es im Daintree gibt, probieren den leckeren Kuchen im “Cafe on Sea” und machen einen Riffspaziergang bei Ebbe. Vor allem aber genießen wir die Gerüche und Geräusche des Regenwalds direkt vor unserer Tür. Am letzten Abend prasselt dann auch noch der Regen. Traurig sagen wir dem Regenwald Auf Wiedersehen!

25 day east coast trip

Since I have almost a month off til I start my new job (AHHH YESSS I GOT A NEW JOB!), I have about a week to plan this ‘backpacker’ trip. I talked to some of my friends and asked them what places I had to visit. Backpacker student travel agencies are a huge industry over here: Tribal Travel, Peterpans, Travelbugs, Adventure Travel are some of the big ones that offer basically all the same travel package deal. A basic popular one is $299. Each travel package offers nights of accom in hostels and tours all up the East Coast. I got one tailormade to what I initially planned on doing in 25 days with WANDERERS TRAVEL. All the packages are open dated. After you figure out when you’ll be there, then you call ahead to the place and book it then. That way you can spend more or less time in a location you like. These travel packages are not guided tours, they are just rooms and activities with specific companies. Each individual backpacker trips and plans vary.

First stop: Byron Bay Wed- Sat April 29 – May 1

Instead of taking a bus trip for 12 straight hours from Sydney, I took a cheap $70 flight to Ballina Airport.  A shuttle van to Byron Bay, 30 min away and with my package I got 3 free nights at Cape Byron Lodge. A lot of travelers and Austalians love Byron, I wasn’t too impressed. It’s a cute little surfer town, yes, but didn’t have a super special flair to it. The weather so far has truly sucked. It’s been rainy and cold. I expected to come up north to get a tan. Not happening yet. I don’t even want to take off my jacket anywhere.

The next day I took the HAPPY COACH to Nimbin, this cracked out hippie village, 2 hours away. First place we stopped at was Minyon Waterfalls. We did a 15 min stop to take pictures of this gorgeous view. Then off to Nimbin. Umm, wow… This one street town reminded me of the old stereotypical Western movies, with the post, grocery, newsagent, library all located within a 3 min walking distance. The store fronts were all rainbow colored. The biggest difference is the people and their viewpoints. The locals roam around aimlessly barefoot, in tattered clothing, looking homeless and definitely not in their right mind. I heard the F bomb spoken commonly as if it was the word, the. These people lived, breathed and promoted weed. They recently produced an 8 page newspaper spread, with ‘creative articles’ all the positives of using weed. Lucky for me, I just missed their biggest event, MardiGRASS. Your eyes did not deceive you: That says MardiGRASS, not MardiGRAS. It’s a celebration for what else, ohhh glorious weed. It was that upcoming weekend. They had events such as hemp Olympics, guess how many ounces in a bag, roll a joint the fastest, and a huge parade with a gigantic blown up weed replica that said LET IT BLOW. For those that really know me, can understand me being in this town is quite funny. I felt so naïve, uncomfortable and out of place. I walked into the Nimbin ‘historical museuem’. Very psychedelic. When I was walking out, I was asked by a local, “How many ounces do you wanna buy?” I basically ran away. I guess It’s a great town for people who ‘deeply appreciate’ that shit. I’m just not one of them. Before leaving the town, our bus driver intensely warned us the van would probably be stopped and searched by the cops. She was required to give us a 15 min lecture on ‘how drugs are illegal’. She asked who bought any drugs, about 5 of 12 hands went up. She gave out tips to not getting caught such as leave it on the bus and not on your body. Then they can’t prove its yours. Obviously, these tips were all very new and helpful to me. On the way out, the cops stopped the bus, confiscated the goods and no one fessed up to it so no one was charged. Quite an interesting day trip.

I met some really cool people in the hostel: another Australian who recently moved up for a job from Coffs Harbour, 3 American girls on holidays from Sydney Uni, 2 really sweet german girls and 2 locals. I love meeting new people but let me tell you, it’s very, very repetitive. For my sisters, imagine formal recruitment intros times 25. Same, boring questions: “Hi, whats your name? Where are you from? How long have you been travelling? Where are you going next? What brought you to Australia? What’s your favorite part?” Seriously I answer those questions AT LEAST 3 times a day. As much as I love meeting new people, you just don’t want to talk after awhile. And I’ve only been travelling a week! So I know I could never just come here and backpack through for months at a time. After a long bus ride, arriving in a new place and new hostel, I really just want to sleep. Of course I’m social and nice, but going out drinking is not on my agenda (o-m-g, I think that means I’m officially old and boring).  I’m considered one of the ‘older backpackers’. Most backpackers are right out of school—ages 18-20 so this is their first experience away from home. It’s like our first semester of college, so you can guess what they’re like. These kids are going out and drinking hardcore every night with meaningless sex with strangers. I have no desire to go out and get drunk with people I don’t know or trust. Then imagine trying to figure out your way home in a brand new area. Plusss drinks are effin expensive. A bottle of Bacardi is normally $40! I’d much rather spend my money on good food (which I do). I think I just like drinking you guys instead. You must be hard to replace—You are way more fun. J

Anyway, the next day—I borrowed one of the hostel’s bikes and took a 2 mile bike ride to the Cape Byron Lighthouse, the most eastern point in Australia. I parked the bike as far as I could, then had to walked about 45 more min up and down some intense hills to get close to the Lighthouse. After getting close, it started to drizzle and then a rainbow appeared! It was soo cool! The views up top were amazing, looking over at the whole beach on the left or seeing the jagged rocks with waves crashing on the right.

 I walked down the cliff and onto another section on top of rocks. In the distance, I saw dolphins swimming! It’s time like these: taking an invigorating walk up to view spectacular scenery, seeing a rainbow and watching dolphins play, that I realize, ‘Wow, I’m really in Australia.’ Can’t help but smile. I always remember when I’m walking alone on beaches. I just love thinking and saying that.

That night, very very late, I got my first Greyhound bus trip at 315am. I had to get a taxi at 3am. To get the rest of my 8 locations, I’d be taking the Greyhound up. It’s the cheaper bus option compared to the OZ experience (a huge backpacker filled bus). The greyhound runs more frequently and stops more often. I’ve never done a bus trip and so far it’s been interesting. I already noticed I’m not a big sleeper on buses so I’m always anxious to sleep at the next hostel. Instead of spending money to stay at a hostel, the greyhound will take me up to my destination instead. At the end of this trip, I’m either gonna love or loathe bus trips.

2^nd stop–  Noosa—What a beaut!! Sat –Sun 3-4

 (((During my VERY sleepless 7 hour bus ride, I realized I left my mobile at my previous hostel—shitttttttttttt! Or as the English say, BOLLOCKS! Not only is it my phone, but it’s my alarm clock. I called the hostel frantically and they’re going to send it to Hervey Bay since I’ll be spending a couple days there. Seriously, Thank God.))) I arrived looking like absolute hell in the small beach town of Noosa. It’s populated with rich residents and rich houses. All I wanted to do the first day was sleep. But I feel like I’m wasting time exploring the town since I’m only there for a short time. The hostel, Dolphin Beach House, picked me up from the bus stop, a 15 min drive away. It’s out of the ‘town’ but its better than the young backpacker drinking hostels. The bright pink colored dorm walls had a mini apt style set up: 2 rooms, 9 people total with their own bathroom, tv, couches, frig and stove. You definitely got to know people better, but only those 8 people. It’s a rarity for dorms to be like that. A common area with a big tv is the place to meet everyone in the dorm. I meet people everywhere I go, but you never talk longer than a day before they move on to somewhere new. Germans and UK are the most popular countries I’ve encountered. Most anybody but Americans. The first day I was there I walked along their main street, just filled with small beachy shops. I liked it at first, but it’s pretty much the same everywhere.  Before sunset, I strolled on the beach for an hour, taking in the beautiful beaches, green mountains and people playing with their dogs. Even after seeing so many beaches, I never get sick of them.

Day 2– I went to bed early since I’m going to AUSTRALIA ZOO—home of Steve Irwin. It’s a hyped up, expensive zoo, but I made sure it was included with my package. Queensland is the only place in AU where you can actually hold a koala. In New South Wales, I went to another small zoo, where you can ‘pose with one’. I don’t want a posing pic, I want to actually hold me like a baby. AU Zoo has a free double decker bus that picks up with 1.5 hour of the zoo. I went with one of the British girls from the hostel. We hung out together all day, taking fun pics and yes, I held a koala!!!!!!! J Seriously, cutest animals. Probably weighed about 10-15 pounds and felt like a live teddy bear. It made my day! I left early on the Greyhound at 2pm, arrived at 4pm. I wanted to walk around the Noosa National Park. I’ve come to really enjoy national parks. It’s great exercise, right in the middle of nature. There were no signs directing people what path to take. I’m getting a lot better, figuring my way out myself. I use my instinct and ‘internal compass’ to end up in the right place. Pretty crazy. It was another 1.5 hour walk that led from the steep green forest to the sandy beaches. Ahead of me, was a newly married couple taking wedding beach pictures. Owners were chasing their dogs around (I really miss my dog) and kids (Thank God Felix wasn’t here to ruin it) were playing in the sand. Finished just as sunset was hitting (around 520-530pm). How much more ideal does it get than that?

Originally I planned on doing a 3 day/2 night Canoe trip and a ½ day of kayaking. In Byron, I thoroughly planned out my trip and realized that I didn’t have as much time as I hoped for. So even though I paid for the canoe trip, my priority trips were camping safari on Fraser Island and overnight sailing trip. Back on the bus….

