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Published: September 5th 2008
I can't believe how fast time is flying. I am falling behind on my projected weekly updates!!! But not to worry, we are well, we've just been busy seeing Queensland.
When I last wrote, we had arrived in Cairns. Greg and I went our separate ways that day so that Greg could go diving. He had a fantastic time with the Cairns Diving Centre. They went out to one of the outer reefs, which was apparently a pretty rough 2 hours trip, but it was well worth it. On the boat were about 20 people, but all but Greg and another guy were snorkelling, so the diving was definitely not crowded! He did 2 dives, both guided so they saw a lot of great things. He was most impressed with the number of colourful fish that they saw and wished that he had of forked out 50 bucks to rent a digital camera.
While Greg was diving, I went to the town of Kuranda. In order to get there, I was dropped off at this cable car that takes you up to the town. The cable car ride is about 60 minutes and there are 2 stops along the
way to do some hiking around in the rainforest and also to see the spectacular Barren Falls. It is a low flow time for the falls, but I thought they were quite impressive - I'd love to see them at full flow! The town was very enjoyable. It is pretty touristy, but nice for an afternoon walk around. There were a lot of markets to see. I tried out playing a digeridoo and learned that I should play the D "tuned" instrument - I had no idea that they played different keys. I also went to the Australian Venom Zoo which had been recommended by my hostel. It has all kinds of venomous spiders and reptiles. I was a little disappointed, but did get my picture with a python. After walking around for a couple of hours, I took the train back Cairns. The train is very historic and was originally built to help the community get in and out of Cairns before the road become more reliable. Now it is just used for tourist purposes. There were some spectacular views from it as we winded in and out of the rainforested hills and past waterfalls before arriving in Cairns
90 minutes later.
The next day we rented a car and headed up to Cape Tribulation. Had a couple of scenic stops along the way and took a river cruise on the Daintree River where we spotted a bunch of crocodiles. We stayed at the Crocodylus Backpacker "Resort" in Cow Bay. The resort was quite unique. The accomodations were tarp enclosed "cabins" scattered around the property and joined by little paths through the rainforest. You really felt like you were sleeping outside in the forest. In the evening, you could hear all the night sounds, which I loved. That first night, we took a guided night walk in order to see some of the wildlife. Our guide, "Possum", was such a character and very knowledgable about the area. When we first started off, we saw a few large spiders which made me second guess wanting to walk around the forest at night, but it was too late by then! I spotted our first none-spider - a large lizard sleeping on a tree. We had been looking at some chestnuts on the ground when I turned around and there was a tree right behind me and he was right there
Wild Turkey
Jen and I were sitting having abite to eat (picnic)at eye level - startled me just a bit! We also saw a huge toad that hopped across Greg's foot, some sleeping birds, bats, and a bandicoot. The bandicoot is a mammal that I can best describe as similar to a guinea pig but with a pointy snout.
The following day, we went for a number of walks around Cape Tribulation. We were hoping to see a cassowary (large, strange looking bird that was around back in the age of the dinosaurs), but no such luck. We did a number of walks through the rainforest and also on the beach at Cow Bay. It was so interesting on the beach. There were all these tiny (1 - 10 mm) crabs that would roll little balls of sands around beside their holes. As you looked out across the beach, all you could see were these little balls of sands - so strange!
The next day (Thursday), we were supposed to do a sunrise kayak, but unfortunately it was cancelled due to the weather, so we went for another hike instead. We were going to do this short little boardwalk walk, but when we got there, we saw that there
was a 3 km walk for "adventurous" hikers so we decided to do that instead. It definitely was adventurous! We could hardly find the trail through the thick rainforest. It ended up taking us a couple of hours to do, but was a tonne of fun. After that, we drove down to Port Douglas. In the afternoon, we went to a Wildlife sanctuary when we saw a bunch of native Australian animals including the cassowary!!! Check out the pictures (once I get them loaded) - its so crazy looking - it has a blue head! It definitely makes me wonder about the colours of the dinosaurs!
