Uncle Brian's

Tuesday June 23
After our long day on the reef, Caitlin and I fell asleep before 9 o'clock. Party animals! We had to be up early yet again, because today we went on a tour of the Atherton Tablelands, the tropical rain forests of the far north. We went with a group recommended to me by my friend Clare, and it turned out to be awesome.
There were about 20 of us on "Gus the Wonder Bus" with our tour guide Cousin Rohan (sounds like Roe'n). It was a little cheesy, but everyone in the group got pretty into it so it ended up being a lot of fun.

We headed north out of Cairns and made a stop in Balina which has the "golden gum boot" award for being

the wettest town in Queensland, with an average rainfall of 3.5-4 meters a year! We went on a short hike to the Devil's Pool and saw some lovely but treacherous waterfalls and heard the Dreamtime story of lost lovers and a siren calling young men in and drowning them. In the last 17 years they've been keeping track, 18 guys have drowned in the river, so there may be something to that.After visiting Balina we headed to Josephine Falls which has a natural water slide where the water comes down over a smooth rock. You can climb to the top and slide down any which way and get dumped into a clear pool below. It was beautiful and very "refreshing" aka freezing. Not everyone was brave enough to get in, but it was well worth it!

We had lunch at the Falls Tea House with Mr. and Mrs. Lunch and heard stories

about Gus' love affairs with an ambulance named Vanessa and a milk truck called Volveena. Like I said, cheesy but funny. Rohan told us about Millaa Millaa falls, our next stop. It is famous for some cheesy pop singer's video back drop (I didn't know who he was, but I guess he just split up with the model Jordan?) and how it is the setting for the Timotei shampoo adverts- I think Herbal Essence in the States- with the woman flipping her hair and a rainbow arc of water coming off. So Rohan gave us tips on how to get the full Timotei look.

The falls were stunning. You could swim behind them and sit on rocks and look back through them and up to the top. It was sunny out, but the water was Very Refreshing aka super freezing. We all did the Timotei hair, even the guys, and Rohan took expert pictures. Even after all the waterfalls I've seen out here, this one was still very impressive.

We stopped at a lake about 20min away called Eachum. It is one of two volcanic craters or Marrs, and in aerial photos you can really tell- they kind of look like moon craters. The water was very still and the sun was low enough to make it look like glass and reflect the trees and sky into it really clearly. It was lovely, and the water was warmer than the other places, but still pretty cold. We saw some saw shelled turtles which have the distinction of being able to breathe out of their bottoms which is very weird and pretty cool. We had afternoon tea (what a great tradition) and then headed up to the river to look for platypus.

Rohan gave us some good info on the platypus, which is one of the most unusual animals. It is an egg laying mammal, and one of two species of monotreme (the other being the echidna). Monotreme means "one hole" so it pees, poos, and reproduces with the same hole. Weird. The platypus in Queensland are very small- they only get to be about a foot long, and are very shy. We watched for a while with no success, and just as we were getting ready to leave I spotted one below the bridge! It came up a couple of times and we had a good view of it- much better than the glimpses I got near the Jenolan Caves. It was very small and very cute. Apparently 93% of Australians have never seen platypus, so we were pretty lucky.On the ride back we all sang songs and danced around the bus. It was ridiculous but really good fun. Uncle Brian's was a good way to go!

Passions of Paradise

Monday June 23

Scuba Diving! Today we went out on the boat Passions of Paradise which is a souped up catamaran that also has a sail- pretty cool. It was a one day reef trip that took us a couple hours out of Cairns and onto some smaller reefs and quays/cays. A couple of other people from our hostel were on the boat, and there were about 100 people total, which is a relatively small group for day trips on the reef.

It was sunny but a bit windy out on the water. The skipper said it was a pretty average winter day, and we were lucky it wasn't raining! The water was 25 degrees C which is pretty warm, but once you get out you are freezing! A whole lot better than Massachusetts/Alaska/New York though, where I've done all my other water activities!

Our first stop was Paradise Reef. There were 6 certified divers, and this was the first time I've been diving for fun since getting certified a year ago. It was quite a change from laying down barrier over milfoil! The Great Barrier Reef is incredible- we saw all sorts of corals and anemones, lots of fish and giant sea cucumbers. The visibility was pretty good, and we went down to 11 meters (close to 33 feet) which got a bit chilly. There was a lot to see, but it took me a little while to adjust to being underwater again after so long! A couple of the people had just finished 5 day live-aboard trips that take you much further out on the reef to spots that are rarely visited, and they said it was incredible compared to this. Now I just have something else to add to my list of things to do when I come back to Australia:)

Caitlin tried out scuba diving for the first time with an introductory dive. There were 4 divers per instructor and they got a basic lesson on mask clearing, regulator recovery, and a bit on buoyancy and navigation. They did a short, shallow dive but she enjoyed it more than snorkeling and found it less scary.