3^rd stop—Hervey Bay/Fraser Island May 4 – 7

Bus ride to Hervey Bay. Kookaburra Resort picked us up from the bus station. Met my first camping companions, and they were Americans! A disgustingly cute young couple from NY/NJ area, Lia and Jamie. Dropped off the girls (my oversized luggage) and went for a jog/walk along Hervey Bay for an hour. When you don’t exercise for a long period of time, you can feel the sluggish effects. It was so serene on the Bay. Not many people out and the water was so calm. Run/Walking is a good way to get exercise and see other parts of the town. Hervey Bay is a veryyyyyyy small rundown town. There are 2 towns with access to Fraser Island: HB and Rainbow Beach. HB is the closer town which means less driving time and more time to enjoy the island. Came back for the Fraser Island prep/warning meeting at 6pm. There are 2 options for seeing Fraser: self drive camping with a huge LandCruiser or guided tours with hotel stays. I chose self drive, cuz its cheaper and its more fun to figure your own way. Besides I haven’t camped in a long time. Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world, so you need a 4WD to get around to roads are basically nonexistent. The meeting lasted 1.5 hours, with a video about carefully driving on the island. Some students a month ago died from overturning the 4WD (which is so easy to do since all of our equipment, food and personal stuff goes up top). The guy running the meeting, Richard, aka Dick, is a complete and utter asshole. We had to pay all kinds of extra insurances and food prices on top. Back home in the US, when you hear something is optional, you disregard it and assume its just another unnecessary way to make money. I was the first one out of 11 called up to pay the extras. I said no the extra insurance since we already had 3 other kinds of it. He flat out called me an idiot. I was soooo livid pissed.  Everyone else in our group did not plan on paying it either, until he insulted me in front of everyone. He gave everyone attitude about it all. He works in customer service every day and that’s how he treats people?? We all hated him already. 

Day 1 of camping—got up at 6am to leave the hostel at 7am. The hostel prepares food for us for $35 and we have to cook it at the camp site. The hostel also has a suggested itinerary list, based on the high tide schedule, with places to stop at and beach areas to sleep at.

Had an interesting group going: 3 Americans, 2 Germans, 3 Brazilians, 1 Irish, 1 French and 1 British. 11 people total, 2 sets of couples, 1 mother/daughter pair, 4 guys and 7 girls all crammed into this LandCruiser. Quite the diverse crew. 3 guys alternated between manually driving Jaws (our nickname for the great white beast). Took an hour to get to the ferry, drove Jaws onto the ferry, along with 10 other student groups, doing the same thing as us. The drive plus 2 more fit up front, with 8 people facing each other, ambulance style. Actually it wasn’t too bad. On the first day, we drove to Meheno shipwreck site. It’s was a huge cruise liner that wrecked in 1935. Made me excited since I’ll be diving to a real shipwreck site underwater next week! Driving on the beach is not as carefree here as it is in the Outer Banks. It’s actually considered a ‘highway’ with speed limits. You avoid driving near the water at all possible costs since salt will ruin the car and you’ll be paying a hefty fine. We were supposed to camp on the beach, but we found a fenced in campsite with showers, grills and toilets. Normally you have to pay to stay, but we were allowed for free. I shared a tent with the German girls. (Turns out they were au pairs in Sydney too! Small world!) We’re the first ones that have our tent up! That night, we drink beer and GOON. Goon is a generic term for boxed wine. You can’t have glass so goon is a very common backpacker drink. In Byron Bay, a popular shirt says, SLAP THE GOON (meaning to shake up the bag). We played some fun drinking games, Shoulders and a version of Fuck of the Dealer. When it’s dark out and you’re out in the wild, your body tries to tell you to go to bed. I passed out by 930pm—yes that’s lame.

Day 2 of camping—I’m the first one up at 6am. I guess when you go to bed that early (which you know I never do), your body wakes you up early. I start getting breakfast stuff out: sausages, eggs and toast. Not too bad huh? We take down the tents, pack it all back onto of Jaws then drove to INDIAN HEAD and hiked up to the top. It’s a huge (150 -200 feet high) with my favorite jagged rocks below. The view is just incredible. We walked 45 min along the white sandy beach to Champagne Pools, naturally made pools from the ocean. It was a long walk with a disappointing ending. Don’t get me wrong, it was interesting, but the pools were very small. The waves crashed over them and created some cool pictures, but it wasn’t worth the time spent there. Luckily, everything happens for a reason. We met 18 Australian fisherman, who drove us back to our car, saving us a 45 minute walk. As if that wasn’t good enough for us, we ended up hanging out with them for 3 hours!!  They gave us free unlimited beer (too bad I don’t like beer huh?), a BBQ sausage cookout with corn fritters on the beach and just socializing with these extremely friendly middle aged guys. The guys sincerely wanted to know about our travels, where we’re all going, the typical 20 questions. They have an annual week long trip of fishing, drinking and eating. They have a gigantic frig and freezer full of food. 2 of the guys were former chefs so they’re not eating pizza and wings all week. The weather was perfect, sunny and hot until 3pm (my first nice day since I started travelling 10 days ago!). Everything about the afternoon was just so ‘Australian’- Barbie on the beach, beer, warm hospitality, music, the sun and having a good time. It was probably one of my favorite days since I’ve arrived.

After our happy hours were over, we had to book it 2 hours back to our campsite. A dark storm was coming and so was high tide. The water kept rising higher and higher to our 4WD. A bright rainbow did greet us though!! It was getting hard to avoid hitting the ocean and the sand dunes were to the right of us. We were narrowly stuck between the ocean and sand dunes. We debated a couple times pulling over and parking there for the night. We kept going and bypassed our suggested camping area. We vetoed sand in favor of facilities, BBQ grills and hot showers.  Dinner was lamb stew with rice. Bed early again at 9pm. God I’m so old! I never even went to bed that early in college or high school!

Day 3 of camping—Breakfast:  Weetbix and toast. I LOVEEEE weetbix. It’s big rectangle wheat squares you drown with milk. I normally put honey and bananas on top of mine. I seriously will miss that food when I go back home. Anyway, I finally showered. Everyone joked with me that it was about time and it probably was. You had to pay for the showers so I held out as long as I could. 3 days is my max, haha. We drive out to Lake McKenzie, one of the most beautiful places on earth. The first 30 feet of the water is crystal aqua clear, then it drops deeper and the water turns a navy blue. Not exactly warm, but not super cold either. We were the first ones who arrive since our campsite was closer than the rest of the other backpacker vans. It was breathtaking. Pictures attempt to do some justice. We layed around until noon and then made lunch. We have been warned intensely about dingoes—which looks like skinny dogs, but have the ferocious mentality of wolves. The funny saying, “Dingo ate my baby!” is based on a true story. They notice babies/young kids because they have sudden movements. As dangerous as we knew they could be, we all desperately wanted to see one. During lunch on our last day at Fraser, we saw 3!!! They don’t look scary so mostly everyone to call one over. They smelled our food and eventually ran away. But our trip was complete!

The whole 3 days it was expected to rain with thunderstorms. It only rained one night. Now it wasn’t as hot as I wanted, but viewing Indian Head and Lake McKenzie with sunny weather made it a spectacular trip. For the most part, the people were great! We had too many dominating personalities in our group. Everyone wanted to be leader. For me, I didn’t want to be leader. I was more of the silent lead by example team member who always helped set up, clean up or made food. We got pretty close in 3 days, had some good laughs and were sad to see each other leave. The funny thing about travelling the east coast is you meet the same people over again. I see the same people on the Greyhound. My next trip on the sailing boat trip, the German girls will be with me. Eh, they’re nice but loud. Grr, loud Germans.

4^th stop—Airlie Beach/Whitsunday Island – May 8-13

Overnight bus trip from Hervey Bay to Airlie, yuck. Left at 800am—arrival 9am, 12 hours, every seat filled, sweetness. But I went with the American Couple and had Brazilian Roger to sleep on. I slept so much better cuz he was my huge pillow, haha. Besides the 2 nice days at Fraser, the weather has been pure crap, rainy, cloudy or colder than expected. The rainy season was supposed to end in April. BTW, in case I didn’t explain, there are 6 states: South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland (my whole east coast trip, North of Sydney), New South Wales (Sydney), Victoria (Melbourne) and Northern Territory. Queensland is notorious for being known as having sunny weather 300 days a year. I expected it to be sunny and hot like it normally is. But as my luck goes for me, I’m still pretty white and a tan might not happen. I booked more days at Airlie since I heard it’s perfect lay out weather. Ahh not so much. After getting off the bus and walking to my free hostel nights at MAGNUMS, it rained on and off all day. Again like Noosa and Byron Bay, it’s a small one street town with beach shops, cafes and travel agencies. Found a Macca’s (Mcdonalds) which has free wireless! See, that’s the only benefit of lugging around this laptop! Magnum’s is a huge hostel/mini resort with cabins. Directly attached to it are 2 bars. I really should go out. There are 3 big backpacker bars: Magnums, Beaches and Momma Africa. I have nothing to do tomorrow (Sat) so I should go out. However, I don’t like going out by myself anymore. The same thing always happens: make the effort of getting dressed, stand around the bar awkwardly by yourself and wait for someone normal to talk to you. Of course fun normal straight girls aren’t going to approach another girl, it’s weird. So it’s always the sexually driven guys that talk to you first.  I really don’t feel like having to fend off hormonal guys (And do you realize how easy it would be to shag a guy? They basically throw themselves at you.) I know I’m probably missing out on some fun by not going out, but then again, maybe not. Besides, if I’ve gotta cut things out to save money, going out would be the first. I started reading The Firm by John Grisham and I can’t put it down! So yes I just said I’d rather stay in and read a book, than go out, drink and dance with strangers. I’d rather dance and go out with you guys, seriously.  In the end, I passed out from reading at 9pm. So yes I turned 23 and I turned old.

Sat—up early from going to bed early. I decide to see more of Airlie and go for a jog/walk. The sun came out briefly for my 4.5 mile jog/walk. The rest of the day was pretty boring. Did a little shopping, booked a hostel for Cairns. Then sadly and pathetically, read more John Grisham and was in bed by 9:30pm. On a saturday night= I. am. lame.

Sunday—Checked out of MAGNUMS, put my big pink suitcase in 3 day storage and had to check into the sailing shop. (See how much checking in and out I have to do on a daily basis?). We had to check in between 1030 and noon. After I checked in, I could do whatever I wanted until 345pm. Blah what a waste of time, especially when its an overcast day.

