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Published: November 10th 2011
Hi Guys,
Hope you are all well and enjoying the Christmas run up!! Can't believe I'm missing it all, I'd usually be getting excited already!
Anyway, back to our adventure. We left for Bali airport on the evening of the 28th October and when we arrived, we were faced with a cancelled flight - could only happen to us!! Anton got on the case straight away and managed to get us a flight to Sydney and then up to Cairns. This flight was leaving 30mins after we received our tickets, so it meant a dash through the airport, trying to dodge all the long queues! Luckily a nice immigration man opened up a new passport checking line for us, so we made our flight (just!). We flew through the night to Sydney and were given breakfast - result!! We then had a 3hr wait in Sydney airport before our connecting flight to Cairns. It was here that we realised we would have to be very careful with our money as everything was so expensive in Australia.
We were collected from the airport by our hostel and taken back to Caravella 149. It was right on Cairns Esplanade and very nice.
Our room was small but had a fridge and air-conditioning. We set our bags down and went to explore (as we always do on our first day!) We found the local supermarket (Woolworths) and stocked up on supplies. It was quite shocking to see the cost of food but quite fun to find cheap meals to make. No name brands for us for a while :-( We went back to our hostel and made our first meal together - Fried rice! The next day was spent researching activities that we wanted to do in Cairns - we decided that we would visit the rainforest and obviously the Great Barrier Reef! On Tuesday we began our day at 7:50am on the Uncle Brians Tour of the Atherton Tablelands. This was a full day of visiting rainforest, swimming creeks, jumping in a lake in a volcano and platypus spotting. Our guide, Cousin Brad, was very funny and did not stop talking the whole time! He thought Anton and I were brilliant and we went down a rock slide doing the reverse cowboy position!!!! We were well fed that day with biscuits, two course lunch, chocolate, hot chocolate and muffins - we certainly
made up for not having too much food of late!! We even managed to see a platypus, although I did whisper everyone over to see a platypus I had spotted...it turned out to be a duck!!
On Wednesday night we met up with Vinnie and Susie, who were on honeymoon in Australia and were on their last night before flying home. We had a great night drinking champagne, wine and beer and eating in the night market - thank you guys!!
On Thursday, we took a boat trip out to the Great Barrier Reef. We both snorkelled and then were offered to do an intro-dive which we both really wanted to do (thank you to all the people that gave us Australian dollars!) Snorkelling was great but not a colourful as we imagined (we think you have to go to the outer reef for that) Our intro dive was very strange at the start but then you forget about breathing and concentrate on the scenery. We saw lots of fish, nemos, an octopus, a reef shark, a giant clam and a spotted reef ray. The photos are not brilliant as it was quite a strong current and not easy to
stabalise the camera. We returned to shore and felt very pleased we had seen the Great Barrier Reef and had completed and intro-dive.
On Saturday, we decided to take the local bus to the beach - Palm Cove. After locating the bus stop without getting lost (blimey, we are getting better) we were dropped off at Palm Cove and had a lovely day on the beach with our picnic. We were even lucky enough to see a wedding on the beach and an Osprey swooping to take a fish out of a man's hand on the pier. That night we called Paul and Tanya (who we met in Nusa Lembongan) and asked them if they wanted some visitors! They invited us to see them on Sunday and stay Sunday night.
Tanya picked us up on Sunday afternoon and took us to their beautiful, huge house on the hills in Cairns. It was an open planned house that was fully open to outside via folding doors - it was breath-taking view. Anton helped Paul in the garden while Tanya and I went to the shops to buy the ingredients for a roast dinner. It was a bloody delicious roast and reminded
us of home so much. We talked to them about our next plans and they said that we must visit Port Douglas and Cape Tribulation. So after a good nights sleep, Paul dropped us back to our hostel and we commenced the search for a car to hire for two days for a trip to Port Douglas and Cape Tribulation. We found a good deal for $120 and went back to our hostel for one more night.