We were served a big lunch and then went to our second spot, Michalmans Cay for 2 hours. I was the only certified diver who wanted to go again- everyone else was too cold/tired, so just Dicky the dive master and I went out. It was a pretty shallow dive because I wanted to see if we could find any turtles, but the water was clear and there were some beautiful if smallish fish. I took out the underwater digital camera Caitlin and I had rented for the day and a bunch of shots of everything. About 10 min into the dive Dicky tapped his tank to get my attention and made the sign for "shark!" I looked over and HOLY CRAP! There was a black tipped reef shark not that far away. And I looked over to my right and HOLY CRAP there was another one! I got some quick pictures, but without a frame of reference it is hard to tell how big they are and how close they were. All I can say is, they were plenty big and pretty darn close- at least as big as me, and close enough Dicky could see they were both males. They were just chilling, and swam away after a couple of minutes. Diving with sharks on the Great Barrier Reef though... check that one off my life list of things to do! Momentarily terrifying, but totally awesome!

Dicky's a biologist and told me when we got out of the water that we were really lucky to see any sharks, they are getting pretty rare in the area which is really sad.

After the dive I got to snorkel for a while, and got to see sea turtles after all! One was resting on the bottom, then I saw a couple swimming later on. A bunch of people chased them to touch their shells, which you really aren't supposed to do, so I got a few photos and let them be. If I was a turtle I wouldn't want a horde of crazy snorkelers trying to catch up to me!

Around the boat there were a bunch of HUGE fish- turns out they throw bits of fish off the boat once everyone gets out of the water to give people a chance to see them from the surface. These fish know what is going on, and probably hang around the boat every day. One of these fish was twice the size of me, and got close enough to touch. Kinda freaky.

They hoisted the sail on the way back to Cairns, and one of the guys on the crew knew some crazy card tricks and entertained us for a while. All in all it was an incredible day.

Arriving in Cairns

Sunday June 21
Caitlin and I arrived in Cairns (pronounced "Cans") Sunday morning and it was waaarm and sunny and felt so tropical (which it should, seeing as it is in the very far north of Queensland and the continent). Our hostel was a lovely little place called Dreamtime which was very homey and had lots of plants and a comfy kitchen and a very helpful guy called Chris who worked tirelessly at the front desk. 

The town/city of Cairns is pretty small and easy to navigate. We had Mexican food for lunch- the first time in 2 months! It was tasty but nothing by California standards. We did happen upon an excellent fresh foods market that is open on weekends. There were endless stalls of brilliant produce. We bought avocados, papaya, cantaloupe, basil, tomatoes, bananas, bread, and limes for about $10- and it was all delicious! We had to stop ourselves from getting more, because there really is only so much you can eat in 3 days.Since it was warm and sunny we went down to the lagoon, the man made swimming structure next to the beach. The city is right on the ocean, but because of sharks, jellyfish, and salt water crocodiles swimming in the sea really isn't an option. There was a little bit of sand, some grass, and a ton of people around the lagoon sunning themselves. There was a bike race and a fun run going on, so the whole town seemed to be out. 
After lazing around for a while we walked up and down pretty much every street in the downtown area (all 4 of them) had a gelato and looked at all the boats on the water. It was a very nice and relaxed day, and we were soaking up as much warm weather as we could, knowing that New Zealand would be freezing in a few days!

Australia Zoo and Saying Goodbye

Friday June 19- Saturday June 20

Friday morning we were bright eyed and bushy tailed at 7am to go to the zoo, home of Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunter! Cori and her friend Stephen were going as well, and picked us up to make the trip together. We got to listen to some quality Aussie music and one of Stephen's own rap tracks. The zoo was awesome! We listened to a talk on giant tortoises, got to feed some Asian elephants, and went to a show with birds flying all around and crocodiles! The crocs were not totally cooperative and didn't jump and lunge as much as the trainer would have liked, and the crazy guy kept getting closer and leaning in further. We reckoned the croc would have preferred one of his legs to the bit of chicken he was dangling, but couldn't really be bothered. What a loony job!