I sat down on the bench and looked around at who I’d be spending the next 2 days in confined spaces around the Whitsunday Islands (there are 74 tiny islands).. 20 something very young party animals were standing around each holding their own box of Goon, including me (Ahhh we hate it, but we can’t seem to stop buying it. 4.4 liters is about $11-14).  Definitely some cute foreign boys as well! The German girls from my Fraser trip were on the boat too. A blonde short haired confident girl began talking to me and of course, asked the same 20 questions. Claire, from England, had quite an interesting story. Although it’s frustrating and repetitive asking and answering the same questions, it’s really intriguing to see how people live, where they’ve travelled and what they’ve done. This 27 year old have backpacked (on and off during a couple years) to about every country in the world for a total of 15 months (All of South America, Europe, Asia and now Australia–  do you realize how many countries are in each of those continents?).  If you guys think I’m brave, I’m nothing compared to her. It’s inspiring to listen to. We have similar personalities and got on really well. We all walked to our home on the ocean. Pegasus our small white sailboat, in which I found out was the oldest and one of the smallest boats in Airlie Beach  (since the 70’s). According to the crew at the ‘orientation’, we have a ‘more chilled out boat, compared to the other backpacker party boats’. Ha, well,  ummm, read on. There were 11 small bunk bed style rooms and luckily, Claire was my roommate! Boat left at 4pm and our cute all male crew, Pat, Danny and Johnnie, and we had no idea what to expect. We mingled with everyone and began some fun convos with Sophie (1/2 German, ½ French), Natalie (Swiss), Jarno (adorable blonde male—pronounced Yarno- full german), Claire (English) and me (again the only American). Steak, potatoes and salad for dinner in our very small dining table/kitchen area/bedroom of 4, followed by apple pie with custard for dessert. Pretty impressive for a tiny boat like ours! Then the Goon came out. We played drinking games with the crew. Learned a new game called Think Before you Drink. I dominated at it!! I was helping people with their answers. We’re definitely going to play it at home! Goon was hitting me good. Yess!

Now the sleeping arrangements…. On our Fraser trip, one of the guy just got off Pegusus and was COVERED in bed bug bites all over his body. They’re caused from sleeping on the boats’ mattresses. I was terrified of getting disgusting red bumps so I bought the cheapest sleeping bag I could find ($40 ouchhh). The first night I actually slept on the dock with Sophie. Stopped drinking at 11pm since I had to dive the next day. Quite the sleepless night, rolling around on the top of the boat. But I did wake up before everyone and saw the beautiful sun rise. The next night I (illegally) took my sleeping bag to my mattress and got a full nights sleep.

On Monday, we sailed to the notorious Whitehaven Beach, known for its 98% pure white pristine sand. It’s a historical landmark now so resorts can’t build on it. I’m so glad for that. I love staying at beach hotels like anyone else, but there’s something so special and rare about an untouched, natural beach. Within Whitehaven, another highly photographed area is Betty’s Beach. Not much of an actual curved shaped beach area, but more of a triangle shape. Claire and I took pictures of the beach, naked boys running around, and layed around on the white sand. The weather was pretty overcast the whole trip. None of us were getting tan.

Back on the boat, had another great lunch, rested for an hour and then certified divers got a free dive, while they taught beginnings the basics. Honestly, it might’ve been one of the crappiest warm water dives I’ve done. Visibility was shit, meaning you couldn’t see more than 5 ft in front of your face. Sometimes, you just have crappy water days though so I’m not implying the diving the Whitsunday is always crap. Obviously you want great vis so you can see the great fishes swimming around you and to prevent getting lost by losing your dive group. For the first time, I can say the snorkeling was better than the diving. The coral reef was shallow enough, you could see plenty of fish in great visibility since it’s much closer.

Dinner was sausage, pasta and salad. I’ve never had so much sausage in my life (that would be about 5 whole times) and I’m getting sick of it now. Monday night is when the craziness begins. We started drinking our own individual boxes of Goon; mine of course was Fruity White. Thennn the Goon Olympics started… but ironically none of it involved us drinking Goon. Sunset around 530pm. Around 8, we headed up to the front of the boat. We had 2 team captains and split into 2 teams of 12 each. Normal line games,  then, da da da, the clothes came flying off. For our last 2 games, we took any clothing we had on and put all of our clothing the fastest on our team captain. The team that took off the most clothes and therefore, put the most clothes on their team captain, won. Then the classic Greek Week game, take a rope and thread it up and down, through each member’s clothing. But the less clothing you had on, the faster your team went. We dominated, because we were basically naked in front of 24 people.  Initially I had on jeans and a hoodie. I’m not that confident with my body so I’m not one to show it all off. Eventually I stripped down to nude colored bra and underwear (gasp!).  Mom you would’ve been so proud. Yes that was still ‘covered up’ compared to others. But there were some people who completely hanging out, girls and guys, including our crew members. So much for this ‘not being one of the party boats.’ After the Olympics ended, we kept drinking (with our clothes on) and from the sexual tension going on during the games, people definitely hooked up. The next morning reminded me of Sunday morning brunches at WC—talking about who hooked up with who, what happened after some people went ot sleep. Basically it was just awesome. After that night, we all were closer.

Tuesday – we went snorkeling in the morning. I went with Nat and disappointedly, it was worst than the first day. Eating lunch was interesting, the waves were very choppy. The boat was on an angle for the 3 hour ride home. Food was literally sliding around the table and people flew into other people. I turned white and started to get a little nauseous then. That night we all went out. The crew was supposed to meet us out; they never showed. The 4 blondes hung out together: Sophie, Claire, Nat and Me. We pregamed with the rest of our Goon. It worked pretty well since I don’t think any of us bought a single drink. We danced like drunken idiots, had some great girl conversations, and kissed some boys.

 Overall, this was a truly awesome trip, better than Fraser because of the awesome people. Since I don’t party that often, it was so nice to meet some friends, where the convo went beyond just partying (although it may not sound like it). The pictures from the whole trip involve lots of body parts, which unfortunately you won’t be seeing. I felt like me with these girls and that was a great feeling to have friends. I’ll see Claire again in Cairns next week & Sophie is coming back to Sydney for a bit before she goes home. I can’t wait to see them again!

5^th stop—Ayr—Wreck Dive May 13-15

Bright and early, 745 am to catch a 930am bus to the ridiculously small town of Ayr. Travelling on the bus with friends, Claire and Jarno, felt much more like home. The 3 ½ hour ride(my shortest bus ride!) flew sitting next to friends, instead of sitting next to strangers (that means no 20 questions!). In Ayr, I wasn’t there to sight see the town, but sightsee underwater. One of the top 5 dive sites in the world is near Ayr, in Alva Beach, called SS Yongala Dive. I really enjoy diving, especially since this was a shipwreck site and one of the best in the world. I specifically altered all my plans on the trip to see this site.

With a packed bus of 48 people, I was the only one getting off. There was a reason there wasn’t a huge tourist destination. I know I’ve said the other beach town are small, but I take those comments back. Nothing here, kinda like Nimbin without the weed.  There are 2 dive companies that go out: Adrenaline Dive and YONGALA DIVE. Yongala picked me up from the bus station and it took 20 minutes to get back to the company. The actual lodge is located in the middle of nowhere. No supermarket, no internet, no phone service, barely even paved streets.  In this lodge, underneath was the dive equipment and reception and on top was a clean, brand new hostel lodge, sleeping up to 10 people. Clean hardwood floors with a kitchen area, and tv room. The first day I went out to the beach, read my book and went for a looooong run. This beach is different, it has many water pools and sandbars before the waves broke 300 yds away. Not a single soul on this beach, a hidden beach. I took my ipod and I danced/jogged/walked on the beach until sunset. If anyone was watching, they would’ve been peeing their pants. Back at the lodge, I met Jamie, a cute older dive instructor from Sydney. Jamie has been diving there all week. Started reading a new John Grisham, The Client and passed out by 930pm.

Early start 630am with a great yummy breakfast of Weetbix and honey. Got the wetsuit, vest, mask, fins and hopped into the LandCruiser. It was the same style car from Fraser Island with 3 people up front and 8 crammed in the back. We drove on the beach until we find the boat. We weren’t getting into the water normally from a pier. The small boat, a max of 12 people, was tugged along the beach by a huge John Deere tractor. The tractor reversed and slowly lowered the boat into the water, no pier, no ramp, just picked a spot. 6 guys and 3 girls (each from different nations) all anxious to see the site, braced for a bumpy 45 min ride out to the site. Because it’s a small boat, it’s easily tossed around on the wicked waves. Jamie said this was the calmest day yet, I just laughed. It was almost as bad as the Whitsunday. Thank goodness I took 3 seasickness pills this morning. It’s very common to get sick on this boat, like 3 people did today. I was getting nervous, closer we got, worried how challenging this dive would be. It’s 27 meters down (88 ft), which I think is pretty shallow for a wreck dive. The max depth with a basic OPEN WATER DIVER card is 60 ft, but I know in some of my previous dives I’ve gone to 80 ft. Beyond that, you need to get more study more, and pass a test to be certified to dive that deep.  I read 20 pages and answered the test before the boat went out. Everyone had varied experience on the boat from instructors to newbies to intermediates like me (I’ve done about 30 dives in 5 years).  

Suiting up, air on, fins on, regulator in mouth, backwards roll off the side of the boat, splash into the water. 5 minutes later, I’m clearing my ears and descending down 90 feet. You always dive with a buddy so we’re all buddied up with someone. We land on the sand and have to do some exercises to pass the Deep Dive test. Then we get to explore.  This is a massive liner, sank in 1911 by a cyclone which carried freight, 1^st and 2^nd class passengers, 1 horse and 1 bull (random I know). Not only is this a gigantic ship, but it’s now the hang out for THOUSANDS of wildlife, completely covered in coral. In the first 5 minutes of being down, there was a sting ray close to me, devil ray swimming above. Kobe kingfish (looks like baby sharks), clownfish (finding nemo fish!), thousands of colorful fish, and my absolute favorite a big turtle! It was breathtakingly BEAUTIFUL. I told the crew how I’m slightly scared to see the ‘friendly, non poisonous’ sea snakes. Just my luck, the snakes smelled my fear. 3 or 4 long 2 foot snakes swam too close within my comfort zone. My face turned white and my eyes bugged out while the instructors were laughing underwater. I lost so much air trying to swim away from them.

