So, I have a new hobby.....

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Sweating...
Well, i guess it's not new, i've been doing it for a couple weeks
now. I think i mentioned it in my last email. Well, that was a
little further south, and now i'm further north, and as you go
north you get more tropical and more humidity (oh so much) and
therefore you get more sweat.
So, more north i say. Where am i? Cairns, most likely my last stop
in Australia before i head to the oh-so awesome southeast asia. I
arrived in Cairns last night from Airlie beach, which i went to
from Rainbow Beach, where i did Fraser island, where i went to from
Noosa. Whoa, slow down.
So, my last email i think i had arrived in Noosa? Or was i just
bitching about brisbane? Well, anyway, i will start about Noosa.
Noosa was great. After being in big concrete no-beach brisbane, i
really wanted another little beach place like byron bay. My friend
in Brisbane was going up the coast to go to a nice beach with her
friend as it was both of their birthday's, and they offered me a
ride as far as they were going. I really wanted out of Brisbane, so
i accepted. Early morning start, and then drove up to Caloundra,
and then caught a bus up to Noosa. I didn't know what to expect,
jsut that it was a popular place, a little beach holiday town. I
went through Surfer's Paradise and was a bit sad that i did not
have the time to stop there as it looked really nice. I kept on
going up to Noosa, and as we pulled in to the little town, i was
very happy with what i saw. Small, quaint, beachy, and lush. Yes,
lush. Like i was saying, the more north you go, the more tropical,
and therefore the more lush you get. So Noosa was a nice little
beach town that was surrounded and infiltrated by lush tropcal
dark green plants with bright flowers. I only had a couple days
there, and the first day, i jsut walked around with a guy who i got
chatting with on the bus. The town was almost a paradox (big word
score.....) as the town is known for fine dining and ritzy clothing
stores. The main street is lined with restaurants that all looked
so good, and the menus looked delicious with plenty of interesting
seafood, and also, meals that cost over my daily food budget. So, i
could look but not touch. Also, lot's of clothing stores and art
stores. There were flash cars parked around that altogether just
gave the impression of wealth. Then on the other hand, there was
also a significant backpacker/surfer population also. Beach bums
and beach bumettes littering the beach. It all made an interesting
combo and feeling of the place. I spent a coule of days there, and
had a decent couple of days. There was a nice national park there
and i did a 6 km loop walk that ended through rainforest terrain.
Dense trees, vines that came from the sky seemingly and then grew
down to the earth and then went back up through the trees so that i
couldn't see where they went. That confused me. I don't know how
theses things would grow upwards after growing down into a giant
'u' shape. Again, i ran into people at the hostel that i had met in
Byron and Brisbane. Big country, small world, but i guess most
people stop in the same places. The third day was an awesome day, a
highlight of Noosa definitely and a hightlight of Australia. I went
to the Australia zoo with a swiss-french guy i had met in Byron,
and on the zoo's shuttle bus down to the zoo, i ran into an english
girl who i had met in byron bay also. So, we had a little zoo
posse, but that's not the good part, that was a good part, but not
the good part. So the zoo is owned by the internationally known
Steve Irwin, Crocodile hunter, but it is a gamble if you're gonig
to see him, because he's all over the world all the time and is
rarely at his zoo. When we arrived at the zoo, we were greeted by a
tropical rainfall. Warm, hard, fast. It was pouring, so we all got
$3 plastic ponchos because of course the zoo is outdoors, but 15min
later the rain had stopped. We first went to feed the elephants.
Three big elephants line up, and people line up and get given
vegetable to give the large pachyderms (double word score....) a
bite from your hand. That was neat, but they were quite muddy which
i didn't really expect. We then went to the croc-arena to see the
handlers working with tigers, and then birds, and then crocs. The
tigers were great. I think they were adolescent as they didn't look
full grown and were still bottle fed a bit. then they announced
that the croc show would be done by none other than Steve and Terri
Irwin!!!! Well, we were sitting under cover at that point, but
quickly moved much closer to the fron where we would get soaked if
it rained, but would be up close when Steve and Terri came out. We
saw the bird show, but couldn't concentrate on it fully as the
english girl was so giddy with the prospect of seeing steve irwin
in person. I was a bit giddy too. So the birds flew around and did
bird things, yadda yadda yadda. And then, out came Steve Irwin and
his wife after a big anticipatory (triple word score.....?) build
up. They were funny and great to watch, but they worked their
famousness a bit by being a bit stupid, but hey, they're famous so
people will laught at anything. It was great cuz you always thought
Steve was going to get eaten, but he never did. It was a big croc
pool in the enclosure and when the croc was at the other end of it,
steve would belly flop in the other end and immediately the croc
would know someone was in his pool and would bee line it over
there, and the steve would bee line it out of the pool. It was a
bit thrilling to watch as the croc was about 10 ft long and huge
and very quick and graceful in the water. Deadly, if you will. Once
out of the water, they were quite cumbersome (what's after triple?)
and could be fed more easily. It was all very spectacular.
After the croc show was the other animals. Koalas, dingoes,
tasmanian devils, kangaroos (which you could pet and feed) and
wallabies (again, pet and feed), wombats, venomous snakes, and a
petting zoo for kids where you could pet sheep and calves and
goats, and piglets, if you're into that sort of thing......
