The Whitsundays, Cairns and Cape Tribulation!

  Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Thursday, September 11, 2008

OK!  So... since the last time I wrote we have been on our sailing trip around the Whitsundays... That upgrade we got turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to us... we had to wait in Airlie Beach for an extra day, but that's no great hardship... we just sat at the lagoon reading and chilling out...

The boat we were upgraded to was the Anaconda III, a mega yacht and one of only 3 or 5 (I forget which) boats that go to the outer reef... that's the Great Barrier Reef, y'all!  It also had dive instructors and equipment, which the first boat we booked on, did not... I haven't dived since I was in Switzerland, so the chance to go out on the reef was unbelievable!!  I got on the boat thinking I might go for one dive... and ended up doing my Advanced Divers' course - another opportunity I just couldn't pass up!!  Doing the course involved doing skills such as removing and clearing your mask and retrieving your regulator (the thing you breathe through!) at about 10m and 30m - the deepest I'd ever dived!!  I also had to lead a dive and navigate my way from start to finish (which was a pretty scary prospect!), do a night dive and a drift dive.  A drift dive is where you dive and use a known current to take you from one spot to another, so there's no much swimming involved.

The diving I did on that trip was the best and most challenging I've ever done - utterly amazing! The Great Barrier Reef is just full of so many different types of coral and creatures.  I saw so much stuff, but here are my favourites... During my 30 metre dive I looked up and saw 10-15 reef sharks swimming above me - which was scary at first, and then just a fantastic sight... Reef sharks aren't really dangerous but they have been known to nip on occasion...!  The night dive is probably the most wonderful thing I've ever done... I was really scared about jumping into the water in the dark... it just seemed so unknown... but the fear melted away pretty soon after we descended... the reef is just a totally different place at night - even the animals that hang out there are different.  We were so lucky - we managed to find 2 absolutely GIGANTIC turtles... they were chilling out in little caves on the ocean floor and we did our best not to disturb them with our torches... But they did get up from their hiding places and swim away - right towards us and past us... it was unbelievable!!

I had been worried about diving that day because earlier I had had some pain across my teeth and gums and had to go back to the surface, aborting the dive... If you have a cavity in your teeth and get an air bubble in it, it can cause pain and if you're really unlucky, when you go up the air bubbles getting bigger can crack or even shatter your tooth... so I was a bit worried about that!!  It turned out to be fine though - I don't even have any fillings, so I was pretty surprised at there being something wrong with my teeth...!  The night dive was fine for about twenty minutes though, and then it started to hurt again... but 20 minutes is long enough.... I went up and got back in the dive boat, while the rest of my group carried on for about 5-10 minutes.  But it was while I was up in the boat with Simon, my dive instructor for all my other dives (I did this one with Harry) that we saw a turtle come up to the surface.  At night they slow their heart rate down to about 1 beat every minute so that they don't need to come up for air, but this guy needed to take a breath :)  But instead of taking his air and then going straight back down he swam around with his head up right next to our boat for a minute or so... it was amazing... it really felt like he was just being curious and wanted to check us out... bloody brilliant!!

Anyway... that's enough talk about diving... we got on the boat at 7pm and all got to know each other a little bit, but we had a pretty early night.... we just chatted with Kate and Nic (our room mates) for a bit... and also bumped into Ali, a girl we met in Noosa, and her friends Tony and B (which stands for Barbro). In the morning the boat made its way to Whitehaven Beach - one of the top five beaches in the world - and the whole boat got off to play some rounders and touch rugby.  That beach was amazing - the sand was so fine it was a bit like flour and you could use it with a bit of water to make your jewellery shiny...!

The rest of the trip was pretty much a gang of people playing card games... the almighty SCHWIMMER!! Tom was taught this card game by some German guys we met in Airlie Beach, and he passed it on to the people on the boat... and it was a massive hit, so we spent a lot of time, when we were diving or snorkelling, playing that...

Tom did a few introductory dives and absolutely loved it - but of course I knew he would :)  I'm so pleased that he's into it though, because it's one of the best things I've ever done... he wants to get his license now, so then we might be able to dive together... BRING ON THAILAND!!

After the boat trip we decided to stay in Airlie Beach for one more night and go out with everyone from the boat... which turned into a fairly big night... but as soon as we ran out of money Tom and I left...

The next day we caught a night bus to Cairns... and I was feeling terrible... the sickness that Tom had in Hervey Bay finally caught up with me and I was coughing and spluttering and sneezing... a lot... but somehow when I woke up from my sleep on the night bus, it was gone...!

Cairns is special for me, because I used to live and work here... We are staying with my friend Irish, who was my manager at the Woolshed, and who is taking very good care of us!  We had one big night out at the Woolshed with Kate, Tony and B and I bumped into a few people that I haven't seen since I left Cairns 7 years ago... bloody brilliant!!

Just north of Cairns, you can see the rainforest meet the sea, which apparently doesn't happen anywhere else in the world... it's called Cape Tribulation... We (me, Tom, Kate, Nic, Tony and B) decided to hire a care and go up to have a look... ROAD TRIP!!!  Oh how I love a good road trip!!

We drove up and through the rainforest, going for a walk on the beach... The roads are very windy, so when Tony and I were in the back, we invented a game where we held our feet up off the floor with our hands and were then thrown around in the back seat... always funny... haha...

We stayed the night in a hostel in Port Douglas - a nice little town between Cape Tribulation and Cairns.... and we managed to find a hostel that had PICTIONARY!!  So the evening was spent with all of us piled into one dorm room, with several bottles of wine, playing Schwimmer, Pictionary and eventually, the ring of fire... which fell apart because the boys refused to kiss... it's a long story ;) :p

The next day we decided to go and hire a boat and check out the Port Douglas waterways... where we were lucky enough to see 5 wild crocodiles... 4 large saltwater crocs, and 1 baby freshwater croc...  again, bloody amazing... good for us, they were on the side of the water soaking up the sun... had they been in the water, it might have been a slightly more nerve wracking experience!!

On the way back to Cairns, we stopped at Mossman Gorge... the idea was to go for a swim, but it was pouring down with rain (as it has for most of the time we've been in Cairns) and no-one could be bothered with getting wet and then getting back in the car... plus someone mentioned leeches.... haha...

So now we're back in Cairns... Irish is finishing work early and we're going to spend some time with him... We leave Australia tomorrow... heading for TOKYO!!  I can't wait... Japan is going to be a very interested experience!!  We only have a couple of weeks there, so there's a lot to fit in!

I'm sorry about the lack of photos in this blog - I'm having a few photo issues... but you can always check out all our photos on the flickr page  :)