I couldn’t get over how incredibly beautiful it is. Everywhere I swam, schools of big and tiny fish were swimming around me. Was down for 35 minutes and time goes so fast. There’s always something fascinating to stare at.

We came up for an hour break, then back down for another 40 minutes underwater. This time, the instructor pointed out the 2 coral covered toilets, glass windows, a claw footed bathtub and the insides of the wreck. It’s illegal to swim through (or penetrate) the wreck, but looking through it, you can envision how large it was back in 1911. It’s remarkable for a boat to be that pristine and every part still intact. It seriously was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. On most dives you see a couple colorful fish and a little coral. But I was swimming with the THOUSANDS of species of fish in one area. Diving from now on will have high expectations and would surely disappoint me.

6^th stop—Cairns May 15-16

Last bus ride 930am—530pm = 8 hours! Wahoo! It’s been pretty crowded but I was determined to have 2 seats to myself (call me selfish, but you’d fight for them too!). Jamie and I sat together, he’s getting off at the next stop to catch a plane back to Sydney. After he got off, luckily no one attempted to sit with me. I must smell, but hell that is just fine with me for today. I’m writing while on the bus and is it sad to say I haven’t talked to a single soul the whole time? Truly, I don’t mind at all, actually relieved. I don’t feel like starting up convo. I know it’s the same questions and answers, all while trying to look enthused  about repeating the same stuff for the past 20 days.

Arrived in Cairns and checked into my hostel, JJ’s Backpackers. Nice enough place. The owners are so accommodating. They made us a huge sausage BBQ (I’m so sick of sausages!) with tons of side foods. Apparently, they do that every Saturday night, which is so extremely appreciated for backpackers who live off of pasta. That night, I met up with Flo from the Whitsunday trip. Met the people at his hostel, drank some quality Goon and we went off to WOOLSHED, the notorious backpacker party pub. Lonely Planet quoted it as, ‘if you can’t get laid at Woolshed, you can’t get laid anywhere.’ We had an awesome night. Then the next morning, he was leaving to go to Bali. One of the cons of traveling: you find someone you actually enjoy being with, but you both have different travel plans and more than likely will never see then again in your life. Today I hung out at the Lagoon—this free pool in the heart of Cairns. There’s not much of a beach so everyone recovers from their hangovers here. The weather sunny and wonderfully hot—about time! I’d be waiting for this. At the Lagoon, they had Saturday markets of little booths of clothing, jewellery, etc. I met an older American man (50ish) and we talked for awhile about young travelers in Australia. The Gap Year concept (travelling around the world after high school or uni) is so common, its actually encouraged in European countries. The concept is so unheard of in the States. He was just amazed listening to how young travellers do it, the idea of hostel rooms, how we travel around, where we go. He went on a day boat trip and met tons of young foreigners. He was surprised at how much they knew about our country and (for the most part), how intrigued they were with America. You don’t realize until you leave the country, but we are a huge powerhouse country. Whatever happens to our country effects the world. They knew more about us, because their economy is likely determined by our economy. Our pop culture is widely known. Travellers from all countries know the major movie stars, actors and singers. The only con to them being so interested in us is: we know nothing about them.

7^th stop—Cape Tribulation May 17-18

Wanderers booked a Cape Trib tour with Tropics Explorer. This company will pick me up from my hostel, drop me off at my Cape Trib hostel, pick me up again, drop me off at Port Douglas hostel, then finally pick me up from Port Douglas to go back to Cairns. Pretty sweet deal! Otherwise it costs $75 for a shuttle to pick and drop you off.  They picked me up at 8am, and drove the most magnificent, windy, spiral highway Capt Cook Highway which borders the ocean. It was one of the drives where car companies use for commercials. We went an hour crocodile boat cruise, where we saw 5 crocs. We went to a couple amazing lookout points, learned that one of their biggest crops is sugar cane, and after 2 hours of driving, made it into the rainforest Daintree. This is the 2^nd biggest rainforest in the world, next to the Amazon (aka Holly would’ve loved it). Did some bushwalking (aka normal walking) through the rainforest and marveled at the trees. Stayed at PK’s Village, ‘supposedly’ the party resort, set in the jungle with not another business for a mile. Before coming out to the large breathtaking beach of Cape Trib, you pass through the rainforest. Back home, its just straight to the beach, or coming out from your hotel on the beach. Here its so secluded, lying on the beach in front and the green rainforest and high mountains behind you. Really so beautiful. Met a really sweet, fun girl, Charlotte from England. That night we played a couple rounds of some fun card game. Absolutely no party at night and barely anyone was there. It was the most boring hostel I’ve ever stayed in. They had a nice bar/ restaurant, but meals costs between $9- $20. Char and I decided to go to the local convenience store and buy some cheap food. We bought tuna, wheat rolls, eggs, baked beans. Out of the ordinary combos huh? After splitting  the price, it costs us a whopping $4 for 1 dinner, 1 breakfast and 1 lunch, quite the deal. We went to bed at 10pm; that’s super early at a hostel! They also charged you for everything! You had to pay for plastic plates, cups, utensils, etc. The kitchen facility was crap so we ate straight out of the pan/bowl. The tin openers were secured to the metal sink with a metal wire. There was no microwave. It was just crap. We had the most interesting meals though: tuna with sweet chili sauce and couscous out of the Tupperware container for lunch. Repeat with eggs on top for dinner. It was so ghetto and looking disgusting, but seriously so good.  

8^th stop—Port Douglas May 18-20

2 weeks into traveling, my very last week and I’m finally having fantastically warm sunny weather. The company picked me up from the PK’s and dropped me off an hour south in Port Douglas, a rich resort seaside town.  When you drive into the main part of town, the road is lined with palm trees, as if you’re entering a resort. Again there is one major street with shops and pubs. There’s also a beautiful marina at the end of the road. On the other end of the road, is 4 Mile Beach, a smooth flat endless beach. I went for a run on it and it was better than running on the road. I stayed at Parrotfish Lodge, one of the nicest hostels I’ve ever stayed at. Has a great bar with cheap food, colorful large rainbow colored rooms and a pool lounge area, not to mention extremely helpful staff! On my first day there, I walked around the town and down to the marina. There’s not much to do at Port. I really wanted to do a horse ride. Wagga Beach Ride picked me up for a 3.5 hour horse ride on the beach. We had a small group: the cute young guide, me, and 2 italians on their honeymoon who’d never ridden before. I live on a farm and obviously have some experience on a horse. Just my luck, they give me the slowest horse out of 32! I was sooo pissed off I would never recommend it again. What really made me love the trip was the bus driver, Tom. For an hour, Tom told me all about his life, living on a ranch and working as a sheep shearer for 25 years in the middle of nowhere towns of Australia. These weren’t the touristy, they were places where getting to use a phone was a big deal.  He told me you get really close to the people you’re working with all the time, but then you’re sent to different locations every 2-3 weeks for a new job. He still keeps in touch with many of his old shearing friends. They all slept in the same hotel/hostel. Showers weren’t showers. They were cold water pumped from a well and dumped on your body. Every night they would go out to the local bars and start bar fights and pick up girls. It was absolutely fascinating listening to him talk about ‘the real Australia’. That was the best part of the whole trip in Port Douglas. It’s meeting open, friendly people that make each travelling experience so unique.

9^th stop—Back to Cairns May 20-22

I arrived back to Cairns with just a couple days left on my big tropical adventure. I stayed at Bohemia Resort (where I stayed with my mom) only because it came with the travel package. It’s a nice hostel, a great pool and a yummy free weat bix breakfast, but its entirely too far into the main heart of the city where the action and fun happen. They have shuttles that only go until 11pm, while other hostels run theirs until 4am (which is obviously much needed!). I walked home one night and it took 25 minutes! Normally I wouldn’t mind it, but at 3 in the morning I did!

The best part about Cairns, is its very backpacker friendly. Most hostels will have vouchers for free meals at 3-4 local pubs. Free food includes: some type of pasta, bangers and mash, chicken schnitzel (fried chicken), fish and chips. Or you can upgrade for $5-7 to a healthier option: grilled chicken with honey mustard, salmon, salad, etc. The bars and hostels all fight for backpacker money so they’re always advertising free food. They usually the backpackers will stay at the pub they ate dinner at. The notorious WOOLSHED gives you free meal, drink and dessert for under $10. It’s not dainty portion sizes either, they’re pretty massive. Definitely enough to fill you up.

The night I got back I did a pub crawl around 5 bars. It was alright—met loads of people. They played very sexual games which made it a surefire way for people to drink and hook up. See the pictures! Funny pictures but when horny people got drunk and obnoxious fast, I was rather annoyed. Since I’m generally sober with strangers, the guys were hitting on the very young immature easy girls.

The next morning I got super early and did a boat trip out to the Reef again, because it was included as free with my package. It was with Reef Daytripper. The actual ride out was 2 hours so the 25 passengers laid on the catamaran. It was a fairly quiet group, didn’t meet many people. Most of them all came together so they didn’t venture out to meet new people. The snorkeling at Upolu Cay was pretty great. On each boat trip, there’s always the option of doing a dive or 2. I never pass them up since I’ll never get to dive in warm water back home. We went through a bunch of caves and tunnels but after doing the Yongala, it was absolutely nothing in comparison. I think every dive after that will just disappoint me immensely. The weather was warm and beautiful so that made up for any lack of repeated conversation. The boat trip (Passions of Paradise) I did with mom in March was much better, more interesting people to talk to. The staff wasn’t that friendly, they seemed bored and didn’t interact with anyone.

Summary of travelling

When I first started this trip, I knew this month would fly the fastest out of the 4 I’ve been here. It definitely has. I’m packing up now, hoping my pink suitcase is under the weight limit of 23 kilos (50 pounds). This was my first ‘backpacker’ experience, of constantly being on the move, living with other people and always rearranging your suitcase. It’s always so nice to return home though. Living out of a suitcase and sleeping on buses sounds like the rockstar life. I was just missing my screaming fans, haha. I’m so glad that I did this trip, first one of many more to come. I proved to myself that I can live out of a suitcase, make decisions, make trips on time (you know, just barely) and befriend people I just met. I’m supposed to be flying home on June 29, but I feel like I’m just getting a taste of OZ. Ahhh what do the next few months hold?