The zoo was a good day. I had a nice tasty coffee there which i
thoroughly enjoyed as it was the first in a while as i never realy
feel like drinking hot coffee when it's hot enough to sweat without
moving. That evening Ken (french-swiss guy) and i went to visit
beth (english girl) and then we went to the hostel bar, whcih soon
closed. I told a couple of guys from my room i'd go for a drink
with them as it was my last night there, and i hadn't really had a
drink with them, and we'd had a few good laughs trogether. A couple
of them were crazy israeli's (who i've met quite a few of lately,
not all crazy though), and one of them had a guitar and had a good
singing voice. He sang and played traditional israeli songs that
the other israeli guys cracked up to and sang along with. It was
all quite amusing.
From Noosa, i caught the bus to Rainbow beach, which was basically
just the leaving point to go to Fraser Island from. There are lots
of self guided tours on fraser, and there's also the whitsunday
islands. Both are very popular to do, but i decided to just do one
due to time and money constraints. Fraser had camping, 4x4's, and a
bit more adventure. The whitsundays had beautiful beaches,
sailboats, and scuba. I decided on Fraser because it would be a bit
more adventurous, there are nice beachs on fraser, and i can do
lots of scuba in cairns. So, fraser. I got to the hostel through
which i was doing the tour and we had our orientation, and we got
split off into our groups. My gorup seemed quite good, so i was
happy. Also, i was the only english first language person, which i
thought surprising, but also good. There was 11 of us. Me, 2
koreans, 4 israeli's (oh god, more of them!), 2 swedish, and 2
ecuadorians. We got up early the next morning, took inventory on
all our supplies, and left. Big Toyota Landcruisers. Three groups,
3 landcruisers. Very cool. Rainy weather, not so cool. Day one was
driving up the beach all day and stopping at various tourist stops,
which were a couple rocks, and a rusted out shipwreck. Yes, we
drove all day on the beach. It's a highway on Fraser when the tide
is out, and is also a landing strip, so you have to keep your eyes
open for planes. Too funny. All of the inland tracks are rutted
sand roads, so you never get out of 4x4, and in the deep sand you
have to go in 4wheel drive low. Lots of fun bumping around through
sand and roots in someone else's nice 4x4. We met up with one of
the other groups and camped together. It was warm, but wet. By the
time we had set up the tarps above us as shelter, the majority of
us were soaked throught to the bone, and were told to only bring
one pair of clothes, and some warm clothes for the evening. So, i
stayed soaked until i got too cold, then put on dry jeans and a dry
sweater and kept under the tarps we had set up. We could run back
and forth to the other groups tarps and hang out there as they were
a fun group, and their tarps were more waterproof than ours. We had
drinks, listened to music, and turned in. We put up two out of the
three tents we were given as we could only fit one under the tarps,
and the other just got wet, but a couple that was with us had to
have their own tent. Prisses.
The next day was drier, but still grey and occasional rains. We
went to see a lake with turtles in it. That was neat cuz it had
turtles. We had lunch, dinner, and then set up camp, and this time
put up all three quite confident that it wouldn't rain. We didn't
see the other group that night, and half of our group went to bed
early, so it was a fairly quiet night. I stayed up for a while with
the Swedish guys as they liked metal and had cool swedish metal.
The next morning we took apart camp and went to see more lakes,
swimming lakes. It was nicer this day, sunny, i actually got burnt
on my shoulders, and i swear i could hear Jayne's voice in my head
scolding me for not putting on sunscreen! Just kidding, but i
thought about you when i got burnt! Lake Wabby, beautiful, steep
dune into lake, run down dune as fast as you can then hurl yourself
into the lake. Lake Mackenzie, crystal clear blue gorgeousity ( i
don't know if that's a word, but i'm using it). We returned to
Rainbow beach that evening and i was looking forward to a good
piss-up with the other groups, as i felt my group a bit boring.
When we returned and cleaned the truck, the israeli couple had to
leave to catch a bus, whcih made me wonder if i had to do the same,
as i was trying to hurry up the east coast. Lo-and behold, i had a
bus to catch in 15 minutes. I grabbed my things, went out to the
bus stop, and organized my things. No shower, no dinner, just dirty
me on a 14 hour overnight bus ride. Good few days camping, but if i
had any complaints, it was that my group wasn't that fun in the
end. The 4 israeli's started talking amongst themselves in hebrew
more and more and tried to run things a bit, and the girl from the
israeli couple started to annoy me as she became more helpless as
the trip went on. Oh well, i was thinking it would have been good
to meet up with the other group the second night because they were
a hoot, and were all hungover on the last day, but it turns out
that the australian guy with them did some acid the 2nd night and
chased one of the guys around for 3 hours with a knife while the
girls in the group called the cops from the island to have him
arrested as he was psycho.
One night in Airlie beach. Wasn't enough. One of the best hostels
i've stayed in as all the rooms were like little self contained
units with their own bathrooms, kitchens, tv, and patio. It was
like being at a friends place! i went out with the people in my
room to a couple bars, but had a early night as i was tired. the
night previous was spent on a bus, and i slept with my contacts in
and i think i scratched my eye as i was near blind in the morning
cuz i couldn' open my eye for more than a second and was really
light sensitive. I knew a guy on the bus from Noosa, and was able
to follow him blindly to a hostel. Airlie, very nice.
Now i'm in cairns, and i don't want to write about it now as i am
sick of typing.
take care
hope all is well
god i hate typing
mark

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