Tuesday 27th July
Driving up the north east coast of Queensland is something else. Both Ben and I had never been here so to see the place for real was pretty different for us both. Giant rolling hills covered in thick rainforest and cane fields as far as the the can see, with funny little 'cane trains' transporting the cane here and there, zig zagging across the roads and fields. There were humungous foggy clouds coming down through the hills that made everything feel like a scene from 'Gorillas in the Mist'.
There were some gorgeous little towns we passed through on the way to Cairns, our favourite being Ingham. The architecture there is gorgeous with lit 1960's and 70's houses everywhere, I was in love!!!!
Driving into Cairns we realised it was nearly 6pm and we needed to find somewhere to stay pronto, after checking into a few places we ended up at the Cairns Holiday Park with a sweet little site for the next two nights we were set.
The lady there "Roz" was very helpful and suggested we do a snorkelling charter out to the Barriier Reef on Thursday so we booked that in. She also suggested a place to go out for some cheap eats and a few drinks, The Wool Shed. So we went and had showers and drove in to town to see what all the fuss was about. This place was bizzaaar!!! A total backpackers hub you're scooted in and immediately met with one of the bar girls offering 5 drinks for $10, we said ok, and then you're shuffled into another line where you order your $10 meal and pay then to be herded off to another line where everyone is scrambling for their food and tickets and yelling and pushing….I suddenly realised that we were the sheep in "The Wool Shed"……bugger! Finally armed with our meals, drinks and cutlery we scrambled for a place to sit and scoffed down our meal and our drinks. This was definitely a place for 'singles' and not the type of place for making friends and conversation….good cheap grub though!
Wednesday 28th July
Chilling out and sleeping in we got up whenever we bloody felt like it and decided that we would catch up with one of Ben's older brother Shane's friends Greg. So we wandered around the town checking out the esplanade and then met up with Greg for lunch. He was lovely and only too keen to show us around. He suggested we check out the Kuranda Sky lift that takes you on a 2 and a half hour round trip up through the tops of the rain forest. So we made our way to the ticket sales place at the bottom of the gigantic hill and jumped on! This was amazing, definitely a brilliant way to see and feel what it's like amongst the forest. You can hear all the wildlife and if you're luck see a few animals, such as the beautiful flock of white cockatoos we were lucky enough to spy. Arriving at the top you are free to jump out of your little carriage and take a look around Kuranda, there is a gorgeous pub up there over 100 years old where you can sit a have a beer and a yarn.
Reaching the bottom we text Greg and said we had a great time and took him up on the offer of dinner with his family he had mentioned before.
It was awesome to be in someones living room with a couch, and carpet and a fully functioning kitchen!!! Freshly cooked barramundi on the BBQ with salad and a few beers was a perfect way to finish off our big day. We hit the hay early as we had another big day tomorrow, THE GREAT BARRIER REEF!!!!!! wooohooooo!
Thursday 29th July
Up at 6am we made our way to the Marlin dock down at the Cairns Marina. After checking in our tickets we made our way to our boat 'The Osprey', a massive charter boat that was taking us out for the day to snorkel and see the reef, they include an Aussie BBQ for lunch and all your snorkelling gear, not bad for $128 each!
I'm pretty sure we were the only people from Australia on the boat, us and a father and son who were also from Melbourne. It's a pretty strange feeling being a tourist in your own country!!! But I guess you could say "we were all in the same boat" as we were all excited to see and experience the beautiful reef. After a long list of instructions from the tour guide and a rocky 1 hour trip out to see we arrived at the reef.
We we're a bit unlucky with the weather conditions as it was a little overcast and pretty choppy, but at least it was warm, not to mention the temperature of the water! Unreal!
After putting on our flippers and snorkel Ben and I jumped into the water off the back of the boat. It looked like the drowning scene out of Titanic with everyone splattering and coughing trying to get their bearings. Makes you realise how unnatural it actually is for humans to be in water, especially European ones who don't regularly swim…(or go in the sun! hehe!)
Once you calm down a bit and forget you're in the middle of the ocean on a reef, and finally coordinate your breathing with you kicking etc, you finally see the most magnificent underwater scenery that everyone talks about. Incredible fish and coral, made up of so many different colours!! It literally takes your breath away, Ben loved doing some free diving to get a closer view and I enjoyed just floating around at the top and observing all the little fish. Some were not so little!!! We saw turtles aswell, so cute!!!
Coming in for a bit of lunch, the boat then made its way to another reef about 15 minutes away, one of the tour guides had mentioned he thought this reef was much prettier and that we would see more. He was right! Feeling a bit more confident after our first go Ben and i went a little bit further out on our own. We stayed out there for about an hour and a half and had a great time swimming around.
At the end of a big day one of our tour guides got up and sang some songs on his guitar on the ride home. He was pretty bad but very entertaining and it made for a fun ride home.
Returning to our camp we were super buggered and looking forward to our little tent, but to our disappointment we hadn't actually remembered to check in for a third night and unfortunately the caravan park had booked out our site, NOOOOO!!!! We had half an hour to pack everything up, and get going with the people moving in breathing down our necks. If there was a world record for packing down a tent and packing up a car, we would win it, BY FAR! Sneaking in a cheeky shower before we left and we were gone. Goodbye Cairns and hello….We weren't really sure!
Driving around in the dark we found a campspot about an hour out of Cairns called Babinda. It was late and dark and we were starving. It was tinned tuna on soggy toast for dinner, gross. This camp spot felt a bit dodgy and even though we had set up the spider tent both Ben and I decided that we should probably sleep in the car. I drifted off pretty quickly but not Ben, I woke up about two hours later and he was staring at the ceiling…fuming. So the poor bugger got up and went and slept in the tent. Therefore I woke up at every passing truck and rustling bush to look out the window to see if he was ok….There was no sleep….again!! We must find a solution to the sleeping issue…Its been a month already!