I am not one to shy away from a challenge so I was pretty pleased to discover the Blog This website through another blogger (The Lovely Leila). I suspect this is just going to become another way for me to procrastinate – if you know anything about me, you will know that when it comes to procrastination I need no assistance! – but I’m going to give it a go anyway.

Here is the challenge:

Everyone loves Holidays. Everyone has had a holiday – be it a great big backpacking adventure, a luxury weekend away,a caravan trek as a kid with the family taking in Big Bananas, Big Prawns, Big Pineapples et al, Camping in the neighbours yard under the stars for a few nights. Elaborately planned holidays, impromptu ‘let’s get out of here’ holidays. Blog about a holiday you’ve had that stands out – adventure, relaxation, family, friends, disaster, hilarious events! Who were you with? Where did you go? What made it so memorable? Share a photo if you want!

I am a huge fan of holidays. My friends are always picking on me about the fact that I am either on holiday or planning my next one and they are mostly right. As I type this I have 4 holidays ‘on the go’ in my planning book; The ultimate year long campervan adventure around Australia, The spiritual journey through Peru, The whirlwind backpacking adventure through India and Nepal, and the foodie paradise European jaunt. I’m hoping that at least two of them will happen in the next 48 months, and I expect that one – either India/Nepal or Peru – will be the backdrop for my 30th birthday next year, fingers crossed anyway!

It’s hard for me to pick a holiday to write about, because each holiday holds such special meaning for me and each of them has shaped me in some way. My first holiday with my husband (back when he was just ‘that cute boy I like’) where we quit our jobs and packed our lives into his car and spent 4 weeks driving from Melbourne to Perth and camping on the side of the road, before the car broke down in the desert leaving us stranded. My first time overseas – Christmas bungee jumping and drinking beer in Bali. ‘Finding myself’ by spending six months backpacking through South East Asia. Long weekends of foodie bliss in Melbourne. Sweltering summers filled with parties and drama with my Perth crew. Exploring rural Vietnam on the back of a motorcycle. Skydiving weekends in Temora NSW (lol – not the best holiday destination, I wouldn’t recommend it).. the list goes on, and they have all stood out, for some reason or another. Friendships were forged, memories made, heartbreak witnessed.. there was adventure and discovery and wonder.

I guess the most special holiday – of recent times anyway – would have to be my wedding and honeymoon earlier this year, it had everything: six weeks, 3 countries, family, friends, luxury, fun, disaster:

One of the problems with being a nomad, is that it involves a lot of leaving people behind, you spend a lot of your time saying goodbye. Because of that, getting married was very much about being able to get all the people we love in one place at one time. It seemed silly to have everyone travel to Sydney for the day, when we could travel somewhere new and interesting and since the (now) husband and I love to travel we decided that we would choose somewhere that none of us had been before to have our wedding. We decided, in the end, on sweltering Far North QLD, specifically the Daintree Rainforest. Our friends and family flew from all over the country and we all spent the week before the wedding in Port Douglas, drinking and eating our days away, lazing by the pool, having nanna naps in the afternoons. Each morning we would meet for breakfast in the hotel restaurant, dragging tables across the room to form an island where we would kiss each other good morning and eat toast and eggs while comparing hangovers and planning the day ahead. During the days we broke up into groups and did various activities, we scuba dived the Great Barrier Reef, went whitewater rafting, scoured markets by the water, did road trips through the cane fields and rainforests, had massages and facials, went shopping. It was wonderful.

The wedding itself was perfect, the setting was beautiful, and the whole day was lovely. Having our closest friends and family by our side, our short – but lovely – 4 minute ceremony, exchanging rings, the nerves and excitement, the ridiculous music requests at the reception, the food, our friend’s altered tuxedo, Mum walking me down the aisle, everything about it was exactly what we hoped for. Well except for the part where I cried all the way down the aisle, that was just embarrassing!

The morning after the wedding running on 3 hours sleep, my new husband and I woke up well before dawn and drove from our beautiful cabin in the rainforest along the windy coastal road to the Cairns airport. It was steamy, even though the sun was still 2 hours from rising, we drove with the air conditioner on full. We flew from Cairns to Sydney, caught a train to transfer us between terminals before getting on a flight to Fiji. Our first night we spend on Nadi mainland – we were exhausted and there was no point wasting a night at our super expensive resort when we had arrived so late and were so beat – but somehow there had been a miscommunication with the hotel and they had lost our booking. Luckily people tend to be extra nice to honeymooners and we managed to get a room where we promptly fell asleep.. how romantic!

The next morning we caught a bus to Denarau, spent an hour on the ferry and then were whisked from the ferry to our new – very luxurious – resort in a tiny little boat with an outboard motor. The Fijian men, shiny and smiling, pointed out parts of the island as we approached, the sun was shining, everything radiated with beauty.. it was like a brochure. The water was so clear we could see the colourful fish swimming along side the boat. We arrived at the resort and it was like the whole place existed just for us. A band met us at the pier singing the ‘welcome song’ and we were greeted with cocktails and ferried to the restaurant where we were placed in a quiet corner and bought the lunch menus. I’m ashamed to admit how much we paid for this holiday, I can’t even think about it without feeling overwhelmed but it was worth it for the special touches, like the personal menu they made up for me when they realised I was vegetarian, the chef created it specially for me when we arrived and a new one was created for me each morning. We were taken to our room – in a golf buggy – a huge and beautiful bure set right on the beach, with our own private plunge pool, a day bed set up with champagne and strawberries.. what bliss!

We spent 3 incredible days, eating unimaginably good meals, stuffing ourselves silly – huge buffets for breakfast, 3 course lunches, 4 course dinners. We had massages and walked along the beach at sunset, ate warm cookies delivered in the afternoon by the restaurant staff. It was absolute heaven.. until the rain came.

I have never seen anything like it, I was sure that the roof was going to fly off our Bure at any moment. Coconuts flew from trees and crashed on the ground, branches fell, waves crashed so ferociously that I feared we would be swept away. We were on the edge of a cyclone, though we didn’t know it at the time – no TVs in paradise. Then, as if the weather wasn’t bad enough, I got sick from the water, I couldn’t get out bed, except to crawl the bathroom and back. Eating was out of the question. I spent 2 days lying in bed moaning and listening to the rain and the wind. On the third day the manager of the hotel came and knocked on our door, worse weather was on the way, we were being evacuated. They gave us 20 minutes to pack our things but I was still sick and I hadn’t eaten in days so hubby did all the work. They wrapped our bags in big black garbage bags and off we went, huddling under a tiny umbrella as we rushed to the pick up point. They piled us into a tiny little boat with a tarp overhead (you think I’m making this up don’t you?) and we climbed aboard. They started her up and took us out into open water. It was black and raining, the wind howled and our little boat rocked and pitched. I watched the lightening in the distance and wondered if this was how I was going to die. I fought back nausea – from my illness as much as motion sickness – and waited. We sat there like that – our shiny Fijian men now as solemn as we were – for over an hour while we waited for the ferry to come and pick us up. I could have cried with relief when I saw it.

All the islands had been evacuated so the ferry was filled to the brim with soggy tourists, I briefly wondered what we would do if the ferry sank, we were clearly over capacity. In my mind I saw the news story complete with crash footage but I was too exhausted to dwell on it. I found a dry spot in the corner of the ferry where the bags were stowed and sat down – I couldn’t have stayed standing if I tried – I closed my eyes and waited. After what seemed like hours the ferry docked back at Denarau. I’d never been so happy to see dry land – even if it did seem soggier than expected. We picked up our bags and started heading to where we could get a taxi and find the hotel which the guys at the resort had booked for us in advance but as we turned a corner we saw hundreds of tourists milling about looking worried. A man – Australian – stood up on a box and shouted for us all to be quiet. He told us that Fiji had been hit by the worse storms in 20 years and that Nadi was completely flooded. He told us that there was no way off Denarau, that he didn’t know how long it would take for the flood waters to recede, that all the accommodation was already booked and that if you didn’thave accommodation you would have to sleep where you stood. I sent up a quick thank you to the gods of likuliku for having the foresight to book us somewhere in advance (and sent them a huge tip once we were home safe and sound) and got bundled into a taxi who took us to our hotel. It was more like a disaster zone than a resort, filled with worried locals who had been working and unable to get home for 3 days straight, and tourists wondering if they would ever get dry again. We were still drenched from the adventure in the little boat and we had to wait 2 hours for our room to be ready but we didn’t care.

When finally we got to our room we ordered room service (steamed vegetables for the sick girl), had showers and hung our clothes around the room to dry before falling into a catatonic sleep – what a day! The next day we woke up to find a note slid under our door from the management of the hotel. They still didn’t know when the roads would be opened. They had no way of getting fresh food to the hotel, we were on food restrictions until further notice, no more room service, instead they were having 2 buffets in the restaurant one at lunch and one at dinnertime using whatever provisions they had. I survived the next few days on mashed potatos and bread rolls – sometimes being a vegetarian can be very inconvenient and this was one of those times – practically everything on offer had some kind of meat in it. I was getting pretty weak after my illness and not eating for days and I briefly considered eating some chicken stirfry for the protein but chickened (haha) out when it came time to actually eat it. I couldn’t bring myself to put the meat in my mouth – I was feeling sick anyway and idea of eating meat was making it worse so I stuck with the bread rolls and hoped that we would get out soon. We stashed bottles of water in our backpacks from the mini bar and the shop downstairs just in case things got worse.

After 3 nights at the hotel we got notice that the roads were open and that although it wasn’t completely safe yet more rain was expected so if we wanted out we should get out now. Our flight wasn’t until the next day, but we didn’t want to risk getting stranded again so we made a break for it, even though it would mean spending a night at the airport. Driving through Nadi was devestating, the town was in tatters, and still very much submerged. The whole place was littered with rubbish and bits of houses and trees. Peoples homes were destroyed, schools in pieces. It was like a war zone – a wet one. We made it to the airport in one piece and settled in for the long wait until our flight the next day.. for 30 hours we waited and then finally we were on our way home. Well technically we were on our way to New Zealand where the second part of our honeymoon started, but you get the drift.

