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Published: April 6th 2008
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Arrived in Cairns at 830 am after a long flight via Darwin !! Weather was really hot in Cairns but not as humid as Asia which was a welcomed relief! Checked into our hostel which was pretty cool and the manager of the place turned out to be so helpful - he sat with us for over an hour and sorted out pretty much our whole trip down the East Coast ! First decision was how we were going to make it down the Coast and our choice of transport was the Oz Experience Bus ! Next was to book our Whitsunday's and Fraser Island trips. Oz is so well set up for backpackers and there are great deals available to buy all the tours as part of packages ! So a million brochures later and a few hours sleep we gave our credit cards a bit of exercise and booked ourselves into lots of trips and activities !
Cairns is really nice but much smaller than we expected ! The town itself sprawls out a bit but it is pretty much made up of hostels, pubs, tour booking shops and souvenir shops ! There is also a lagoon which
is pretty cool - its basically like a huge swimming pool and it is surrounded by green areas, bbq's and everyone just comes down and hangs out ! Rhona had also arrived in Cairns so we managed to meet up with her for a day at the lagoon before she headed off on the Oz Experience bus 2 days before us! It was Good Friday and the pubs over here cant serve booze except if they are serving food (typical Aussie's find a way around everything). So to go into a pub they basically charged you 10 dollars and with that you got a meal and a free drink and once you had that you could buy other drinks - so we went into the Irish bar and everyone was sitting there with meals they didn't want just so they could drink - it was hilarious! Paula crimestoppers are everywhere over here so couldn't not take a pic for you!!
On Saturday we headed off on our first trip called - "On the Wallaby" - it is a trip up into the Atherton tablelands to see the rainforest and visit some crater lakes and waterfalls ! The drive alone
was crazy as we had to go up the Gillys highway which was 297 turns - we were all dizzy by the end of it ! We had a mad Aussie guide who was very into nature and had us in stitches for the entire day! Our first stop was a Cathedral Fig Tree which sounds pretty random and boring but which was actually pretty amazing ! Basically a Fig tree has grown around this other tree and its massive ! Next was to some amazing waterfalls - which were pretty icy! One of the waterfalls we visited was used to film a timotei ad and was like the one in the Peter Andre video so some of the group tried their best to imitate it in style !!
The next day was Easter Sunday so we decided not to sit and eat chocolate all day but to go 4000 ft in the sky in a basket with a balloon tied to it and raft down white water rapids of the Barron river - just your average Easter Sunday really !! So at 4am we got picked up by a company called Raging Thunder for our Hot Air Balloon
Ride over the Atherton tablelands - it was hilarious there were only 4 westerners on the tour and the rest were Japanese ! We arrived at this field in complete darkness to see 5 massive hot air balloons being filled it was an amazing site. Then just as the sun came up we piled in to what is basically a wicker basket and floated up into the sky! The ride was 30 minutes long and was brilliant. At one stage we came down really low over the tablelands and saw Kangaroos hopping along which was really cool ! We landed in a random field and then got into the bus while the other group went up. When they landed we all had to pack up the balloon which is not as easy as it sounds - as it is massive! Then it was off for a Champagne breakfast before arriving back in our hostel for 10am - all in all a great morning ! We had some chocolate and tried to get some sleep before we were picked up at 2pm for our white water rafting ! At this stage Michelle was feeling ill thinking of the rapids !!
Got picked up by our tour company called Foaming Fury - the name says it all and made our way to the starting point on the Barron River where we put our helmets on and set off ! There were six to each boat and we had a Irish and NZ couple with us - she was equally as terrified as Michelle ! The first rapid was called 'the kitchen sink' - I don't know why they call them such scary names !! The river had been closed for the few weeks before we arrived because of all the rain so the rapids were running really fast and the water was so high! At one stage we had to walk around one rapid as it was so dangerous! We did however survive the first few no problem and then we arrived at the mouth of the scary one - 'the cheese churner' !! The guide talked us through what could happen and managed to scare us all. So on the count of three we set off paddling like mad! We did manage to survive the cheese churner but unfortunately also lost our guide overboard in the process - he claimed
that the boat was going to tip if he didn't jump but we are not sure !! Either way he owed all the guides pints after falling out! The white water rafting was actually brilliant if not slightly terrifying ! We don't have the photos as they are sending the CD of the ones they took home but sure we can show you all in June !
After a pretty hectic Easter Sunday we packed up our belongings and got ready to start our trip down the East Coast with the Oz Experience !!
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