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August 17th 2007

Published: August 17th 2007

How you going?
Sorry about the delay between blogs, we haven't been able to get to a computer in the time since we've been up in Cairns.

So we left off the day we were flying up to Cairns. We took the Bergs' "hot tip" and have been staying at Ellis Beach, its about 20 mins north from Cairns. Aside from a slightly dumpier kitchen, it is by far- one of the best places we've stayed in yet! We have been camping literally ON the beach, (although there is more sand INside out tent that out of it :P). The waves are quite annoying and have been keeping us up at night, since at high tide, they crash down only a few feet away from our tent. And the BIRDS, although they quite annoy me, mum, abby and stephen don't seem to mind them as much...

Our first adventure here (after three days of relaxing and suntanning under the HOT sun on our beautifuly secluded beach), took us to the Cape Tribulation Rainforest. After a very twisty-turny ride up, we took a short ferry ride accross the river and into the rainforest. It was so beautiful, although Im sure it is even prettier in the Wet season... We took a short board-walk (about 2km), through one part of the forest and saw little turtles, some huge trees, and some vines that wind their way up the tree. There was one part in there where it was all these trees whose roots were growing out of the ground (these trees are everywhere up here), and the roots looked like the tree had hundreds of tiny and thick legs sprouting from it. While up there we found some pretty beaches, and Abby and Stephen tried to get us a coconut, (here, Stephen sustained minor cuts and abraisons in order to try and fufill Abby's craving), whilst Mum sat on the beach and I graffitied it. (Another thing that is different down here is that they do not use the spelling 'mom', that is incorrect and you would get it WRONG on your spelling test!). The weather was warm and humid and we're lovin' it!

The next days were quite overcast, (the weather stations always describe 'mild' conditions as, "fine"- how specific...). As I do not have my notebook with me, I can't be too sure as to exactly what we did over the next few days. We did meet a nice German girl, her name was "Friedrica"- but of course, it sounded WAY prettier with an accent. There seems to be a lot of German people down here. There is also a private island that we can see from our beach, guess how much it is a night.... nope- $21,000 a night- AHEM, I'll take two!

We also went up to a small town named, "Kuranda". We went up there with the idea of going to go and see the Barron falls, (they're HUGE falls in the wet season), and all we saw was a trickle- sort of stupid of us to not realise that we are in the DRY season, owell, it was still beautiful. We then went and walked around the town for a bit, they have a HUGE asian market all around Cairns, so there were all of these asian booths set up around town. We gift shopped and then went "home".

The NEXT days' adventure, (yesterday the 16th...) took us to waking up late, and- getting a gloomy, overcast greeting from the sky, we sat at the table, at a loss for what to do. Mum had some pamphlets and saw an add for "Green Island". So, we decided to do a little "taster" of snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef, out at Green Island. We caught our ferry and sat on the very top of the ship. Stephen said that the winds were hitting us at about 75km/h!! The water going out there turned from a light turquoise blue, to a gorgeous cobalt blue. It was SO pretty. Once out at the island, we got our fins and snorkelling gear and headed out. After getting used to the water, and the weird sensation of being able to breathe underwater, we saw the COOLEST things. I spotted a blue sea cucumber, a humuhumunukunuku-upooaa fish, some pipe fish, some fishies from Nemo and some pretty coral. One of the BEST things that we did that day was as we were heading in, Mum spotted a TURTLE, and not some dinky little thing either- a BIG sea turtle!!! We swam with it for a bit, it was the coolest thing- good eye, eh? Abby and I were getting REALLY cold, so we swam out at got us some ice cream, while Mum and Stephen stayed out to find an Octopus, a neon pink and blue sea cucumber and Stephen "claimed" to see a tuna fish that was MASSIVE. I believe him :P.

And here, I take my leave. Over to Mum.

Um- I won't type much as we are starving and it's 5:45pm and we've just bought another batch of groceries! So- our adventures have been awesome. We have booked another snorkeling day at the Agincourt Ribbon reef- it is on the outer reef, north east of Port Douglas. We are doing that on tuesday. We fly out of Cairns on Friday morning- 5+am.. and make our way home next week! :-( We will try to do another blog before then- our campground does not have public access.

So- we will be sad to leave this country- but we do miss our kitty (the girls miss the dog... as for me...well you all know the answer to that!).

TTFN, elaan, stephen, megan, & abby!

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