The one thing I can say, is that through it all the Fijian people were amazing, they were so considerate and wonderful to us. These people were watching their homes get destroyed, they were cut of from family and friends and not once did anyone treat us with impatience or rudeness. They were truly wonderful, though that isn’t really enough to convince me to visit the country again. The next phase of our honeymoon was really great, it was that trip that convinced us to make the move to New Zealand full time (though, I’m willing to concede that maybe it was just so great in comparison!). But I have to admit that I am still a little traumatised by bad weather, if I wake up in the middle of the night and it’s particularly rainy my heartrate raises a little, and after that holiday I have changed my ‘ideal home’ plans, before Fiji I always thought it would be so beautiful to live right on the beach like that, but now I realise that the ocean can be a very scary place and that the sound of waves crashing on the shore can be as terrifying as it is relaxing.

There are some people who have heard the story of our honeymoon and feel so sorry for us, I’m sure that some of them even think it is a sign of bad juju in our marriage but I feel quite the opposite. I figure if we can survive something like that in the first week of our married life then we can survive anything. And truly it really was a wonderful feeling to know that no matter what was thrown at me that week, my wonderful husband was right by my side holding my hand and carrying my bags and making sure that I was going to be okay. That’s a pretty great feeling.

Here is a bit of a photo montage of the holiday
(NB: the photos of the wedding day were taken by Shaun at Port Douglas Photography).

The Perfect Day to be Burnt

The last day in Cairns started off with rainy weather. We were close to a tropical rainforest so that made complete sense. I think that in the summer, it would be worse in terms of heat and moisture. But checking out of the hotel was sad considering we had spent so much time there. It was like a home, sniff sniff. But we had hours before our flight, and we had conveniently hired a car so that we didn’t have to take a taxi back to the Airport. By the way, parking is a BITCH in Cairns – especially when you’re with a European, cos in Europe – any space will do. I have seen them park on footpaths, just because it’s closer, and when one car does it, all of them do it.

Alright, the plan was to have breakfast at Coffee Club and then go sunbaking (not me of course, I am already black now). It was the closest place to have a coffee near the lagoon, and it was good. She had these little pan cakes that were around the side of her main pan cakes, and I just had these massive ones with a hole inside so that they can shove more cream. I prefer peaches though, I should just carry around a can of peaches with me. Ma biche was always making comments that the servings in Australia were massive. In comparison to France yes, but in comparison to the US that’s a big HELL NO. We’re fatter based on the servings.

Anywho – the lagoon is the only place that you can swim in Cairns. There’s no where else, unless you wanted to attempt swimming in the former estuary of Cairns beach. You would have to wade through a shit load of crab holes and mud, with the added risk of random Crocodiles and the sand flies. No. The lagoon does its job. It’s not just warm from the sun, but from the shit load of kids that pee in it. It would have been funny had they the chemical that makes it turn yellow, I would have been totally busted.

So we find a place to sit, under a tree – where Marine was going to take the full force of the sun. Her poor european skin wasn’t going to make it, but it’s not like I didn’t bloody warn her. I was under the tree sipping a slurpy (totally Simpsons, but it was nice mango flavoured one which I haven’t had before). She may have been reading one of the twilight books while she read as well (so meh). But the parking for the car was going to run out, so I walked off to change the parking – I brought a towel so that I could block the sun around me, cos it was even burning me.

I managed to move the car, and buy a whole bunch of souvenirs from a store (cos every time I try to buy something for ma biche, she is always there). I went to the ONLY souvenir store in Cairns NOT run by asians, and she gave me a discount (a REAL one, not the put a fake price tag on the item and then bring it down). Lady was nice, it’s the store near the kebab place. Anywho – I was proudly bringing back the items when ma biche announces she had been burnt. I never realised it, but apparently, if you miss a spot with the lotion, that part of your skin burn. I just assumed the lotion spread by itself. But hay, she got herself a tan. It was autumn, and you can still get your ass burnt in Australia.

We went for another swim, where I peed in the water again with Marine knowing. She, like most others, just assumed the water had a sudden warm draft. It wasn’t a draft, it was pee. I also never got why they have these bloody fish, what the hell are they for? They don’t even squirt water like the ones in Brisbane. Anywho – it was a great trip, a first taste of Australia for ma biche.

Bushwalk in the Jungle – I hate walking …

For the people who’ve read theunaustralian, you know how lazy I am. I gotta say though, for myself – the first time I was in Rome I was walking 5hours straight – but I was actually looking at stuff like monuments, statues and white people. In the jungle, you’re basically looking at jungle. Maybe I was looking for animals, but I wasn’t really hopeful considering I didn’t see any wild animals last year, except that fucking tiny crocodile on that boat tour. But I can admire the beauty for a little longer, if all goes well I won’t be seeing it again anytime soon. Seeing it more than a few hours at a time can be a bit overwhelming though, I should have brought a whole bag of food with me.

Alright – to get to Cape Tribulation, your car needed to cross the ferry. Yes, you had to pay which was a pain in the ass. But to be honest, I would have rather paid than taken a tour bus – to be stuck with a shit load of Americans or Asians would have been a fucking nightmare. Answering questions like, “where are you from?” and “what are you doing here?“, “why do you sound like that?” and “can you take our picture?” It would have resulted in many drownings. Not that it woud be such a great loss, might even increase the populations of crocodiles. Then the Japanese would technically be eating Japanese.

The poor little Hyundai Getz, torrented by rain and wind – was seriously panicking about the little car. Some irrational fear about the ferry tipping over with all the cars falling in. The only thing keeping me sane was the fact that there were cars behind me and cars in front. Their cars would go in first, and give me enough time to escape, swim past all the crocodiles eating the dead bodies floating out of the cars.

God, that must be the most boring job ever. Going back and for across a 50metre wide river. Maybe he wished the stupid thing would tip, least he would get a huge cash settlement and destroy the monotony of his life. BTW that big blue butterfly you see there is a Ulysses butterfly. They’re massive – and they stand out HEAPS amongst the green bush.

Anywho – after sunbaking and exploring the beach, a walk was planned. Lunch would have been nice, but the places I ended up driving to were closed for renovations, and the only place left was a kiosk run by gay guys an an Aboriginal woman. I felt a bit bad because I was certain she was illiterate, but the woman got a job at least – more than I can say for the population of the Australia who are literate and using their skills to complain about the government when they’re leeching off the doll from the tax. I fukn hate dole bludgers, they also tend to be the most ignorant/racist of all Australians.

Anywho – all along the Daintree, you have these free walks that range from 30mins long to 8 hours long. Was funny, cos some of the walks warn you to head back before light because people get lost and die. But the walk was quite safe, nothing really scary in there to get us – we don’t have bears, wolves and lions. You’re more likely to die from a snake bite, if you’re stupid enough to walk around barefoot looking for them. The scenery was enough for me. And these Fan Palms were everywhere, made the forest look a lot more darker than it actually was.

This was heaps better than actually having a tour of the place, you could totally go at your own pace. Was very Adam & Eve – but I just wished I saw an animal. I was complaining about this last year, just have a python spring out, or a bloody koala fall out from a tree – I coudn’t give a fuck. If an Aborigine fell from a tree busy hunting a goanna, at least I would have seen something native. Maybe he would share it with me, cos I fucking hate goannas.

Cape Tribulation & the Daintree

This is HANDS DOWN the best beach I have ever seen in Australia. Honestly the most beautiful beach, I know I love Manly from the very depths of my cold, dark heart – but I can’t even describe what it was like walking through to this beach. I think part of the beauty is that the beach is completely surrounded by the Daintree, and that there are no people here (especially those darn noisy ass Amercans). AND the silence, there is no noise except the sounds of waves. I loved it there … it was like the most perfect part of Australia. Ha ha ha, but to get here, I had to drive 2 & half hours to get there, cross the Daintree river via a cable boat, 1 hr through the Daintree – the entire journey made up of hills and dark forest with VERY tight roads, parts of the road had rushing rivers running over it which we had to drive through with our Hyundai getz AND the worst part is I couldn’t really swim because of the plentiful & deadly box jelly fish present in all the waters of the Daintree …

My dear friends, when you see how beautiful this place is, you wouldn’t want to leave. My plan to make her fall in love with Australia was set in place … swiftly ruined by the sunburn we both got, but that’s another story. Basically the aim was to get Marine to a beach she would love so that she could go sun baking.  Me – not too interested in the process of blackening my skin, so I went for a jog and explored bush tucker man style. Not Steve Irwin style, cos that shit would get me killed.

I found this ltitle creek, very yellow coloured water, and as I waded through it – all these little fish & crabs scattered as I walked through the creek. Seriously, this was everything I wanted to see – absolute wilderness … practically no tourist, just some random photographers and a bunch of guys playing with a soccerball – who were getting WAY to close to ma biche, I mean – who do they think they are approaching her!!! Anywho – I was quickly making my way back to her, lying down – but they made their way past her, running toward me – then past me to actually play soccer … gay.

So basically, she was sitting there making plans for our trip, didn’t even noticed them – and me huffing and puffing because a bunch of guys taller/bigger than me came to near her. Amazing how quickly I can become a stupid ape species commonly found in Parrammatta  … but anywho – I crawled back into my hiding place in the bush (you can see the towel there, lots of leaf ants that spit acid) so that I can move away from the sun. But really, just sitting there you basically have tthis amazing rainforest behind you.

And the coral sea in front of you. There were actually snorklers in there, which made me think that there weren’t that many box jelly fish in there … I went for a dip a couple of times. Very warm and salty water, was quite nice except the fear of dying. If I were nearer to an actual town, I probably would have done it. But the nearest sign of life was at least 30mins away driving – the closest building was a toilet …

We did eventually take a walk together, and we came upon a creek that reminded me strongly of the picturebook, Where the Forest Meets the Sea, that one with the little white kid going through the daintree with his Grandad. Got here in the end stupid kindegarten teacher!!! That’s right, I got a job and flew my ass here! Anywho – it was a creek that led directly into the forest.

