Getting to Cairns and SCUBA Time!

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So Long Apollo and Crew!

After relaxing most of the afternoon, and checking into our free hostel for the night (came with the booking), we met up with most of the people that had been on board the Apollo for some drinks. Luke, one of the guides, had a card that gave half price beer jugs, and many were consumed! We had dinner there and then went to a club for a little while a bit later. It was a good way to say goodbye to those people that had become friends in the past few days. We were very glad not to be one of the poor souls who left at midnight with a 12hr bus ride. That would not have been pleasant!

Final Leg!

We left Arlie Beach after barely getting Betsy out of the underground parking garage - we were a touch too big and had only a few inches of clearance on either side as we tried to go around a corner and out the ramp as the roof scraped on the height restriction bar! I don't want to try that again. Phewwf! We got back on the Bruce Highway and began our last leg of the East Coast - up to Cairns! We drove to Alligator Creek National Park where we decided that we would stop and relax, as well as spend the night. There was a small fee of $9, but we managed to scam some electricity for the van by plugging our extension cord into the bathroom. We went for a bit of a nature walk with dozens of wallabies and wild turkeys making loud noises in the bushes. I think that is one of the nice things about Australia - They do not have any large animals that will give you any trouble! No bears, wolves, lions, tigers... nothing to worry about - not even skunks! Just those pesky little spiders and snakes that get such a bad name. With all the stirring that the roos make in the bushes though - it does give you a bit of a start - until you remember that it can't be nearly as big as it sounds!

We opted out of the 15km nature hike to a set of falls. It is so dry here right now as we are right at the end of the dry season. We passed numerous rivers on the drive to the national park, and none were more then a sandy ditch that you would swear has never had anything resembling water in it. Makes you thirsty to look at!

Betsy gets a little temperamental!

Betsy has been running very rough lately - most of the time as I go to turn her off, she turns off by herself. Not very keen to idle. I took out the spark plugs and they were fouled black and still wet with an oil coating. Not a good sign. It certainly has been using more oil the last few weeks, and is getting to need a jug of oil every time we fill up on petrol. I cleaned the plugs with sandpaper as best I could, hoping that we would make it into the next town (Townsville as it happens!). We ordered some new plugs and wires from a REPCO store (we put these on the next day) and tried to take it to a service centre but they said they couldn't look at it until the following week, which certainly didn't suit us. Just need to get to Cairns we thought - where we can leave it somewhere for 6 weeks to get fixed while in New Zealand.

Magnetic Island!

This is an island about 8km out from the beaches of Townsville, and was said to have some interesting views and beaches. I think it is very easy to get lost on this island, because all the compasses go haywire! Just kidding.... not sure where it gets its name, perhaps because of the natural gravitation that people experience to go there. We parked Betsy and jumped on the City Cat Ferry with our trusty mountain bikes!

The island is about 6kms across (somewhat circular), and is quite mountainous! The highest point on the island is 480m, and we had to bike over what was probably the second highest point - which even in 1st gear was a real challenge! Brought back memories of the Stanthorpe lookout! The difficulty on Magnetic island however, was that the hill (14%!g(MISSING)rade) stretched on for about 2kms! At every corner you would tell yourself, ok, surely it must go down or level off around the next one! No such luck. It was a very good thing that Carolyn had her 'puffer', and the steroids were enough to give her the lung power to get to the top! We were both drenched with sweat when we reached the top, and the coast down to the other side of the island was a godsend - although a little bittersweet knowing that we were going to have to slave back up it to get back! It was well worth it however, as we relaxed on the beach in Horseshoe Bay for most of the afternoon, reading and sunbathing. There was a stinger enclosure there and it made for some great swimming. I am definitely perfecting my front crawl with all of the swimming I have been doing over here, and can't wait to get into some more triathlons upon returning home!

