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Published: August 27th 2006
Greetings from Sydney!
Our whistlestop tour of Oz continues! We had 2 day trips in Cairns, the first to Daintree & Cape Tribulation. Both are in the rainforest, North of Cairns & we had booked a day tour up there which started at 7.10am, a very harsh time to get up, I mean, we are on holiday!
The bus rolled up, with Des Lynam's twin brother driving it - turns out he was born in England, moved here 20 years ago and now doesn't like England at all!!! Good start, that. As we picked up more passengers from other hotels, we soon noticed that we were the youngest people on this tour by a country mile. I asked Ju if we'd climbed aboard a SAGA tour by accident as there were so many granny-couples boarding the bus, I wondered if it was actually Bingo we were going to!
We stopped for photo's at Mosman Gorge, all whitewater & rushing streams, then had a bit of a cruise along the Daintree, spotting crocs & weird birds, but luckily still no dangerous Aussie spiders. We stopped at Coconut beach, a glorious hideaway of a place, where there were very few people around, so we took some good photo's, ate lunch and set off for the bus. We couldn't actually get to the bus however, as a Lace Monitor was blocking the way. No, I didn't know what one was either?! Turns out a lace monitor is what the Aussies call a large Iguana type thingy, and this one was huge! Ju watched in horror as some insane bloke tried to 'stroke' the thing, even attempting to pick it up, until one of the guides screamed at him to leave it alone. One of those could have your eye out apparantley. Bet he was American, they never listen.
Cape Trib itself, well the beach area, is yet another stunning beach that Australia is so famous for. The downside was that we had only a whopping 20mins there, seems the old folk had been taking too long going to the loo & sinking cups of tea. Off came my trainers and I dashed into the sea, Ju laughing his head off as he realised I had no way to dry my legs & feet afterwards!! The sea was as warm as a bath & crystal clear too, a real Bounty advert of a place. (was it Bounty that advertised on beaches or Flake?? You get my meaning anyway). By the time we got home, I was sure my feet were going to disintegrate, as they were covered in muck from the beach. Suffice to say the white trainer socks went in the bin, and there's now a gruesome photo of my feet on kodakgallery. Cheers Ju!
The next day we hopped aboard a giant Catamaran for our trip to the GBR - Great Barrier Reef. We sped over to Green island, pointing & grumbling at the sky as only two English people can do - it was clouding over!! The Cairns weather had been perfect, I guess it had to cloud up sometime, but please not the day we go snorkelling!!
We decided to start off under the water, as opposed to floating on the surface and jumped aboard a semi-sub. This was a tiny yellow submarine, crammed full of Chinese tourists (again!!) and us and it's sort of like the daddy of all glass bottom boats. A guide does a talk about all the amazing fish and stuff that float past your window, we saw turtles, huge fish that stick themselves to the windows and some disgusting sea cucumbers. Trust me, you wouldn't one of those sliced up and added to your tuna sandwich. A real bonus for me was that Ju managed not to puke, and sometimes he even managed to look out of the window! Bless.
By the time we surfaced, the sun had come out (there's a song there? Annie?!) so we set off for a stroll through the rainforest that covers the island. It was beautiful, stunning, amazing. No words can do it justice - you could see the coral beds out in the ocean, there were enormous sea birds (pelicans?) everywhere and best of all, the Chinese lot had cleared off for lunch, so the back of the island was deserted. The photo's are fantastic, but then that's coz Ju took most of them, unlike me, who can only take blurry & wonky efforts!
After lunch, we donned our snorkel gear, on the beach. Except Ju hated his flippers, so they were removed. I did the same, as I couldn't actually walk. Ju then decided he didn't like his snorkel either, so that was discarded ("I'll be ok, I'll just hold my breath....' The mind boggles).
When we finally made it into the sea, we discovered we had to pick our way through lots of rock & coral before we were deep enough to get wet above our ankles. It was extremely tricky and many a swear word was uttered as we bashed various body parts on unyielding rocks. By the time we were chest deep, it had gotten cold so we took the plunge and think I managed to see, ooh, lets think, about 2 fish of any signifigance. I had surfaced & Ju had moved quite a way from me by this point. I started to panic, I am a bit of a wuss in the sea, so i stood on a rocky section, so the 'nasties' couldn't get me. Nevermind that I'd seen two fish, a shoal of pointy faced buggers surrounded me, i must've been standing on their favourite coral. Now i know I'm 28 (nearly 29! hint!) but I'm ashamed to admit that they must have heard me back in Norwich when i yelled for Ju to come & rescue me!!! Very embarrasing, but for some reason i couldn't actually make my legs work and was therefore stuck, with these pointy-nosed fish having a good old laugh at my expense. Ju came crashing towards me, he must've thought a Box jellyfish had got it's mitts into me and unfortunatley whacked his big toe on something. He went down fast. Who's going to bloody help me now!!?
Aaaaaaaanyway, we made it back to shore with no more horrors, cold, soaked & covered in sand, with very little time to get changed before the catamaran left for Cairns. Exhausted, with salty hair & bleeding toes, we flopped back aboard the catamaran and promptly fell asleep. Might leave the snorkelling for a bit!