On Friday, we went out on the boat Poseidon for a snorkelling / diving cruise. We went to the Agincourt Reefs. I went snorkelling, while Greg dived. The snorkelling was interesting and I saw some amazing things, but there were about 60 people snorkelling and so it was a bit busy in the water. The highlight for me was seeing some squids. They communicate by changing colours and when I saw them, they were all a dark colour except one that was bright turqouise! Greg also enjoyed the diving. He had a few
highlights. He saw a white tipped reef shark, some barracuda and some cuttle fish (which are part of the squid family and not seen very often). This time Greg rented the camera and got some great pictures.
From Port Douglas, we drove down to Townsville, which took most of the Saturday. We then took the ferry across to Magnetic Island. We stayed in Picnic Bay, which turned out to be very quiet. Maybe a little too quiet. We managed to get dinner there, but in the morning we discovered that there was no place to get breakfast in the area. So we caught the bus out to Horseshoe Bay and discovered the action. We had a great breakfast at a place across from the beach and then walked around the market there and down the beach. In the afternoon, we headed back to the mainland and drove down the coast to Airlie Beach.
From Monday to Wednesday, we took a cruise through the Whitsunday islands on the Alexander Stewart. The boat was amazing. Its only 20 years old, but wood detailing in the cabin gave it a real old world feel. We had a cozy private cabin with
a bed that just barely fit us. The bathrooms were also interesting. There were 2 and they were each about 5 square feet and contained a toilet, sink and shower.
There were 15 of us on the cruise and 3 crew members. It was a great group - a mixture of nationalities, ages and relationships. Met some very interesting people and heard about a lot of different travel adventures. On the cruise, we went to number of different coves and beaches. It was so beautiful. The water is a gorgeous turqouise colour and all of the islands picturesque. We spent an afternoon at Whitehaven Beach, which has beautiful white sand that is so fine it actually squeaks when you walk on it! We also went snorkelling at Blue Pearl Bay. I saw alot more fish then I had seen at the Agincourt reefs and really enjoyed it. What I wasn't crazy about was the beach! It was completely composed of broken off pieces of coral. Very interesting to see, but killer on my feet! We had all left our shoes on the boat, so the walking was quite hard. I discovered later that I had actually gotten a bruise
on the sole of my foot! Never had that before!
Aside from the fish that we saw snorkelling, we also saw some turtles and humpback whales from the boat. We also saw two whales while were stopped snorkelling on the last morning. Only a few people were snorkelling (it was a bit cooler that day) and I went to the beach to catch up on my journal. I looked up and saw some whales only a couple of hundred meters off shore! They stayed for about 5 minutes before moving along. Amazing!
After the cruise was over on Wednesday, we drove out to Eungella National Park (a few hours away) in order to see the platypus that can be spotted there in the morning. The drive was a bit harrowing. We ended up on some secondary "highways", which seemed to randomly switch from 2 lane (one in each direction) down to one every so often. Fortunately, there wasn't that much oncoming traffic!
In the morning, we were disappointed when we woke up and it was pouring, but not to miss out on seeing the platypus, we geared up and headed out. We were successful in spotting a
few in the nearby river. We were both surprised at how small they are - just over a foot from bill to tail.
We spent the rest of the day driving to Rockhampton where we stayed last night. Nothing notable there except that there were basically no internet facilities to be found in the city that were open after 5pm!
Today, we spent the day driving down to Hervey Bay and we will be going to Fraser Island on a tour for the next 3 days.
Hope all is well with everyone.
Congratulations to Heather and Marcus, who are new parents to Ainsley Quinn! I'm thinking of you guys!
Note: Once again, I'm having trouble loading pictures - seems only some computers are good enough read the cards that we have. I'll try to add some later.
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Australia Holidays
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Our next visit
Great blog, sounds like you had a good time, my return to the UK was the unhappiest thing ever, I left paradise for the insugnifficant home of England! Returning next year, I plan to scuba dive, I am guessing you had a great time on the reefs?