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Published: June 17th 2006
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It seems like ages ago since i last updated my blog, so i thought it was about time i filled you all in about what we did in Cairns for a couple of weeks (we've now been in New Zealand for over a week, but i'll try and do a blog for that in the next few days). Cairns has without doubt been the best two weeks of the trip so far, we had originally planned on travelling up there, via Fraser Island, The Whitsundays and Airlie Beach, so that we could meet up with Garan for a while, but it all got a bit too complicated, and we were all starting to run out of money, so instead just took a direct flight from Brisbane to Cairns, which in the end turned out really well, we struggled to get Cairns done in a fortnight, so we definately needed the extra time up there.
The hostel we stayed in there was one of the best yet, with a swimming pool, jacuzzi, and much more open plan than any of the others we've stayed at, making it much easier to meet people which was great, i'd say that the only down
side to it was that i got my new board shorts stolen...twice! Sam was only with us for the first couple of days in Cairns, before he had to head back to the army, so he obviously wanted to do as much as possible while we were there, so while me and tom spent the first day checking out the city, Sam did his 14,000ft skydive - which from his DVD he repeatedly showed us looked absolutely awesome, something me and tom will HAVE to do at some point!
The next day we saw a watersports package of Jet Skiing, Parasailing and Tubing being advertised for only about 50 quid, so we thought this had to be done, and it was excellent. Jet skiing definately feels a lot faster than it looks, so going full throttle into a tight 180 turn felt awesome, and only Sam managed to fall off trying it. Parasailing on the other hand felt so much slower (even though we were probably going not much slower than a jet ski), when you're 300ft high up, it feels like you're hardly moving at all - so this gave us all the opportunity just to chill out
for a while, and take in the spectacular views of the mountains and harbour surrounding the city. Overall though, i think we can all agree that the Tubing was the most fun, the three of us spent about 15 minutes attempting to cling onto a kind of inflatable raft being dragged along at full speed by the boat - needless to say we all got thrown off a few times...
Probably the craziest thing about Cairns though, was later that day, when we randomly saw Tom, Joe and Will walking along the Esplanade, down by the beach front. We knew that they were travelling around the world as well, but had no idea they were in Australia, let alone staying just a few streets away from us, so that was a great suprise - made it feel like we were back in Guildford again. That now made it 4 people we had met up with from school on the other side of the world (and we only met Sam because Rob randomly saw him on a bus in Sydney) - it really is a small world. One of the best things that i've noticed about Cairns, is that there
are loads of great places to go and hang out at during the day, that are all free! e.g. the Esplanade (where we often bumped into people we had met, and again saw Tom Joe and Will there) - at weekends they always have live bands playing, so you can just sunbathe on the grass and chill out listening to the music, or there's also a free swimming lagoon right next to it - so these both helped pass the time when we had nothing to do. If they had anything like this in Guildford, it would blatantly get trashed by all the pikeys!
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Scuba Diving and the Great Barrier Reef
Scuba diving was definately the thing i'd been looking forward to most out of the whole of our trip, so it was great to finally get ourselves booked in on a course, which would also give us a couple of days out on the Great Barrier Reef. This was definately the highlight of Australia so far, and i think it would be very very difficult to top. The first two days of the course were classroom/swimming pool based, and it felt really odd
Fish
Parrot fish and cleaning wrasse having to get up early to go to school again, and we were even given homework! Tom and I were put in a group with 6 other students, and our Dutch instructor - Mad Mike (who warned us about a million times that we would all die if we got anything wrong when we were out in the ocean, which we all found pretty funny by the end of the course) and this made up our scuba team: Uber Mad Mike's Tandoori 8 (the reasoning behind the name i can't be bothere to explain). Obviously the best part of the course was when we got out onto the reef, where we got to do 4 different dives before we were actually given our PADI Open Water qualifications. Scuba diving was definately a lot more complicated than we all anticipated, and most of our dives consisted of having to do different skills underwater, in case of an emergency. e.g. taking off our mask and scuba kits (tank, air, jackets etc) at the bottom of the sea, and attempting to put them back on. After doing all of our skills we got to the fun part - exploring the reef, which was
absolutely stunning - we saw everything you would expect to see, and more, including sea turtles, quite a few stingrays and mantarays, and we went swimming with sharks! We saw loads of amazing corals, and i even managed to find nemo - he wasn't very hard to find, i can't understand why they made a whole film out of trying to find him! One of the best things about swimming on in the reef is how warm the water is, hotter than the leisure pool at spectrum, so we didn't even need to wear wetsuits if we didn't want to!
Scuba diving is definately something i would recommend to anyone who goes to australia, was great fun, and we met a load of great people as well - so if any of you get chance to do a diving course, then do it!
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The scenic railway up to Kuranda had been recommended to us by quite a few people, so we decided to combine this with the Kuranda Skyrail and make a day trip out of it. Kuranda is situated about 20km north of Cairns, up through the rainforest, so we got some incredible views of
the city/mountains/rainforest on the journey, especially on the skyrail. Kuranda itself didn't really have much to do, apart from loads and loads of souvenir shops, but i did manage to get one of the best ice creams i've ever had up there!
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We had now reached our last full day in Australia, and realised that we hadn't seen any crocodiles, apart from in Steve Irwin's Zoo - so a trip to a croc reserve had to be done. This place had about 3000 crocodiles! We got to see a load of these on a short river cruise, where we watched them being fed - this was great fun as we got to see them up close - only a couple of feet away from them, and watching them leap out of the water for food was a great experience! We also went to watch the croc attack show, which was basically some nutter going into the enclosure and winding up the crocodile - this was a good laugh, but definately not something i would try myself!
We were also all warned that if we saw crocodile signs near water - DO NOT go swimming - i
wish i had noticed the sign at palm cove beach BEFORE i went swimming! (i wasnt the only person in the water!)
Well that's Australia done, it's a real shame having to leave Cairns, definately want to come back some time. We're now over half way through our trip - next stop New Zealand!
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Dad
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Go For It!!
Josh, great to read your blog and hear about the fantastic things you've been doing. Your photos are superb, so pleased you've done the Reef. Congrats on getting your PADI - something else to add to your CV! You'll be hard pressed to go on a more spectacular train journey than the one to Kuranda - my photos are almost identical. Keep going for the sky diving, jet skiing etc. And don't worry about the croc warning signs - why not give croc wrestling a go? Australia may be over, but now it's time to experience NZ. Hope you're keeping up to date with World Cup. Keep talking. Love, Dad.