And as nice as it was, I was not keen wading through water I couldn’t see, especially when it is this colour. There are more things than just crocodiles in there, I also didn’t tell Marine we have giant Pythons in Australia … ha ha ha. But where there are mangroves, there are sandflies and mosquitos – again, would have done it if I were closer to civilisation, this isn’t exactly a place an abulance can get to. You get stung, bitten, strangled here – you die here. That’s probably part of the beauty as well here too.

We got the sun Marine wanted, I got the adventure and experience I wanted too in the end – it was a brilliant idea to go here (mine) and it was just pure spectacular, and I am HARDLY ever positive about Australia. This is probably worth the visit, do before you die peoples – especially if you’re in Cairns.

The ONLY shit that fucked me up was this SHIT. What DUMB fuck of a BOGAN derro ASS bitch thinks that it is okay to throw their rubbish in this place. Seriously – it’s the FUCKING DAINTREE – this ISNT IPSWITCH you FUCKING Pauline Hanson voting dumb fuck – and yes it was and Australian (Queenslander), it’s fucking XXXX beer! On top of that I found a kite, water bottle (that was definitely an asian cos of the chinese writing) AND a nappy. YES – a GOD damn NAPPY!!! What PISSED me off more than ANYTHING is the look people were giving me as I was carrying it back to the car trying to find a bin …

Port Jackson, the Daintree & Mossman Gorge

So we wake up the next day, the weather is sucking balls as usual – but we have to take a cab to the Airpot to pick up the car I hired from Avis. It was a tiny, red Hyundai Getz. Fukn awesome car to drive around, especially because it was manual! Seriously, drive one – you’ll love how crap it accelerates. I am not lying, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Especially because my biche isn’t used to my way of driving (bah ha ha ha – no, I think I am a good driver though). Anyway, I decided to hire a car instead of doing a tour, since I have already done the last year – I can show her myself. So we started off with the 1.5hr drive to Port Jackon and then the 30min drive to Mossman Gorge (as seen above). Last year, I wholly regretted not being able to swim in the Daintree, and luckily I was able to do it this year. Marine on the otherhand was hesistant because of the Crocs (bah ha ha).Port Douglas

Breakfast was at this health food place on the main strip of Port Douglas, across the road from the Coles. We were trying to halt the onslaught of fatty foods that Australia has to offer. I didn’t really care in the end, food is food – I just want my jelly (which you can see on the top, right hand corner). I had the big breakfast of course, perfectly presented with proper hash browns. Must have been $18 I think. I fucking missed baked beans with eggs and toast!

Marine’s one must have been $12. God – usually I am good with the prices, but usually (when I used to do this blog properly anyway, and I used to convert everything to Australian dollars) I completed the blog on the day it happened. Nowadays, I don’t have the time to do that. I don’t like poached eggs, boiling a cracked egg is just not right. But my experience of the Australian tomato has been good. That stuff tastes sweet in Australia, cos seriously – in England it has the taste of lime with the texture of mashed potato.

Anywho – I had already taken photos of Port Douglas beach last year, and though we spent an hour or so on the beach, it wasn’t worth taking a photo since it had recently rained and the beach looked like shit. It had washed up leaves/bark/sea weed/dead animals etc strewn across the sand so it wasn’t a very pleasant sight. The tour guide said last year that the beach was shit, and he wondered why people came there – I guess he was right, but ma biche got some sun, so it was all good. So did my cool Hyundai Getz, I looked cool driving it – and it went faster cos it was red!

Anywho – we hung out at the Sunday Markets – filled to the brim with white people. No ethnics in sight, except the odd Aborigine and random Asian (me). There were these little kids playing the flute for money (beggar kids) who looked absolutely dirty, definitely Mt Druitt types. But who could blame them when the whole market was bloody muddy. The place was a tourist trap, people buying shit imported from Asia and sold 1000% profit. There were some bags that Marine liked, and it looked like Filipinos were selling them – they ended up being Thai people … god damn it, I hate Thai people assholes look so much like us.

The Daintree & Mossman Gorge

As we were lying on the beach, we were deciding what to do next. The weather wasn’t really good for sunbaking (it was a bit cloudy, and like I said – the beach was a bit shit house). So we headed off to the Daintree. Was much more beautiful this time round, considering I didn’t have to listen to some guy pointing at random fern. AND we could go at our own pace. Even got to point out the Aborigine Communities they had nearby (was sort of hard to explain how that worked). But yeah – got to the Daintree, I can’t believe I remembered how to get there (cos I fucking rock). I was expressing my deep excitement to swim, couldn’t freaken wait! Ma poor biche was still scared of the crocodiles. (Btw – the photo above wasn’t taken with my camera, it was Marine’s).

(Again not my camera) – Last time, I wasn’t really able to take it all in. Seriously, this time round it was excellent. The photos definitely did not look like this. There was no rushing around this time, and no me complaining about some fat emo who put me on a tour bus with all these bloody old pepole. Instead, I was stuck with a hot French chick! Bah ha ha – or she was stuck with me. She had no one to translate her French into the local dialects, otherwise we would have been lost. The Queensland derro is quite similar to the Mt Druitt derro accent … my Marayong dialect is still effective though.

Anywho – quick snap of a local near the white water of the Mossman Gorge. The water tasted NICE!!! It was yellow looking for some reason, it was aqua last year – but it was NICE! I thought it was cold at first, but it really wasn’t – it was just cold in comparison to the 30degrees outside the water. It was fucking HARD to swim through that current though, seriously – no wonder people are killed underneath those rocks – there’s no pushing past that. But you would have to be bloody stupid to do that anyway.

Anywho – managed to coax Marine into the water. Convinced her that a crocodile would have a shit load of difficulty climbing up the moutain, through the white water into the Mossman Gorge, past the hungry Japanese folk. She was quite afraid at first, but the bugs outside the water scared her. Or was it a tiny ant … I don’t know which. But she got in. So we left out passports in a bush and we both got in the tranquil water of the Daintree, with some fat white woman staring perplexed at the mixed race couple getting it on in the water.

I make it look like there was only Marine & I – but there were a lot of families there on the easter weekend. Heaps. Germans too (and they’re the only ones who would be likely to be bitten by a Crocodile, even in the Mossman Gorge – I love the Germans, but they seem to be the only people in Australia stupid enough to approach Crocodiles besides the experts). But I have to say, swimming in the Mossman Gorge was nearly equal to snorkling in the Barrier Reef. I really enjoyed myself there, and was glad to have finally done what I genuinely wanted to do last year. Probably made even more better because I was able to share it with ma biche.

Again, not much wild-life this year. Which was a bit disappointing, though we did catch sight of a wild turkey. He he he – get it? Wild Turkey – only figured that one out recently. Bah ha ha ha. I am so funny. Wobble gobble.

A les  7am  un minibus em recull a l’hotel, avui toca anar cap a Daintree i Cape Tribulation.  El guia és molt simpàtic i  sap espanyol. En el tour hi ha una madrilenya que viu a London.

Primera parada al parc zoològic de Port Douglas. Com tots, amb cangurs, koales, ocells… hi ha un moment que estàs saturat de tanta fauna i flora. El més destacat d’aquest parc és poder esmorçar entre  ocells. Dins d’una gran gàbia hi ha un munt de taules de fusta i un bar. Els ocells estan lliures i paren a les taules a picar tot el que poden.  Els nens flipen quan els canaris  s’aturen a les seves espatlles, com a les pelis de pirates.

canaris

Continuació fins a Daintree. Passem amb ferry el riu Daintree. El trajecte és ràpid, 5 minuts. El paissatge és espectacular, sembla que estigui dins de la peli Park Jurassic. Grans arbres, tot verd, aigua per tot arreu… i cocodrils immòbils a la vora del riu. Ens endinsem dins de la jungla, “rainforest”. La carretera circula al costat del mar.

Oooooooooh!! dinem en un restaurant al costat de la platja. És fantàstic, té piscina i platja pròpia. Les palmeres toquen la sorra blanca. La platja és llarguísssima. Està ple de petits crancs que han fet els seus nius a la sorra escavant petits forats i treien la sorra a la superficie en forma de boles, és molt curiós. Sembla el paradís.  Recorda la platja de la sèrie Lost.

platja

De tornada cap a Cairns ens aturem per fer una petita excursió guiada per dins del rainforest. És increible!!! A través de passareles de fusta t’endinses en el bosc. Hi ha arbres altíssims que no deixen entrar la llum del sol. Veiem una serp enroscada i una aranya amb unes grans potes. És una zona molt humida i està plena de mosquits.

Rainforest

Per finalitzar el tour agafem un creuer que ens dóna una volta per riu. Podem veure fins a 5 cocodrils dormint sota dels arbres a la vora del riu. Ens veiem de petits, però també de més de 3 metres. Impressionen.

Cocodril

La tornada fins a Cairns és tranquila.

The notes get a little sketchy from here. All I know is that Thursday was spent cruising from Palm Cove to Kuranda, then on to the Atherton tablelands, stopping for rainforest walks and Devonshire tea at Lake Barrine along the way.

Friday, I think, we headed up to the Daintree. Palm Cove and the actual town of Daintree were underwhelming, but Mossman Gorge, and the Daintree river were lovely.

Saturday, Sunday and Monday were spent lazing by the pool, in defiance of the impending trip home, and also in defiance of every sunsmart commercial ever made, because by the time I returned home, I looked like Dr Zoidberg.

Iedereen van ons heeft ze… dromen!

Zo heb ik ook al jaren, jaren, jaren mijn droom… Australië zien! Als tiener spaarde ik met Artis de prentjes voor een boek van Australië. Vraag me nu niet hoe ik per sé bij dat boek van Australië gekomen ben?! Ik weet het zelf niet meer maar één ding weet ik wel, sindsdien heeft Australië me niet meer losgelaten.

Dan heb ik in mijn tienerjaren een hele tijd gecorrespondeerd met een meisje in Australië, Tricia heette ze. Dat was zo de periode van de penvriendinnen. Er waren organisaties waardoor je blijkbaar kon pennen met kinderen uit heel de wereld. Nu wordt er ge-e-maild maar toen was dat nog écht brieven schrijven. Ik heb toch wel enkele jaren met Tricia over en weer geschreven. De zin om naar Australië te gaan, is dus altijd gebleven.