The next morning we were up early, packed up and went to collect our car - a little Hyundai Getz. It was that small, we couldn't fit both bags in the boot! Our road trip commenced with me driving and Anton navigating. I was a bit nervous to start with, since the accident on the moped, but once I got going, it was fine. The drive was beautiful and the views stunning. We stopped at some viewpoints, Ellis Beach and then Port Douglas where we had a swim and our lunch. After lunch we headed to Mossman Gorge which was nice but we didn't want to swim in the watering hole and we were pestered by March Flys (really big flys that bite).
Onwards to Cape Tribulation which involved a crossing over the Daintree River. Luckily Paul and Tanya gave us some vouchers to use on the crossing, so that saved us $22. We made it to Cape Tribulation Beach which was deserted and looked idyllic. Sadly, the light was fading and we needed to find a BBQ area to make our dinner before finding somewhere to park our car to sleep in for the night!! Everywhere in Cairns there are picnic areas with BBQs for the public to use. Could we find a BBQ area in Cape Tribulation? Nothing...our fantastic luck again!! Also, every parking area said we could not stay overnight - bummer. We contemplated booking into a hostel but it was $70 and we really needed to save some money after our expensive trips. We had seen a picnic area back at Port Douglas so decided to head back there. We made it back but it was dark, so Anton had to prepare and cook beef burgers in very little light! They were yummy and it was fun to be cooking outside! 8:30pm, we headed down to the public toilets to brush our teeth and then settled in our little
car right outside a posh hotel (there were a couple of campervans there too - but I bet they were jealous of our car!!!) We fashioned a privacy area with 3 towels jammed in windows, doors and the boot. It was very cosy but far to hot for Anton - at one stage, I thought he may hyperventilate!!! He kept having the break the towel curtains and open the car door; we also had to have a few blasts of the air-conditioning throughout the night. It wasn't the best nights sleep, but it was an experience (Anton said we were never doing it again!!!)
We spent the next morning at Port Douglas and then drove back to Ellis Beach for the day. At times, we were the only ones on the beach - bliss. We headed back to Cairns late afternoon, had a shower at the lagoon and then Anton cooked beef burgers at the BBQ area. These burgers were even better than the previous night - glad I came away with a chef ;-) We played scrabble in the car and then at 11:30pm, Anton returned the car and left me at the greyhound bus-stop in readiness for our
12:25am bus to Airlie Beach.
As the bus pulled up, the bus driver's first words were "please check your tickets as this is the Thursday bus not Wednesday night" Uh Oh - it hit me - I had thought we were travelling on Wednesday night so booked the tickets for Wednesday 12:25am!! We were 24hrs too late! We are honestly walking disasters (or at least I am!!) The bus was full and there was no chance we were getting on that night. The driver told us that the next bus was at 7:45am the next morning and the greyhound office opened at 7am to book tickets. So...a night on the bus -stop benches it was. After not sleeping brilliantly in the car, this was the last thing we needed. Anyway, the night passed slowly. I managed to sleep a bit while Anton kept watch of the bags. At 7am, I went to the bus ticket shop to book the morning bus; guess what?!! It was already fully booked. We really haven't done too well on luck lately. Once again, they tried to get us on the bus, hoping there would be some no-shows, but no luck. The lady managed to
book us onto the 1pm bus which would get us into Airlie Beach at midnight. A quick call to the hostel to say we would be late and then a trip to the internet cafe to write the blog in our wait!
We are hoping that is the end of our bad luck, although I'm sure it is not!!! We plan to visit the Whitsunday islands from Airlie Beach, so looking forward to it!
Apologies for no photos on this blog as these machines will not allow us to plug in our memory cards or usb stick. We will add them when we next find an internet cafe.
Love to you all xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Special kisses to Thomas, Lauren, Erin and George (we can't wait to hear you say daddy and star!) Niah, Evie, Matilda and Isaac and of course Jonnie xxxxxxxxx
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Jane Dry
non-member comment
What are you like!!!!
Fancy missing the bus! How funny.....you won't be doing that again!! All sounds fab and glad you are having to great time. Airlie Beach is really nice - quite busy but you can do the whitsundays from there, which is amazing. Well worth doing a 3 day boat trip around them ... more money to spend though.....you'll have to spend a few more nights in playing scrabble!!!! Woo Hoo Rock on! Love you xxxx