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Published: April 27th 2006
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After Darwin we flew to Cairns and, in tribute to those of you who went to Newnham College or boarding school, we stayed at the Cairn's Girls Hostel. All very clean and homely, with Dawn Shit-bugger (possibly not her real name, but definitely should have been considering the frequency with which she used those words) slightly aggressively looking after 'her' girls...
We spent a couple of days wandering round Cairns and getting free meals with vouchers from the hostel. Now, there is something strange about getting given food vouchers. Although backpackers love anything free, handing over a voucher for my dinner does make me feel a bit like a benefit fraud. Fortunately, I managed to battle these sentiments long enough to hand over the voucher and eat my food...
On our third day in Cairns, we went out with a company called 'Noah's Ark' for an outer reef snorkelling trip. If this boat was anything to go by, Noah and all his furry friends must have had a hard time fighting the nausea on their adventure. The boat was rocking all over the place, the waves were massive, so the 2 hour ride out to the reef ended up being a bit of an unscheduled, free-of-charge extra adventure! Feeling a little traumatised, we reached a relatively sheltered part of the reef, behind Michaelmas Island, and all jumped off the back of the boat to go and see the fishies. The most charming part of snorkelling must be the need to spit in your mask to prevent it misting over - mm mmmmmmm. The snorkelling here was amazing, with the reef really close to the surface and loads of different technicoloured fish. Some of them were so amazingly bright that it is hard to believe that they haven't been dyed with food colouring!! Sass and I had decided to do an introdutory dive, so we had to be kitted up for that with weight belts, tanks etc. I felt a bit like a superhero with all my kit on, but sadly I couldn't stand up and waddle to my camera to get a shot, so you'll just have to take my word for my new-found uncanny resemblance to a super-hero... Stepping off the boat with all the gear on was a bit scary, but our instructor was very calming, and seemed to know what he was doing. We followed a rope down from the boat, equalizing our ears as we went. It was strange, but fairly easy, getting used to breathing through a regulator, but it was pretty weird to think how reliant you were on it working. Once we were under the water it was an amazing sensation, having fish all around and above you and swimming along the reef rather than above it. While we were down there, we even saw a couple of reef sharks and a sea cod. I definitely want to dive again - having done it once I can see how people get the bug!! Some more snorkelling in driving rain and howling wind later, we set off back to Cairns, joyfully anticipating yet another pendulum-esque boat ride.
Our next stop was via Townsville, to Airlie Beach, gateway to the Whitsundays. We were booked onto Enid, a large yacht, for a 3 day, 2 night sailing adventure round the white sand beaches and green-blue seas of the Whitsunday Islands. Sadly, our experience didn't quite match up to the brochure, as we seemed to be permanently under a giant watering can at full tilt. It rained so much and so hard that we never really got dry and it was a bit miserable constantly being soggy. The charms of the Whitsundays really rely on sunshine to bring them alive and without it, they weren't quite as beautiful. We did, however, get to use some rather dashing bright yellow macs when it rained, and I think it can only be a matter of time before everyone is wearing them, darling darling... In fact, I even started to keep mine on when the rain died down, although this was in part due to my pessimism and expectation of being rained on again any second. On reflection, 25 people wandering around Whitehaven Beach in matching giant yellow macs in rain so driving that it felt like hail was quite a classic moment, and one I only wish I had captured on film. Several electrical items (belonging to others on the trip) had already bitten the dust with water damage by this point, so I played it safe and left my camera in the relative dry below deck. We did get to do some pretty good snorkelling - fortunately fish are unperturbed by a bit of water. There were some amazingly colourful ones and even some that we hadn't seen at the Great Barrier Reef proper. Oz Sailing Adventures had the disasterous idea of starting a 'camp ashore' option to cram more people, and profit, on each trip. This meant that when it rained constantly, there was nowhere for us all to hide because there were too many of us and also meant that the skipper and deck hand, who'd never done a camp ashore trip before didn't know how to get the tents to stay up and had to spend 2 1/2 hours in the rain and dark wrestling with them. Not good... On the third day, the sun came out, which was such a great relief. We finally got a glimpse of the scenery that the Whitsundays are famous for, with its bright white beaches and multicoloured seas. We were just really unlucky that it was such a brief glimpse of what could have been. If the weather had been great all through, the problems and inexperience of the crew probably would have been much less apparent too, and it would have been a very different trip.
From Airlie Beach, it was back to Townsville, then a flight down to Brisbane. We were met at the airport by Carolyn and Isobel, my cousin and her daughter. It was really great to see them both and we had a lovely few days relaxing at Carolyn's house and seeing a bit of Brisbane. It was so good to be in a house with some home comforts!!!
We are now in Byron Bay, which is a lovely beachside town with lots of posh shops / cafes etc. We have spent the last 3 days here, just relaxing on the beach and wandering around. Today, I hired a bike and went for a little ride round the coast, up to Byron's lighthouse, and walked to the 'most easterly point in mainland Australia' no less!!! The scenery is beautiful and the weather has been gorgeous today. The less said about the bike the better, but I suppose you can't expect much when you get free rental from the YHA!! Let's just say the brakes weren't quite up to the big hill I whizzed down and the high pitch squeek was not the healthiest of soundtracks to my riding....
Tomorrow, it's off to Sydney on 'Rex' airways. I will be very disappointed if the plane isn't green and dinosaur shaped in tribute to the great Toy Story legend himself.
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