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Published: September 28th 2010
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Word on the street Down Under is they’ve got themselves a decent barrier reef. Some would even call it a satisfactory barrier reef. I’ve even heard the bold describe it as an adequate barrier reef. Are these boasts simply the hubris of a country that lacks a variety of artifacts to put it on the international radar (come on, name three things you know about Australia without using the words “crocodile” or “Dundee”)? Or is there is there a genuine passable, quality, or even downright good barrier reef somewhere in this land? (It’s totally possible. There’s enough empty space here that it wouldn’t be that big of a surprise that they found Emilia Earhart, Jimmy Hoffa, the Loch Ness Monster and Chupacabra playing poker in an old building from Atlantis somewhere in the Northern Territory.)
Jenny and I intended to investigate this so-called not-so-bad barrier reef, but first we had lives in Sydney to live. We’re finally establishing some semblance of a lifestyle here over the past few weeks. Our bank accounts have been settled. All our bills are set up. We’ve discovered our favorite grocery, lunch spot, and pub. (We even found an Argentine-style ice-cream joint. Hola nalgas gordas).
The elusive Childers Fish
only found in the warmest of waters Sometime early in September, Jenny and I were walking down Crown Street and said, “We actually live here. We’re not leaving in a week. We have a house and TV and bills and cell phones.” (If you take that story at face value, we said that simultaneously. I, of course, took the high harmony). It’s an entirely new feeling for us to live in another country. We’ve accomplished of a goal we set on our flight home from our last backpacking adventure: live abroad. Sydney has started to become our city. It’s strange to reconcile the fact that home can be more than 7500 miles away from everything you’ve ever known.
Now that we’ve got logistics more or less sorted, we had time to establish (gasp!) a social life. Meeting people in a big new city like this is shockingly difficult. People already have lives and routines. They don’t need two scruffy Americans taking using up all their internet bandwidth. Australians especially, despite being some of the kindest people on the planet, are hard to befriend. Both Jenny’s job and my internship are populated exclusively by ex-pats from around the world. We’re surrounded by Aussies everywhere, but they’re more
Blue Spotted Stingray
YOU KILLED STEVE IRWIN YOU BASTARD!! scenery and props than actual characters. (Water, water everywhere, but not a pint to drink).
Jenny, in her role as events planner, signed us up for an Ex-pat group that does occasional meet-ups for lonely travelers. It’s basically like setting yourself up for a blind date with a group of strangers, only there’s no chance you’re getting laid (that’s a different meet-up, the Sex-pat group). At first we thought it was a bit desperate to attend a grown-up lay date meet-up, what with our bred social exclusion and awkwardness that every American possesses, but it took only about 15 minutes to make some amazing friends. You just drink until you're no longer capable of feeling awkward.
Since our first meet-up, folks we met through the ex-pat groups have almost entirely absorbed our social lives. We had an NFL opening night party for the Vikings-Saints game, played touch football in Hyde Park and enjoyed copious American-style fun with a bunch of displaced Yanks. Nearly all of our new friends are just like us: new to the city, looking for a social life, willing to go out of their way to fill their rolodexes (do they even make those any
The Gang
Allan, Bec, Sophie, Max and some unkempt hippie. more).
We even got to take care of a particular shame that has plagued me for quite a while. Despite a lifetime of living within miles of the beach, with access to some of the planet's great breaks, I have never been surfing. “But what about your hair?” asked one of my classmates when I shared this fact. True I do fit the stereotype -long blond hair, sun-pinked skin, use of the word gnarly, lack of any life direction- but the opportunity to go undercover in order to investigate a group of surfing bank robbers who wear presidential masks whilst I develop too-close friendships that may compromise the entire investigation and piss off Gary Busey has never presented itself. Nevertheless, our new friends Sophie and Max kindly took us out to Bondi Beach for a free surf lesson. In a bizarre paradox, two English physicists were teaching two jobless Californians how to surf (somewhere a eunuch is teaching sex-ed to porn stars).
Our thirst for friends sufficiently slaked (thanks uncle Lance), we decided to throw together our first excursion into the unknown that is Australia. The first stop was inevitably a trip to a town in northern nowhere
Turtle
I think this one is Michelangelo, you can't see his nun chucks in this pic. called Cairns to investigate these claims of barrier reef quality. Cairns as a town is nothing special, in fact it’s decidedly less than special, but it provides the best access to one of the most magnificent underwater worlds on the planet. With the death of Marlon Brando in 2004, the GBR became the largest living organism in the world. It’s been called the “Amazon of the Sea”, “Triton’s Treasure Trove” and “That Place With a Fuckton of Fish.” Given our pension for nautical naughtiness, it was a no-brainer that Jenny and I had to pay a visit.
Serendipitous timing allowed us to be joined by Sophie, Max and their charmingly idiosyncratic friends Allan and Rebecca. We started out with a trip to ultra-touristy Green Island. Green Island is the starter kit for GBR adventures. It’s cheap, close to Cairns, comfortable and insulated from all those cumbersome things like “freedom” and “wildlife.” I exaggerate of course. The island was stunning. There was ample fauna, including a simultaneous encounter with two sea turtles and a stingray. There was just a touch of sadness to our time there because of all the destruction tourists like ourselves have wrought on the reef over
the years. Between the pockets of vibrant life, there are vast graveyards of dead coral. Guided tours are riddled with phrases like, “we used to get , but we haven’t seen one in .” It’s one of the many places you wish you had the gumption and resources to visit before the rest of the world got there first.
After our day on Green Island, we knew that- budget be damned- we had to get out to see the reef in all its proper glory. After that, we took a day trip to Kuranaga, a quaint little rain forest town where they had a nice little zoo, a venom museum and jungle trails. It was low-key and cheap to prepare us for the following day. For our last day in Cairns we booked a trip to the outer reef, which has faired better due to its distance from shore. After a lengthy, wild boat ride that troubled even my stalwart stomach, we arrived at a tract of reef that wasn’t necessarily uncharted, but certainly less trodden than Green Island. What we found was that legendary reef that everyone had been talking about.
Diving
not sinking, there's a difference All the bragging we'd heard from Aussies could not do justice to the epic beauty we found underwater. The GBR was enough to stun even these two well-sodden adventurers. If I were capable of putting together words to accurately and fully describe the experience at the GBR, I sure wouldn’t be giving away this shit for free. It was the fulfillment of a lifetime goal for me and another check on an ever-growing bucket list. (a bucket that proved useful for the bumpy ride back to port).
Suffice to say it was an incredible adventure, made even better by the opportunity to return home to Sydney. This city really felt like our town after our excursion away. Sydney becomes more and more ours by the day and we couldn’t be more excited for the months to come. As for the barrier reef? I’d say it’s pretty great.
(I'd like to close with a memorial to my beloved invincible camera, which has been vinced. Water finally seeped into the electronics of its waterproof casing after two and a half years of spectacular idiot-proof shots. The camera's final stand was taking all the underwater shots you see in this blog
More turtle
Ooooooo pretty today. Way to go out on top. Cue Bon Jovi's "Blaze of Glory.")
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non-member comment
Your writing was good before, but I must say school has made it even better! Great blog. But as for being the last couple in the water....for goodness sake haven't you ever seen the movie Open Water? You're just asking to be that couple. They were in fact Americans in GBR....