We saw more koalas and kangaroos, took pictures with the golden statues of the Irwin family (kind of weird) and watched tons more animals. Caitlin, Hannah, and I got the train back to the city later in the afternoon, did a quick turn around, and my sister and I went out to meet up with my friend Cassi who was also doing a study abroad in England with me and now lives in Brisbane. We met her and a few of her friends at the Exchange Hotel which has a rooftop bar that was very cool, surrounded by the city center. We checked out one other place and got the VIP treatment and a bottle of wine, which is always excellent! Everyone was pretty tired from a day at the zoo/week at work, and it was a nice low key night, and fun to see a friend from ages ago!

Saturday we finally got to sleep in a bit (and the trains weren't running as often!) and took a long walk to Fortitude Valley for the weekend markets. As Hannah and I already realized, markets are a dangerous place and we all spent plenty of money but got some cool, artsy things. The Valley is full of lots of cool shops and we wandered around all afternoon.

We walked across the Story Bridge which is the big one in Brisbane that you can pay lots of money to climb over kind of like the Harbour Bridge in Sydney. There is a hotel and bar under it on one side, and we met Cori for a few pints and watched a bit of rugby which is hugely popular here. We went back to Stephen's place that is just around the corner and met his roommates and a few friends. It was strange not being the only American!

Hannah and I had planned on having a nice meal together on our last night, and luckily found a nice place that was open late (it was after 10 by the time we actually made it out!) and had a lovely meal with wine and dessert and really classed it up for a night. It was around midnight when we finished, and luckily we were too full to go to any of the bars that were around there- going out before an early morning is never a good idea!

Caitlin and I were up at 4:30 am to catch our flight to Cairns and I had to say goodbye to my English traveling mate. It was sad that almost half my trip had finished- and really unbelievable. We've had some good times together, me and Hannah :(

Brisbane Time

Wednesday June 17- Thursday June 18

Arriving in Brisbane was a shock to the system after spending the last few weeks in sleepy coastal towns. There were so many cars and traffic and lights and people! Our hostel was brand new, which would have been great except it wasn't quite done and there was more jack hammering going on at 6 am under our window than I normally appreciate. That and it was right next to the transit center so the trains ran by at all hours. However, the rooftop pool with a view of the city almost made up for that.My sister Caitlin arrived early Wednesday and the three of us went out to explore the city. We got distracted by lunch, then went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary on the outskirts of the city. We had heard good things but it really exceeded expectations! We got to cuddle a koala (who's name was Kakadu- perfect) and got our pictures taken. We also got to feed a bunch of very friendly kangaroos that let us pet them. There were wombats and Tasmanian Devils and all sorts of birds- we were fully entertained until it got dark at 5pm as it does around here. Darn winter.

Thursday we spent the morning walking down the Queen Street Mall, where if you had tons of money you

 could spend it all, and poked around some souvenir shops. We walked through the city's botanical gardens and across one of the many bridges over the Brisbane River and into South Bank that has a lovely boardwalk and promenade. This is also where all of the museums and things are. We spent a few hours in the museum of modern art with an excellent exhibit on China with a number of Chinese-Australian artists and immigrant's work featured. Hannah is not so down with the modern art scene, but seemed to enjoy it in spite of herself. Coffee and cake followed at the library shop, and we walked through more gardens and saw the Nepalese Peace Pagoda that had been built and brought over for the 1988 Worlds Fair.

Thurs night we checked out the night life, which is apparently non existent during the week in Brisbane. We found a few backpacker places, though, and managed to entertain ourselves without too much trouble:)

On to Queensland

Tuesday June 16

I'm going to keep more up to date, I promise! Or at least I'll try!

The last day in Byron was brilliant- warm and sunny and Hannah and I lay on the beach all day and ate fish and chips and French pastries. Hannah actually went a little lobster, but it was worth it (for me anyway). We collected some of our housmates and finally made the hike up to the lighthouse for sunset. The walk is beautiful, through forest and along the beach and we got to see some surfers catch really nice waves.


The lighthouse itself is up a set of steep hills (I know, that really should not be surprising) and it felt good to get some exercise after being a beach bum all day. We went to the most easterly point of continental Australia and watched for whales. We made it to the top of the hill just before the sun went down and had a great view. I don't think I could ever get tired of Australian sunsets! The walk back was pretty dark, but well worth it.

Hannah and I had to catch our bus- the last one of our trip together!- at 8 pm and I was really sad to leave Byron and our home at the Middle Reef and all the wonderful people. Our bus was on schedule for the first time ever and we really did have to leave:(