We cycled over to a series of military structures remaining from WWII that inhabit the southeast corner of the island. Several of the bunkers are still in good condition, while others have nothing left except for the cement foundation. This particular site never fired anything but friendly fire, but patrolled ships traveling up and down the coast. Makes you realize how much activity there was in the South Pacific during that war. It was getting dark by the time we were leaving, and the hiking trail made for a very precarious decent on the bikes. Carolyn was back in her element of giving mountain bike lessons at camp, and thoroughly enjoyed the technical ride. By the time we made it over to Alma Bay and to the Ferry, it was already quite dark. We had only purchased a day pass, and were quite tired from our exertions of the day, or we would have stayed for the Full Moon Party that was happening on the island that night. As our ferry pulled in, countless drunk and excited people came swarming in to join in the festivities! When we got back to the van, we drove just out of Townsville and stayed at a truck stop that had an area for campers and caravans as well.

Townsville

We spent the next afternoon along the water front in Townsville. It is a fairly large city (50k+) and has quite a bit to do. We swam in a large salt water lagoon on the north end of the beachfront. It was the size of 10 Olympic swimming pools, and had a special pumping system imported from Sweden that renewed the water 3 times a day! That is a big pump! We then walked along the beachfront and tried out a few of the activity structures that they had along the way. The rope climbing one was our favourite! We headed out of Townsville after splitting a cup of ice cream and peanut m&ms - yum!

Back on the Bruce!

We made it another couple hundred kilometers north and stayed at a rest stop on the side of the Bruce hwy. We had purchased some Christmas cards and spent a few hours writing these. We had a meal of taco's (one of our favourites!) and read/journaled before falling asleep. It rained and rained the entire night and didn’t stop of the majority of the next day. It is clear that we are entering the wet season as we get this far north, because we hadn't seen rain like this since we have been in Australia! I thought that we might get stuck as the rain was pooling around us and we were parked down off into a grassy area. Luckily Betsy didn't let us down and heroically pulled us out with seemingly little effort, and we got back on the road. Only 200km to Cairns!

Because it was pouring rain, we decided to skip Mission Beach, a popular place to sky-dive. We stopped in Innisfail at a sugar museum to learn a little more about the sugar industry in these parts. The museum was a bit of a disappointment, and we didn't come out that much more knowledgeable then we had come in. I got to check out some old-school tractors (circa 1920) though, where the extent of the innovation was to build up some wooden blocks around the tractor's wheels so that it would ride at a suitable height above the sugar cane. There was a large sugar mill in operation on display there though, and that is a large piece of equipment!

Making it to Cairns!

We drove the remaining distance to Cairns without a stop and fuelled up just at the outskirts of the city. We had made it! I had no sooner pulled out of the service station when Betsy stalled and refused to start. rrrrrrrrrr......rrrrrrrrrrrr...... Can you believe that??!! No sooner had we driven past the 'Welcome to Cairns' sign, and Betsy quit. What a valiant effort by the old girl, to have struggled this far and to have taken us to exactly where we needed to get to! How much it must have cost her...

I cleaned up the spark plugs and made sure they were sparking, knowing that they were the problem. Even though they were new, they were completely fouled with oil. Betsy's engine is is pretty worn it seems and is dumping oil past the valve stems and rings. A very friendly locksmith stopped to see if he could help out, and seemed very worried about us when we didn't need something easy like a boost. After about 30 minutes of checking wires and with the newly cleaned plugs, we got Betsy running again, although the engine was missing quite frequently. We drove to the Cairns Holiday Park and checked in for the night - giving us some time to shower and relax. The next morning we took it to a garage recommended by the caravan park, and let the mechanic have a look at poor Betsy. Of course he told us what we already knew - the engine is cooked. We now had two options - fit a new engine, or get ours rebuilt. We chose the latter option, as it will be the cheapest, and because the engine only has 185 000 km's on it. There really shouldn't be anything wrong with the block, and the mechanic said that he could easily rebuild it while we are in NZ, and have it ready to go when we get back to Cairns at the end of January.

If it had to happen, the timing could not have been better as it has not inconvenienced us in the slightest, apart from the cost of course. It will be comforting to know that we have a good engine when we drive into the outback though, so these repairs will be well worth it. Looking forward to having a bit more power on those hills as well! Giddy-up!

SCUBA Time!

