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Published: December 15th 2009
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I took a flight from Alice Springs to Cairns on a ridiculously empty plane - it had about 20 people on it. I think there were almost as many staff on the plane as passengers. Also on the same flight was another English guy called Paul who I'd met at the hostel in Alice Springs, so I had a travel buddy for a few days whilst I was in Cairns. For some reason, Cairns seemed to be a bit of a cheaper city to stay in than some of the others I've been to in Australia and this was helped by the fact that every evening one of the bars offered a free evening meal to everyone who stayed at our hostel. Even better than this, on the first night me and Paul did the weekly quiz that's held there along with a couple of other people we met and ended up winning it. Our prize was a VIP pass for the bar which gave us unlimited free meals and free soft drinks for a week as well as discounted beer and stuff so that made it even cheaper.
Since there were two of us to split the cost, we
decided to rent out a car for the day and we did the 3 hour drive from Cairns to Cape Tribulation stopping at a few places on the way. It was a really cool drive to do as we were driving with ocean on one side and rainforest on the other all the way and obviously when you have your own car you have the freedom to stop when and where you want to. On the way to Cape Tribulation is the Daintree rainforest which we did a bit of walking around on some of the marked tracks. We tried to spot some cassowaries which are meant to be in the area but we didn't see any - just a lot of insects that liked to bite. There was also a pretty good canopy walkway that we found which gave a different view of the rainforest. When we finally reached Cape Tribulation, we found a great beach called Cape Tribulation beach (surprisingly!) that was completely surrounded by rainforest. The beach was totally deserted and maybe this had something to do with the sign that we found which warned that crocodiles were living in the area. I didn't see any crocs
but I would of loved to see one in the wild - as long as it was from a big enough distance!
Obviously I couldn't visit Cairns without doing some diving at the great barrier reef especially after obtaining my dive license a few months earlier in Malaysia. It turns out that Paul is also very into diving and he's a divemaster which basically means he's done a lot of diving and is at the level just below being an instructor. So, after a few hours searching around the various dive shops we found a really good deal which gave us a day on a boat visiting 2 different sites and we'd get 3 dives. It was an early start on the day of the diving as it takes a while to get out to the reef. Unfortunately it was slightly windy on the day which meant there were big waves on the journey out to the reef, a lot of people on the boat were sick at least once, including me - I started to feel ill when I was setting up my scuba gear but luckily I managed to get it out of my system quickly by
giving the sea my breakfast that I'd eaten earlier. The first 10 minutes or so at the first dive site was bad visibility for some reason but from that point on the diving was quite incredible. I saw a lot of huge fish and some different types of rays as well as some giant clams that were literally as big as me. On the last dive I encountered these really annoying fish that kept prodding me in the ear - they attacked everyone a little bit but they seemed to like going for me more for some reason. It was a really good day's diving and I had a lot of fun - I would of loved to of done more diving there if I had the budget for it.
One evening after getting some food, we walked into a didgeridoo shop that was on the way back to the hostel and the guy in the shop offered us a free half hour lesson which was nice of him. I always wondered what the technique was for playing a didgeridoo and I can tell you that it's pretty difficult. Towards the end I was sort of getting the hang
of it and I could get a fairly decent sound out of it. I thought about buying one to take home but was put off by the 400 - 600 dollar price tags - they were really nice traditionally made ones though. In total I spent 6 nights in Cairns which I think might be the longest that I've spent in any place in the last 3 and a half months. I guess this may be partly due to the fact that I could live so cheaply there with the free food and drinks and the accommodation was cheap as well, but I really liked the place - there's a lot of places to visit outside of the city too.
After Cairns I headed south to a city called Townsville. Paul headed further south as he had to be in Sydney a few days later, I think he's going to be in Auckland at the same time as me so I might meet up with him again there. The main reason for going to Townsville was so that I could visit Magnetic Island which is 8km off the coast of the city. I spent two nights on the island in a hostel which was only 1 minute walk from a great beach. There isn't that much on the island but it's a good place to just relax and it was fun to just explore the island. Once I left the area that I was staying at I didn't see another single person all day so it was like I had the whole island to myself. It's also a good place to see some wildlife as apparently there's a lot of koalas and stuff living there. Unfortunately I didn't see any koalas but I did see lots of these little parrots and some huge eagles. After returning to the mainland I spent a few more nights in Townsville where the highlight was having some fantastic BBQs which a couple of guys from the hostel - kangaroo sausages are tasty.
Right now I'm back in Sydney and I fly into Auckland, New Zealand tomorrow. So, that's just about the end of Australia for me - it's been fun!
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Dona & Andrew
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Happy memories...
Dave Your photos reminded me of our trip up to said same beach at Cape Trib, you must have seen the Cassawary signs at the road side which were amusing! Amazing shots of you diving - pretty cool you managed to do that in the Barrier Reef. Looking forward to the next update....