Vorig jaar komt mijn mama dan met kousenvoetjes vertellen dat mijn zus op reis gaat naar… je raadt het al: Australië! Ze durfde het me zelf niet zeggen! Grrrr, stiekem was ik toch wel héél erg jaloers! Nadien hoorde ik dat ze eigenlijk maar een tiental dagen ginds zou zijn en toen was ik al veel minder jaloers want voor mijn droomreis zou ik WEL tijd nemen!

Maar voor mij zat Australië er nog steeds niet in… het prijskaartje dat eraan vasthangt was werkelijk té hoog! En eerst moest ik toch nog even verder sparen voor een andere auto want ik ging niet blijven rijden met m’n rode micraatje!

Ondertussen heb ik mijn rode micraatje vervangen voor een zwart micraatje en nu kan ik eindelijk beginnen sparen voor mijn droomreis! Ik wil niet wachten tot ik op pensioen ben hoor, wie weet ben ik er dan al niet meer…

Vorig weekend was Milan uitzonderlijk al van de vrijdag bij z’n papa en heb ik een hele zaterdag en een hele zondag op het internet gesurft, van de ene Australië-reissite naar de andere.

Ik wil mijn reis niet alleen doen want dan heb je gewoon niemand om al die ervaringen, impressies en emoties mee te delen. In a group of totally strangers… no way! Een hartsvriendin heb ik niet echt, een reispartner ook al niet, op mijn zus kan ik wat dat betreft ook niet rekenen… Je moet iemand vinden met wie je lief en leed wilt delen, met wie je je goed voelt, iemand die de tijd heeft, iemand die de passie deelt… Ik heb er héél lang over nagedacht maar ik wil die reis graag maken met Milan.

Als ik met Milan ga, ontneem ik een stuk mijn vrijheid in het reizen maar anderzijds is hij dan zelf wel een enorme ervaring rijker. En zeker niet onbelangrijk: wij beleven samen iets waarover we nog jaren zullen napraten (als ik hoor hoe dikwijls hij nu met zoveel goeie herinneringen over Turkije praat) Dit moet toch een superband creëren?!

Dus ik ben vorig WE op zoek gegaan naar sites die ook een beetje het reizen met kinderen naar verre bestemmingen promoten. Australië is daarbij toch wel iets of wat een probleem. Of beter de leeftijd is een probleem. Twaalf jaar lijkt me ideaal maar moet ik dan echt nog zo lang wachten want Milan werd er net acht…

Er staan enkele bestemmingen op mijn verlanglijstje die iets of wat “avontuurlijker” zijn… denk maar aan Ayers Rock. Op geen enkele site lijken kinderen onder de twaalf jaar “toegelaten” in de ruige Northern Territory. Het zal dan ook wel voor een reden zijn natuurlijk… Of als ze dan toch trips organiseren, vragen ze prijzen om van achterover te vallen! En dan moet ik om dat bedrag bijeen te sparen toch wachten tot hij twaalf is!

Om mijn reis zo aangenaam mogelijk te laten verlopen wil ik ook dat er enkele geleide pakketten inzitten. Maar volledig geleid is gewoonweg té duur! Ach ja, een individuele reis met huurwagen zie ik niet zitten… dat links rijden schrikt me echt af. Dus trein en vliegtuig zeker?!

Na meer dan 12 uren op ‘t net te surfen – op de meest prachtige plekjes van Australië te zijn geweest (virtueel dan wel te verstaan ) – ben ik er toch al uit welke bezienswaardigheden ik zeker niet wil missen. Ik zet ze even op een rijtje:

- Brisbane… Daar woont Tricia, die – dat had ik nog niet verteld – in 2006 weer contact met me heeft gezocht achter, zo’n 10 jaar zeker?! Ze zegt al een hele poos om haar eens te komen bezoeken en als ik dan toch naar Australië ga, kan ik het toch niet nalaten haar een bezoekje te brengen?!

- Van Brisbane gaat het dan naar Cairns met enkele noemenswaardige stops zoals Fraser Island, a”cattle station”, Carnarvon Gorge en the Whitsunday Islands.

- Eenmaal in Cairns: Cape Tribulation, Daintree River en natuurlijk the Great Barrier Reef.

- Alice Springs staat ook op m’n lijstje en zo richting Uluru, Kings Canyon, Katherine Gorge en Litchfield Park.

- We eindigen in Darwin.

Ben ik nog enkele trekpleisters vegeten die de moeite zijn?! Tell me!

Daar ik gepland heb tijdens onze zomervakantie te reizen, staat Sydney en Melbourne bijvoorbeeld niet op mijn lijstje.
Ik wil het perfecte plaatje en minder dan 20°C of regen past daar niet in!

Bon, klinkt allemaal goed hé… één nadeel, ik ben wat beginnen rekenen en ik zou – niet echt ruim gerekend – toch over zo’n 8000 euro budget moeten beschikken… euh, dus niet onmiddellijk voor sebiet dus… grrrrrrrrr!

Dus we dromen nog even verder…

Grtz, Béke

My first 10 days travelling were fairly luxurious: I stayed in a hotel in Singapore and on Sarah’s sofa in Sydney. Now I was alone and on a budget; the youth hostel beckoned…

I arrived in Cairns airport at 6pm with nowhere to stay and a five-year-old copy of the Rough Guide to Australia taking up 1kg of my luggage allowance. After picking up the rucksack I am to become fairly attached to, I was relieved to see a huge accommodation board in the corner of the terminal with a free telephone to check availability. Two phone calls later and I am sorted.

There are no taxis and two huge red-necked middle-aged Australians at the taxi rank. To my surprise, when a taxi turns up after a few minutes, they invite me to share a cab with them into town. I probably only spoke to two Australians that I wasn’t buying something off in Sydney, so this was an opportunity to double my tally. Although I tried to act cool by dropping in lots of “mate” and “cheers”, they immediately label me a pom.

My two new friends have just flown in from Wongamolla or somewhere equally bizarre-sounding. They have very little luggage, but a large polystyrene box with some impressive yellow tape wrapped around it emblazoned with the words “PASSED QUARANTINE”.

“So mate, what’s in the box?” I ask hesitantly.

“Ahhh mate, it’s a turtle…”

Apparently, one can hunt them in the place they just got back from, and the two of them had made a boys’ week away out of it. Then again, perhaps I just didn’t get the Australian sense of humour.

I had a couple of days to kill before my liveaboard diving trip to the Great Barrier Reef left from Cairns. So encouraged by my roommates at the hostel, I arranged a two-day trip up to Cape Tribulation, north of Cairns. Cape Tribulation was so named by Captain Cook in 1770 when his boat hit the reef and he had to stay put for three months to make repairs. This mishap combined with searing tropical heat and unfriendly locals lead the captain to name the cape after the trials and tribulations he experienced when based here. Nowadays the cape is magnet for backbackers who want to experience the fun of the World Heritage listed Daintree tropical rainforest.

When booking my trip to tropical Queensland, I had not properly investigated the weather, and although the south of Australia is in summer (even given the rain in Sydney), the north of Australia is actually in “wet season”. Within two hours of leaving Cairns and in the middle of a boardwalk (a trek through forest on a walkway) our entire party gets completely drenched within a couple of minutes. The extreme humidity also means our clothes can’t get dry until we return to civilization in Cairns.

I check into the Cape Tribulation Beach Hut with Clio (UK) and Khanh (Canada). “Hut” in this respect means “close to nature” (we are eco-tourists after all) and so all huts in the complex appear to have been colonised by these huge golden silk orb weaver spiders. Fortunately the colonisation has been limited to the exterior of the buildings and the insides appear to be invertebrate-free.

Golden Silk Orb Weaver outside my hut in Cape Tribulation

First adventure activity of the trip is jungle-surfing! This involves being kitted out in hard hat and safety harness and zip-lining between trees within the forest canopy about twenty metres above ground. Great fun had by all.

Alex aka Crocodile Dundee kitted out for zip-lining in Cape Trib

Khanh prepares to take a leap

Clio in mid-surf

Next adventure activity: a night-time rainforest walk. All the best wildlife is meant to come out at night, however I was a bit disappointed and getting a bit bored towards the end of this excursion, particularly when our guide started explaining the “three stages of spider web evolution”. Next adventure activity: how to get back to your hostel two miles away in the pitch black with more tropical rain threatening to make an appearance. Khanh, Clio and I had came to into Cape Trib town to enjoy a few bevies with some of the other people on our tour bus including Helen (UK). Once the bar had shut we needed to get back to our beach hut which was further away than promised – Khanh and Clio had already made the journey one-way. The solution? Get two Aussies to give us a lift in the back of their pick-up truck (called a “Ute”)

Next day, and the adventure continues: how about some horse-riding through the rainforest and along the beach? When my horse had two hooves in the sea and two on the dry sand, I was in theory inside two different World Heritage sites at the same time (the Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef). The group got up to a canter which was great fun considering some of us had little experience (my childhood memories of trotting in the New Forest now eclipsed).

Taking the horse for a little wander along the beach

For elevenses, we stopped off at a creek with a natural pool. I went for a swim and took along a biscuit to break up and feed to the fish. I misunderstood the advice from the guide however and didn’t realise I shouldn’t go swimming with the biscuit. Within seconds I’m surrounded by fish nibbling at my hand. Shocked by the creatures I can’t see, I let go of the biscuits sending mushy pieces all through the water. One obviously confused fish then mistakes my nipple for a tasty bit of cookie… my yelp was mistaken by some in our group as the start of a crocodile attack!

On the way back to Cairns, Helen, Clio, some more in our group and I swam in the famous Mossman Gorge. However, this was no creek, and anyone swimming in it has to make sure they aren’t swept down the river into the rapids!

All-in-all, Cape Tribulation was a little expensive (I suppose I did do a lot) but tremendously fun. I just had to make sure I got enough rest for the 6am start the next day to go diving; apologies to Helen for not making it out that evening