From Cairns, we flew to Ayers Rock, or Uluru to give it the proper name. We checked into our room, it was a 4 berth dorm, which meant sharing with 2 complete strangers, not our idea of fun. They turned out to be not so bad, an old American couple from Cincinnatti and boy could they TALK! I know that might be a bit rich coming from me, but we couldn't get away from these guys!! They were very sweet but insisted on analysing the US portion of our trip and pointing out all the places we'd want to skip. Very helpful! Plus Lou, the wife, looked like a fraggle, so i couldn't actually look at her when she spoke to me. If you remember the Fraggles, she basically was Red Fraggle, but a grey haired version.
We did a sunrise tour to Ayers, which was amazing - we arrived in the dark and our guide pointed out Venus, the moon, all these star constellations, until dawn broke. The Rock is huge, much bigger than it looks on the postcards. The colours change as the light hits it, going everys hade of red, orange and brown. To get a closer look, we did the basewalk - a 9.5km walk all the way round the rock, and it took 2.5 hours but was well worth it. That afternoon, we did another tour to another collection of rocks, The Olgas. Sort of like a few medium sized Ayers Rocks all clumped together, there are gorges through the middle and we walked Walpa Gorge, very spectacular. Again the photo's look pretty good, especially as the sun was setting behind them. Anyone thinking of flying to Oz for a holiday should deffo check these two places out, despite the vast distance needed to get to the outback.
So onto Melbourne, our final stop in Oz. Here we were going to meet up with Ness, who had been on our Namibia trip, waaay back in May/June time. First of all, we checked into the hostel which turned out to be smack bang in the middle of the centre of town, excellent. Tea was at Bridie O' reillys, a local Irish pub, where we had some of the largest plates of food known to mankind. I had Bangers n Mash! No weightloss still, I wonder why that is.
The next day, we set out to see as much of Melbourne as we could cram in, visiting Fitzroy Gardens, the MCG arena, the southbank riverside area & going up the Rialto tower for some super views over the city. Melbourne was pretty cold, compared to what we were used to (about 12-14 degrees) so we made sure we stopped for coffee & cake several times a day, purely to warm up of course. Last stop was AFL world. yep, that's right, there's a shrine to Aussie Rules Football, well, more of an interactive museum really, so we went along to check it out. AFL must be the WEIRDEST sport in the world! Not the stupidest, that would be cricket, but we thought we'd go along, as Ness was taking us to an AFL game, this way we could try and suss out how it's played. Two hours later, we tumble out of the door, laughing & sweating, having tried to kick an AFL ball (it's rugby shaped) in the interactive section and failing miserably! Still, we'd done a bit of homework and knew that Ness's team Essendon used to be good, but were now, unfortunatley, crap. At least Ju could identify with her, being a Town fan!!!
That night we met the girl herself, in Port Melbourne, in a lively bar that sold pints, not schooners! Table booked, we all hugged and blabbed on at once about what we'd been doing, where'd we'd been since Africa, and more importantly, whether Keith was still a grumpy old man!! (Keith kicked his toast into the river in Africa and was generally a grumpy old man!).
I can't really recall much of the rest of the evening....we danced, we drank shooters, Ness dropped her drink after bravely trying to keep up on a pint for pint basis and it all got quite messy! the photo's are terrible!!! Apparantley, Ju & I got a cab home at 2am, found a mexican food place and took a stack of nachos back to munch on in our hostel. Lovely! The next day was a write off. I had a major hangover, Ju too, so we minced around the areas of Melbourne we hadn't yet seen and tried to get some fresh air into us. That evening we met Ness again (in a pub! You crazy woman!!😊 and she took us to the MCG to see Essendon vs Richmond in the AFL. It was HILARIOUS! 18 blokes on an enormous pitch, who can either kick or punch the ball, beating the living daylights out of each other!! Ness was a good teacher, we grasped some of the basics, but sadly Essendon lost. Funniest thing was seeing the trainer/pyhsio for each team come running on the pitch - they don't stop the game, they just jog around with the players?!! Very different to proper footy, that's for sure.
So, after saying our goodbyes, (thanks for looking after us Ness!!) we headed back to get some well earned sleep, before flying back to Sydney this morning. Tomorrow, we fly into Christchurch, New Zealand for a few weeks. Ju is driving us around in a campervan, so there will be no alcohol consumed, which is a good thing, believe me........
So that was Oz, comments please, or emails if you like, can't believe Nch won 5-1 and the Town actually scraped a win too, thank god for the internet!
Hope it's raining at home, NZ is going to be COLD.....
Take Care
Love Kel & Ju xxx
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Arlene
non-member comment
Gidday maties from the paddock
Hey Guys, You didn't really expect Essendon to win did you. Hope you had a great time down under and didn't come across too many drongos, there are a few galahs down here as well and they are usually found, not in trees as one may expect, but in pubs. I just had to read your China blogg(and I hope **** doesn't). I must say I'm disappointed that you didn't hang it on us (aussie girls) too much. Kel, expected more from you. Joking... Anyway, keep on adventuring...from your fellow China traveller. Cheers Arlene