Next stop... Germany?

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Hello again,

The flight to Cairns arrived at some crazy hour at night so didn't get to see much of Cairns until the next day, when I wandered around the city for a bit and went to the "Lagoon" (an outdoor pool near the mudflats). That evening the backpackers (Northern Greenhouse) put on a free BBQ and film so me and some German people (Katrin, Chris, Daniel and Consty) chillled out at the backpackers for the evening, which was quite cool - though I did discover that 70% of the people there were German, a fact that I later found to be mirrored in the general population of Cairns. Later on we all headed back down to the Lagoon to try to go swimming again but it had shut at 10 so we chilled out on the mudflats (not quite as cool as on a beach but quite funny watching the guys trying to be cool and getting stuck in the mud). We followed this with a late morning and another ultra-chilled-out day, splitting up in the evening as the others chilled in the backpackers whilst I went out with Trevor and some others from another backpackers on a pub crawl, which cost about $15 for a t-shirt to destroy with scissors and marker pen, free pizza, free entry to the clubs and a load of free drinks. Along with this they organised a bunch of activities with some cool prizes (none of which we won), with the aim of making us all look stupid (e.g. musical statues where you and a partner had to get into different positions when the music stopped - vikings, knights, cavaliers and wheelbarrow were the main ones, with few extras here and there such as missionary and vertical 69).

The next morning I woke up nice and early as a couple of girls with an apparently unlimited supply of rustly, noisy plastic bags decided to check out at 6.30am, and I went on the free tour out to the botanical gardens which had lots of pretty trees and flowers, and some massive spiders and bugs, one of which decided to land on my flipflop and dig in it's pincers either side of the strap drawing blood, and apparently unfazed by being hit against the floor repeatedly. I did think of sending it home in the next parcel for Herbie but decided it wasn't worth trying to pick it up. When I got back to the backpackers I found out that they offered loads of free/cheap stuff like the gardens so the next day I went on a sailing trip with Chris, Daniel and Consty. We had no idea what type of boat we would be sailling but assumed that as it was only $15 it would be a dinghy. As it turned out, Daniel and Consty ended up on a J24, whilst me and Chris were on a 33foot yacht with a mental crew. The yacht (Innocent Bystander) belonged to Mel, a mad old guy with lots of beer in the cooler, Andy crewed for him and was similarly crazy, and the final sailor was Troy who was younger and less crazy though he still kept to their tradition of never being without a drink in his hands. Mine and Chris' main job was ballast, though I did get to helm for a while, and despite the alcohol we still managed to get second place (only 20 seconds behind the leading J). We followed this with free dinner at the yacht club and watching Prince of Persia (terrible film) back at the backpackers.

Thursday's backpacker-arranged activity was wakeboarding so I signed up for that, and at about 5pm a bus came to take me and some guys from other backpackers out to a lake with a cable-ski set up. There we started off on a kneeboard which was very easy, and I got all the way around the course first time. Then I moved onto the wakeboarding which was a fair bit harder, and I spent about the first 40minutes holding onto the handle until the wire picked it up, going about 2 metres and faceplanting the water. However, I eventually got the hang of it and once I got standing I went all the way round the course first time. Eventually all the girls and a few of the guys got tired so it was just me, a couple of the guys and 2 kids who kept going round and round over the jumps, and eventually even we had to stop as it was such hard work - the last time round I got the the last corner and couldn't keep hold of the handle as I was too worn out so I ended up crashing headfirst into the water (fairly painful!) and then taking about a year to swim back to the edge. However, after the BBQ they put on and about a litre of Lucozade I was feeling a bit better, although I very nearly fell asleep on the shuttle back.

