Cairns to Sydney- the end is near! :(

So this is the end of this journey, although we both have vowed to come back (relatively) soon. As soon as our pocketbooks recover... ;) Mike returned the car and took care of final business while I walked a bit of the Cairns Esplanade and took a few photos...It was a really sad morning, but I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to visit Australia and recommend that everyone who possibly can, put traveling here on their "to do" list. We have met so many amazing people from all over the world here!! Australians are infinitely warmer and friendlier than Americans- sorry homies...Anyway, on to the pictures...

So, now we are in Sydney with dinner and a few beers under our belts. Packing and getting ready to leave....Cheers for now... there will be a few more stories and underwater video of the reef snorkel. I'm anxious to see how the underwater video camera worked, but will deal with it when I get home and internet is not so crazy expensive. See ya' later....

Cairns- Day 3

Final day in Cairns and final full day in Oz- so sad...

We decided to rent a car and end things here the same way we ended in Hervey Bay- driving up the coast. We got a late start- 10:30 ish- and drove to Tjapukai Aboriginal Park. While there, we had a schedule of presentations and performances. We learned how to make and play a digeridoo and some aboriginal history, saw a performance of their creation story, watched them dance, learned about their tools and food/remedies from the rainforest, and threw spears and boomerangs (Mike was good at throwing). We were there in the middle of the day and were two of only a few other people at the park at that time, so the performers gave us pretty much private performances. It was very cool to learn about their culture and they were fun people!

After spending a few hours at the Aboriginal Park, we headed up the coast past Port Douglas and on toward Mossman and had lunch. I read about a gorge there and thought we could do a bit of hiking. (This was a part of Daintree National Park.) It was pretty much like the gorges we have in Vermont, but the vegetation was a bit more like rainforest- lots of fig trees and very tall tropical trees and plants...Mike was not as impressed as I was- having gone to Cornell, where the gorges were much bigger and steeper...oh well. We hiked around on our own for about an hour or so...It was pretty!

The hiked lasted longer than I thought and for a few minutes I wondered if we had gotten lost. No such luck :D. Onward and downward- this time to check out Port Douglas for a bit. This town is another gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, there are more tours to the outer reef points from this location. It looked like an upscale version of Cairns to us- lots of resorty type hotels and cafes and shops near the beach. There were stinger signs up and a stinger net- this is the last month of stinger (jellyfish) season here. It has been really strange to see miles and miles of beach and nobody swimming...

Four Mile Beach- Port Douglas

Next- back down the coast- it was getting late, so decided to head back to Cairns and stop by a couple of lookouts along the way. Most of the drive was up the coast with beautiful ocean views, so...

"Rex Lookout"



Back to Cairns for Indian food and gelato (at another shop) and then mango wine back at our room. (We bought a couple of bottles of mango wine on our Kuranda Village excursion.) Note to self: back on the diet when I get back home!! Sad to be dome this wonderful trip, it has been such an adventure from the beginning- our best vacation so far!!



Cairns- Day 2

May 4, 2011

Kuranda- the rainforest village- can you say tourist trap?

Another earlyish tour day today. Kuranda sits amongst the tropical rainforest on the banks of the Barron River. It is a popular tourist attraction so we thought we'd check it out. In this kind of attraction, it turns out that getting there is most of the fun. We travelled to the village via Skyrail, gliding along in a gondola over the rainforest canopy.

Beautiful views from the Skyrail...

The skyrail stopped at two points along our approximately 7.5K journey- both were rainforest walks. The first walk we took as a guided tour. Our Aboriginal guide Billy took us along the path and explained the trees and plants and their medicinal uses and told us about a few of the Aboriginal tribes in the area. He was very knowledgable and had been taught what he knows about the wildlife from his grandfather. Cool guy! The second stop was at Barron Falls and there were a few scenic lookouts...

After navigating the boardwalk ourselves on the second rainforest walk and going to the information center, we boarded the skyrail again for Kuranda. When we got there we saw a ton of tourist shops, (surprise, surprise) ate lunch, looked in a few shops and headed for the attractions.

Mike chose the Snake Venom attraction, which was basically a guy who had some venomous and non- venomous snakes and lizards and he let people look at them in his dingy warehouse and gave little tours. We had our pictures taken with his water python at the end...

Next was the Butterfly House, so I could practice my photography skills (or lack thereof).  We really did not make good use of our 2 hours there and soon it was time to go.

We took the Kuranda Scenic Railway back and got information about the building of the Railway and more scenic views.

After pretty much a full day on the Skyrail, at Kuranda, and on the train ride home, we were beat. Got back to the room to chill before our awesome dinner at the Tamarind restaurant in our hotel. The weather was perfect and another awesome day in Oz!