We still could drive Betsy around, even though it is running rough, it beats riding the bikes in this heat! It was 35°C in the shade yesterday! We drove into the city centre and started researching the dive companies to see what was available. We wanted to get our Open Water Certification that will allow us to dive anywhere in the world, so first looked into some of the PADI courses. We wanted to stay out on a live-a-board boat, to avoid the 2 hour boat ride out and back each day to the reef. Once we had decided this, there were only 2 options available to us - through Pro-Dive (PADI certification), and through Cairns Dive Centre (SSI certification). The Pro-Dive ended up being full, and couldn't take us until Dec 20th, which of course didn't work as we fly to NZ on the 19th. So after researching the SSI certification as we had never heard of it (turns out there are very few differences between it and PADI, although it is a smaller organization), we decided to go with the Cairns Dive Centre.

We got picked up the next morning from the Caravan Park, and spent the morning doing theory in a classroom. Back to school, back to school... from Billy Madison kept going through our heads. We then learned how to assemble our equipment and jumped in the 4m dive training pool and learned how to properly breathe under water. We practiced losing our mask and mouthpiece under water and the tricks to getting them back. We also learned all of the hand signals under water, out of air, I'm good, how much air do you have, and want to surface. Some of these were kind of tough to remember because the good old Don Cheery 'thumbs up', means that you want to go to the surface, not that everything is going awesome! We practiced obtaining our neutral buoyancy, and proper pressure equalization techniques. You get to wear a vest that can be inflated and deflated with a couple of buttons, and these control your buoyancy. Once you obtain neutral buoyancy, you can control your ascending and descending by breathing deeply or shallowly - it really is quite easy after a bit of practice! By the end of the next day, we completed our class room and pool training and were ready to try it on the Great Barrier Reef with the sharks!

Out on the Kangaroo Explorer!

We met at the dive shop the next morning and went down to the marina. The two hour boat ride out made us all a little nauseous, but luckily we had taken some sea-sickness tablets before jumping on the boat. There were 10 of us in the group that started together, but two of them were only doing day trips so didn't stay out with us. In our group was Tyler (Reddeer, CAN), James (Wales), Christina (Germany), Rudger (Holland), Pedro and Adriano (Brazil), and Anders and Dan (Denmark) who were doing the day trips. We got to the Kangaroo Explorer at 11am and had a quick lunch - the food was fantastic! We checked into our rooms on the boat, and Carolyn and I got our own private double berth room. All of them have their own ensuite bath. The bed in here was almost twice the size as the one in Betsy, so we were living in comfort!

Our first dive site was at the Moore Reef more specifically East Timor. This was the first of our 4 training dives. It was phenomenal! We say two huge clams (4 ft long), and were able to stick our hands inside them after they close up. Kind of rubbery and funny to touch! We had to do the same tests that we had practiced in the pool, taking off our masks and putting our regulators behind us and having to find them with two different techniques. It was a little harder taking off our masks at 15m underwater, but it is amazing how calm you feel. They teach us that it is very important to stay with your buddy, as it something ever were to happen to your air supply, they have a second mouthpiece that you can breathe off as well. As long as you monitor you air supply, you should never have a problem though! We all started with over 200bar in our tanks, and Queensland law says that we have to surface with at least 50bar. We mostly used 8L tanks except for our deep dive down to 30m where we had an 11L tank. This means with the 8L tank when we use 150bar, that we use 150x8L=1200L of air on every dive which generally lasts about 30mins.

Because Carolyn wears contacts, she didn't want to open her eyes underwater, which made it a little tougher for her to clear her mask as she is can't see to put it on. I think not being able to see makes you panic a little too, but she did really well after making herself calm down a little. It was amazing to see our confidence levels increase as we completed more and more dives! The water was a balmy 27°C and was fine without a wetsuit, although you did get a little chilly if sitting in one place for a while without moving. We dove again at 4pm and then relaxed for the rest of the day on the sundeck of the boat. On our first couple dives we spent most of our time practicing our skills rather then looking at the fish and coral, but as we got more comfortable, we were able to take more in. We saw our first shark on our 4th dive (white tipped reef shark) which are supposedly harmless, although I read later have been known to attach humans. The sign for shark is to put your hand like a fin on top of your head and point. It must have been funny for the instructors to see everyone freeze and watch their eyes go big and their breathing increase!