The next day I just about managed to make the breakfast at 9am, then, as every muscle in my entire body was complaining, I chilled in the backpackers for a while with the others, doing washing, playing pool etc, before suddenly remembering that I had booked onto a Tjapukai (aborigini) day, for which I was just about in time for the transfer. The tour was pretty good - we were shown lots of bushfood, had a go at throwing a traditional spear and boomerang (I actually got it to come back!). Then we watched a performance about their culture where they had a couple of Aborigini's acting out their stories with a variety of special effects on a screen behind them, and then they all got on stage to do some traditional dancing. After that I had about an hour to kill so I painted a boomerang. That evening I was introduced to the "classic German dish" of pasta mixed with scrambled egg and ketchup, and we had a relatively early night as me and Chris were going sailing the next day. The sailing this time was only $10 and wasn't an event open for backpackers, in little 2-handed boats called Pacers, which were fairly easy to rig and sail, with Troy's only advice being that very rarely the shroud pins might come out. We had a couple of races, using a gate-start as there were only 3 boats. We ended up retiring from the first race, as did Dave and his wife because both our shroud-pins came out (leaving the mast ever so slightly unstable), and Dave lost one of his as well - proving just how rare an occurance that particular fault is. The next race went slightly better as we beat Dave, which was all the more funny because he was the only one taking the racing seriously (Troy had a few cans of beer in his boat and I was with Chris who had never sailed before). That evening we stayed up to say goodbye to Katrin who was leaving to go South, and the next morning me and Chris headed back to the mariner to sail with Troy and Dave on Italina (a 36 foot Catamaran skippered by a guys called John). Also on the boat were 3 Swedish girls who sold flowers in night clubs for Troy - Ellie, Lisa and Johanna. John was pretty cool, and we set of in a very relaxed fashion, with TNT & Dynamite by ACDC blaring out the speakers, ending up about 20minutes late for the race, which was luckily delayed by 25 minutes, and we then went on to win it easily, but the second one went a bit wrong, as the outhaul broke, and Troy dropped the traveller at one point meaning the rope whipped across the boat giving him a lovely rope burn on his leg and a potentially broken hand, which he fixed by drinking the rest of the beer. I did a bit more than on Bystander - helping with the jib and the traveller (once Troy incapacitated himself).

The next week started out with a visit to the Crystal Cascades - another free thing from the backpackers - with Daniel and Miranda. To get to the first waterfall we had to climb up a rocky path, for which flip flops were entirely the wrong choice of shoes, wriggle under a fallen tree with a stinging tree the other side and then climb up a waterfall. All the while avoiding the random poisonous stuff that seems to be all over the place, but particularly the stinging tree. This is because if you brush against it by accident it stings you with a super-fine sting which then gets embedded in your skin, and the only way to get it out is to have the area it's in waxed. Then, even when it's out and the excruciating pain and risk of death has passed, the pain still comes back about once a month for the next year, as well as any time you get too hot or too cold. By the time we finally got to the top we were all very hot, so it was nice to chill in the plunge pool at the bottom of the fall. Then we discovered that getting back down was even harder than getting up, and basically involved getting fairly wet whilst slithering down a some steep rocks making up the edge of the waterfall. Luckily the next, and main, waterfall we headed up to was easier going, and after admiring it and taking lots of pictures we headed down a bit to go swimming in the river just below some rapids. We swam around for a bit, jumped off the rocks into the plunge pool, and me and 2 others went down a "waterslide" near the edge of the rapids (the others were all too pathetic). That evening we all headed out for a BBQ by the lagoon, this time joined by the Swedish girls, Tom, Toby, Andrea, Julian, Pitt and Pitt's pet bouncy ball Sunny.

So far Australia = awesome! Although knowing German would be useful to make friends in the backpackers. So far I've learnt 3 Swedish words (Jepp, Nay, Kanchen - Yes, No, Maybe), and my German is probably better than it was when I was taking lessons in the language. (Fich Dich, Ich spreche zehr gute deutche, Ich hasse dich, Ich leibe dich, Ja, Nein, Felich being just a few phrases - yes my spelling is terrible).

And I finish there for now as I have a lot of photos from the next 5 days as I was on a PADI diving course, which will be better in a separate entry.

K xxx

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Photos

Being Healthy PROHIBITED
I still haven't found out how they stop people from jogging

Mel
The crazy Skipper of Innocent Bystander

Chilling on the front of Italina
I think I could get used to Yachting ;)

"Aborigini" Cultural show
I have since been told that some of their body markings are from places such as the Cook Islands

Comments

[gdm]

Hi! Katie. Good to have the latest update. All sounds fun. Stay cool! xx

[marky larf]

Spooky!
Hi ya, spooky was looking thru Cairns blogs, my next destination, and you pop up! It is Mark who you met in Fiji. Also spooky is you stayed at the hostel I was planning to stay at, North Greenhouse. Funny thing is when I was on Uluru tour I bumped into an american woman who I also met at Drawanga! Hope you well and safe travels. Mark

[KatieHedgecock]

Wow that's weird - would defo recommend Northern Greenhouse - tis a cool place :). Yeah I'm good, hope you are too - enjoy Cairns! K x