Cairns- Day 1- GBR

May 3, 2011

Great Barrier Reef

Up early today to board the "Ocean Freedom" ship to snorkel the reef! Boarding at 7:15 so we could spend a good 6 hours at our dive/snorkel site- Upolu Cay. Thankfully the marina is very close to our hotel- made our lives easier. The trip out seemed kind of long- it really was only about an hour and about 30ish miles off of the shore. The best part was that the ship was small, so not tons of people and Captain Gordy and his crew were top notch- very attentive and fun to hang out with for the day. Our first dive site was a part of the reef with lots of reef area and a rough bottom. We snorkeled for a while, dried off and then went on a glass bottom boat ride, where our guide explained the ecology of the reef and the different types of coral.

Yeah, another bad hair day for me, it was windy, okay? :P

Deep parts are blue, reef area appeared greenish...

It was another beautiful blue-sky day! A bit hotter here than in Brisbane, around 85F and the water was 75F- bath water pretty much...awesome!

We ate lunch and chatted with our snorklemates. It is amazing how many people we have met from all over the world in our travels- we ate with a lady from Toronto and a couple from Barcelona. We swapped stories about how far we had travelled and where we had been before Cairns...Anyway, after lunch, we headed to a spot not far from where we had been, but with very different ecology. This spot had a sand bar that we could stand on- miles out in the ocean, very cool! The bottom was shallow and sandy. We spend over an hour wandering back and forth between reef and sandy areas to see what was there. Lots of beautiful tropical fish, coral, and a couple of rays. We had the best time and were pretty much the last ones to leave the water.

(The sand bar is appearing in the upper left hand corner of the photo.) As much sunscreen as we both applied, we both managed to get burned in various places... :( 

After 6 hours on the reef we headed back in- I managed to get a couple of decent photos of Cairns from the water. It is pretty built up, but overall not that big...

Another excellent day!!! Exhausted after our day out on the water, we actually walked the Esplanade, ate Turkish food and headed to bed...





Travel Day- Brisbane to Cairns

May 2. 2011

Today was a travel day- flew Qantas to Cairns in the morning. A bit sad to leave Brisbane, but happy to be heading to Cairns which we had heard great things about....and there's that little reef ;).

We arrived in Cairns and got settled around 1 pm. Nice hotel and a balcony this time, city views, but still nice...

We spent the afternoon just looking around. We set up a reef snorkel for the next day and walked around- to the pier...

And back and forth along the Esplanade- checking out the shops and restaurants and walking along the beach. Nobody was swimming due to stingers and a croc, which had been spotted in the area supposedly...

We dined on burgers along the strip and headed to bed- early day tomorrow- Great Barrier Reef snorkel- Yay!!





Brisbane- Day 4

May 1, 2011

Our Big Adventure

A very sunny day today, our last day in Brisbane with no specific plans. I looked out the window and saw this...

Beautiful blue sky...today was the day!

The day for my first skydive of course! After calling a couple of places and not having any luck making an appointment, I gave up, but Mike didn't. He found a skydive center and after a couple of calls and some skillful planning (not)...we set out for what would be an awesome adventure! The skydive place - "Rip Cord Skydive Center" was located east of Toowoomba, a bus ride inland about an hour. We got to the Greyhound bus terminal in time to catch the 11:00 bus to take us to Glenoure Grove, where we would be (supposedly) picked up by the skydive place. When we were let off at the bus stop, pretty much in the middle of nowhere, nobody was there to get us and the lady we booked the jump with couldn't get ahold of anybody. So, we  got directions to the center- about 1/2 mile down the highway (with no walkways) and trucked over there ourselves. We were less than impressed.

The runway was in the middle of a field and there was farmland all around. It took a while for us to get anyone to pay attention to us and I was finally shown a video of a girl jumping- she got up in the plane and freaked at the last minute. When I said I definitely wanted to jump, I got the paperwork done, paid for a jump and a videographer, and they scheduled me on a run in their plane- a very small 6 person jump plane.

The minute I met my instructor Mick, I felt safe. He was very professional, very calm, had made many jumps (I forget the exact number now), and had been a tandem master for a while. I put on my blue jumping suit, which was a bit snug...and we went over some instructions. I had to put my head back and arch when we jumped and put my legs up in an "L" position to land- easy enough, right? So off we went...

Mike stayed behind to take pictures...skydiving was my dream, not his...