The next day we dove at 6am, 8am, 4pm, and then a night dive at 7pm. We got our certification after the 8am dive and so Carolyn and I were able to dive by ourselves for the 4pm dive. It was incredible what you could see. With snorkeling you are limited to the top 5m and cannot stay down very long. With the diving we were certified to 18m and you can spend as long as you like looking at interesting fish, turtles, cucumbers, and coral. We saw more sharks, lion fish, trigger fish (you have to watch out for these as they will attack you if you come too close to their nests. Luckily they give you a few warning charges!), sea turtles, and barracuda. The turtles come right over to you because they want you to scratch their shells and removed the buildup of algae. I guess they are used to the divers doing it all the time, and you can save them a weeks worth of work by removing it for them. Normally they have to rub their shells on hard coral to remove it.

Jumping into the water after dark is much harder than during the day. We were all given flashlights (torches as they call them here), but Carolyn's kept turning off on her! We only went to about 12m but the nightlife is much different then during the day! There is one type of fish that cocoons itself into a hole in the coral with a jelly type substance that is supposed to muffle its heartbeat from predators. The Red bass likes to hunt with your flashlight and when you shine it on a small fish, they come along quick and eat them. They must love having the divers around (the big fish that is!). There is also phosphorescence in the water so when everyone covers their lights, it is like looking into a sky of stars! Awesome.

We decided that night to do our Adventure Diving Certification, which allows us to do unguided night dives and deep dives (up to 30m), and were also given a navigational dive, which we can now do on our own anywhere in the world. We were told that a lot of dive sites require a depth greater than the 18m of the open water certification, so for a small fee, we deemed it worthwhile.

We did our 30m dive the next morning and it was also quite an experience. This is the height of a 10-story apartment building! As we were kneeling on the bottom, you could hardly see the top of the water, and only where the sun was shining on it directly. The atmospheric pressure down here is 4 times that in the air, which we say by the way a water bottle had crinkled up when taken to this depth. Also, the water affects the way light is perceived and everything takes on a bluey green colour. A tomato was browny green until a flashlight was shone on it turning it red again. You have to be very careful how long you stay at these depths because of increased levels of dissolved nitrogen in you blood. We are given computers which keep track of how long you can stay down there, and we make sure to ascend very slowly to let some of the nitrogen back out before getting to the surface. If you go too quickly you will get something called decompression sickness with is very dangerous.

It was quite an experience to see huge fish and swim in large schools of them. Sometimes you could hardly see for the number of them! Our favourite dives were when we were on our own and had the freedom to look at what we wanted. It is a very rewarding experience and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in seeing the life under the ocean! We have done 9 dives all together now, with an accumulated underwater time of 266mins. We both are looking forward to our next dive experience!

We fly to NZ tomorrow, and will drop Betsy off at the mechanic in the morning. Time for a break from this heat, and a chance to see some of the beautiful New Zealand we have heard so much about. We are both looking forward to spending Christmas with Cara and Scott and meeting up with our Fiji friends (Shane and Ange). Merry Christmas to everyone back home and we hope you all have a Happy New Years!

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Photos

Team Sweden
Who would have thought that after 3 days on a boat without hardly talking, 6 Swedes would come out of their shells?!

Palm Tree look out
I finally remembered to use the little tripod! Thanks COR!

Stinger enclosure
Don't want to get stung by the jellies!

Beware of the stingers
There are these signs all over informing you of what the dangerous jelly fish look like and what to do if you get stung. Basically, you might die, so you better call an ambulance!

Sugar cane harvesting
What a crappy museum!

Crazy camping!
Why didn't we get something like this?

Comments

[Derek]

Fantastic Pics!
Beautiful! I'm NOT jealous at all! Hope you two have an excellent Xmas and New Years. Keep the adventure coming! D xoxo

[Darcy]

Wow
That blog was awesome. Great photos (underwater too !!). Keep up the great writing. Miss you guys.

[Paula Antonakos]

Jealous??
I'm jealous :( You guys are so lucky!! You are doing exactly what I am ready to to. I'm really happy for you enjoy the rest of your trip!!!! Take Care