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Published: April 4th 2010
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Cairns
The view off of the Esplanade--a very nice swimming area that's free to the public and overlooks the ocean. This past week marked week one of our two week “fall” break (spring break back in the States). Ash n I took a trip to Cairns and Sydney with Misha and Des (two girls from Concordia) and Berto (Des’s roommate at Uni from Mexico). It was crazy fun, and I will never forget it!
Friday, March 26th
Des, Ash, Berto, Misha and I headed for the airport in two cars, and arrived with a good hour to spare. We creeped everyone out in the airport by yelling, “UHUHUH” like Lorraine from MadTV does. It’s just what we do. The flight itself was relatively uneventful.
Misha had the row to herself in front of Ashley and I, so Ashley sat with Misha (with a seat in between them) and I did the same with some crabby 50 year old guy. I fell asleep with my face in the aisle and butt half on the seat in between us. That’s what you get for being a cranky old man!
When we arrived in Cairns, it was rainy and gross out. The shuttle took us to our hostel and we struggled for twenty minutes to find the right room. The
The crew!
Me, Ashley, Berto, Misha, and Des hostel was super shady (what can you expect for only $15 a night?) and our room smelled like urine, sweat, and sex. We all had yellow Pocahontas sheets and sketchy pillows. The only good quality the room had was that there was free air-con. Always a plus!
Because it was 1 a.m. when we arrived, there were no open food places so we ate all of Berto’s gummy-bears instead. We fell asleep thinking that the trip could only get better from there.
Saturday, March 27th
After waking up at the crack of dawn to check out of our rooms, re-pack our backpacks for the liveaboard boat trip we were about to embark on, and find some McDonald’s, we got onto a shuttle bus that took us to the CDC dive shop so that we could sign some papers and store our larger luggage.
Right off the bat, they told us that the ocean had been really rocky lately because of Cyclone Uluie and the full moon, and that we should take some sea-sickness tablets before boarding the small boat that would take us two-hours out to the Kangaroo Explorer (the liveaboard).
Ash n I met
Global Central Backpackers
Our hostel for two nights :) a really nice girl on the boat who gave us some of hers, and we were off. Ashley, Berto, and Misha all tossed their McDonald’s breakfast overboard, and Des and I were minutes away from doing the same when we pulled up to the liveaboard. It was arguably the worst boat ride any of us had ever experienced, but we were hoping things on the liveaboard would be better.
However, this was not the case. Ashley was sea-sick the entire time with Berto in a close second. We didn’t do any scuba diving the first day because I didn’t want to go without Ash (my dive buddy—yes, that is an official term) and I started feeling a bit sick that night too. We actually talked to the dive master and asked if there was any way we could get off the next day and get a refund.
Sunday, March 28th
He said no. I am SO GLAD THAT HE SAID NO. The next day, I did three dives on the gorgeous outer Great Barrier Reef with a super nice dive master (Dan). The first dive, Ashley and I were just with the dive master. He showed us
Love Woolworths
Woolies 69 cent homebrand water! some cool stuff and it was very refreshing. The second dive we went with a group of people. However, just as they were about to go through a structure under water that was like a cave with no top (a pass-through), Ashley and I’s tanks started to run low on air so we cut off from the group and headed back to the boat.
That ended Ashley’s diving experience for the day and she laid down sick for the rest of the night.
Side story: Our cabins were on the lowest level of the boat, which was good because there was the least rocking there. However, it was also the hottest place on the boat and they were doing maintenance on the generator so it would take forever to cool down again once there was no Air-Con. BUT. Misha’s bed got soaked because of a leak from a room above us, so they gave her a room on the second level that was FREEZING, and we all spent a good amount of time up there hanging out and playing “Why? Because”. We caused quite a ruckus on that boat and everyone knew who we were! (Including some creeper
The Kangaroo Explorer
This is after our last dive on the trip. The boat behind us is the one we stayed on. who kept telling me I had beautiful blue eyes…weirdo).
Alright, back to that second day on the boat.
Desiree and Dan (the cool dive instructor) persuaded me to go on the night dive. While I’m glad I did it, I probably won’t ever repeat that. The darkness made me feel super claustrophobic, and it was intense!
After three dives that day, I was totally wiped out. That meant that the next day (Monday, March 29th), I only did one dive with Ash, Des, and Dan. Dan brought along the underwater camera and we got some sweet shots! Loved the reef and loved playing Little Mermaid.
The boat had a really fun and accommodating crew and the food was AMAZING. Not to mention that the chef, a Kiwi, wasn’t hard on the eyes 😉 The food was great, but how we smelled was not. Because we were out on the ocean in the middle of nowhere, we were limited to how much water we could use. We were only supposed to do a 30 second rinse off during the day, and then have a 2 minute shower before bed. Needless to say, none of us smelled too
Scuba Diving
Diving the Great Barrier Reef great after 3 days of this. Not only could we not have a decent shower until we got back on land, we couldn’t take a hot shower until the next day because you’re not supposed to take hot showers for up to 8 hours after you dive so that you don’t bring the Nitrogen out of your system too quickly and get decompression sickness.
The boat ride back to Cairns wasn’t rough at all, and we checked into our next hostel. This hostel was super nice, and the 5 of us shared a room with some boy that we never quite saw. However, we did hear him when he came back extremely drunk and jabbered on in his sleep for awhile. It was pretty funny.
For the rest of the evening in Cairns, we walked around, got a free meal from the hostel at a PJ O’Briens, a pub down the street, and got ready to go out. We went out to a bar called the Woolshed and had free beer and pizza with a bunch of our friends from the Kangaroo Explorer. None of us drank much at all because the downside of getting back on land
Scuba Buddies
Diving the reef again is getting USED to being back on land. 4 days later and I still feel like I’m on a boat.
Tuesday, March 30th
This was our only full day in Cairns, and I really wish we could have spent more time there. It was so gorgeous out! We wandered the streets all day and went to little tourist shops to find gifts for our friends and families since we knew everything in Sydney would be super expensive.
We also went to a big community pool right on main corner that overlooked the ocean. It was so pretty! After that we all went back to the hostel to get ready for another night out. We went back to PJ O’Brien’s for our meal, and then stayed there because it was ladies night (this means FREE CHAMPAGNE. Yum!).
We did call it an early night though because we had a flight to Sydney at 9:25 a.m. the next day and needed to check out and get a taxi before 8 a.m.
I’ll write about Sydney soon!
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Sharon
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How doyou do it all?
Just reading about all that you did was amazing....so much activity in so little time! Now I understand why Uni seems so quiet toyou. You really go for the action!