There were 2 jumpers ahead of me- novice skydivers- one would jump at 5,000 ft. the other at 7,500 feet. Each time the door opened I felt okay, they did awesome, btw! Then, at 9,500 ft., pretty much as high as that little plane would easily go, it was my turn. It happened quickly, we didn't have that long to jump, so with Mick connected to me and pushing me along, I slipped my legs out the door and we jumped. We flipped over and went through a cloud and I heard wind, very loud wind and looked up and smiled at the video camera- Sam had been filming me at different stages all along. We did a free fall for around 30 or so seconds and I felt a tug as the chute opened (yay!) above me and we were vertical and sailing along. I got to look around and steer a bit and it was totally amazing!!!!!!!!!!! Hard to describe. We floated for 15 minutes of so and it was time to land...legs up...perfect landing....WOW!!

We hung out with this very interesting group of people all day. They seemed a bit rough at first, but we got to talk to many of them and they were so nice. They had this really nice sense of community going on because really, they relied heavily on each other for support in a very dangerous hobby. The experts all watched out for the novices and it was so cool. One of those unplanned experiences that I won't soon forget for many reasons. One of the owners of the business gave us a (late) ride back to Brisbane, right to the door of our hotel so we wouldn't have to go by bus- thanks Eddie! Late dinner at the Pig n' Whistle!

Anyway, another awesome day, awesome adventure!! First trip to Oz, first (of hopefully many) skydives. Yay!!

Brisbane- Day 3

April 30, 2011

Australia Zoo Day!! Whooo hooo! The whole day- we were up super early for our pickup at 7:35 from the hotel (Mike loves these early morning wake ups!). We were the only people headed out to the zoo on this particular day which was awesome- we chatted with our drivers for about an hour and they took us to a lookout to hang out for a bit because we were running ahead of schedule. Traffic was light due to the long Labor Day holiday weekend- those Aussies love their holidays... ;) Labor Day in Queensland fell on Monday May 1st this year.

Anyway, we got to the zoo when it opened and I promptly booked an Australia Zoo Hospital tour for the afternoon. We looked around and then headed to the tortoise feeding show. The tortoise lady had alot of energy and relayed Steve Irwin's conservation message well.

These guys were awesome!

Next we stood in line and fed the elephants fruit. Everybody formed long lines and were basically a "conveyor belt" of food for the 3 female elephants at the zoo. You stood on a mat,  a trunks length away from one of them, held out your hand and they elephant would take the food from you- a bit slimy, but a cool thing to do.

I wanted to do an elephant encounter and get up close to the girls, but it conflicted with our hospital tour, so we set up a wombat encounter (which was alot cheaper anyway). Then off to the Crocoseum for the Wildlife Warriors show. It was a small stadium where they showcased a bunch of animals- a condor, elephants, more birds, and of course a croc...the best part of the show- he was awesome...

After the show (and lunch), we walked around the zoo for a while, marvelling at how nice and clean the animal enclosures were and how great the animals all looked. I fed more kangaroos. Then off to the "Elephants Live" show where we learned how the keepers train the elephants and check them every day for health issues...

Showing where the tusks would be if she were a "he".

We took the hospital tour and while we were there, the nurses had a flying fox (large fruit bat) and joey kangaroo on the exam tables. Pretty much any procedure they need to do on any of the zoo animals or any wildlife brought in to them could be done at this hospital. They received many donations- large exam lights and an x-ray machine...very cool tour. A hospital where any type of injured wildlife could be brought for treatment was a dream of Steve Irwin's mom who was an animal rehabber.

Right after the hospital tour was our wombat encounter. The keepers lined these cheeky creatures all up and set a food bowl in from of them and we were allowed to come up behind them and pat them and talk to the keepers about them. It was an awesome experience! (I'll have to scan the photos when I get home.) We got to feel the differences in fur texture between Common and Southern Hairy Nose wombats. It was so cute to watch Mike pet them and they were very chill while they ate (aren't we all?). A few of them were bred there at the zoo....

Anyway, after our encounter we made one more circle of the zoo. Mike especially loved the tigers. The trainers would pet and hug them in their enclosures and they rotated tigers in the display area during the day and made sure they had plenty of mental stimulation...One of the male tigers was bugging a couple of the smaller ones so he was tranferred to another area. The trainers always are around and are very in tune with the tigers moods. Amazing the trainers have not become dinner (yet).

The tiger came up to the trainers for attention.

The tigers were the last animals we saw before we left. As a parting goodbye, a tiger came right up to where Mike was standing (there was glass/plexiglass between them), looked at Mike, turned around and sprayed!!! Good tiger!! ;D

I asked a couple of the trainers if they had a college education and they said "no". Steve Irwin firmly believed that "hands-on" experience was the best teacher, so if someone volunteered regularly and showed dedication to a certain animal, that was enough to make them a keeper. Very cool!

Anyway- after a full day at the zoo, we were brought back to our hotel and we ate on Queen Street at Jojos and collapsed...