Wednesday 22 July 2009

Cairns Australia

Well, as most of you know I am back in the states now. But before I get to how I came to be back here I have to tell you about my last few weeks in New Zealand and my two weeks in Australia.
As you know, I was a nanny for a fabulous family and their two little girls. Unfortunately, because of financial reasons (among other things) Eoin and I had to leave NZ earlier than we had expected. I was sad to say goodbye to the girls and their parents, but we are keeping in touch through e-mail and have plans to meet up in Hawaii (hopefully!) and/or I can go back and be their nanny after I graduate with my DPT. Anyway, Eoin and I packed up, said our goodbyes and took a bus to Auckland where we spent our last night ever sleeping in the Auckland airport. Three times more than I would have liked to sleep there but it saves money. Oh well.

Our flight left Auckland at 5:30 AM and landed in Sydney a few hours later where we had to wait about 5 hours for our plane to Cairns. Cairns is at the northern east coast of Australia and is known for its hot humid weather, and easy access to the Great Barrier Reef (as well as rainforest's, sky diving and beaches). So as you can guess we were pretty busy! Our first full day in Cairns we went to Kuranda which is a small town about 27 km from Cairns and seems to be there for the sole purpose of the tourists. To get to Kuranda you can either take a gondola (Sky Rail) or a train. The train was built long before the sky rail and a bit before Kuranda as a means of transportation for the miners working up in the hills. It also seems as though the train was built for the people building the track, I don't quite get it but apparently in the end they knew that it would one day bring in a lot of money through tourism so I guess it all works out.
Eoin and I took the skyrail up to Kuranda. There are two stops on the way up where you can either get right on to the next gondola and continue up to the town or take a walk through the rainforest. We took the walks through the rain forest at both stops and were very glad we did so. At the first stop we learned that it is not a good idea to touch any plants you see because a large proportion of them are poisonous and will hurt you. We also learned not to eat anything that looks edible, because it will probably kill you. Don't you feel glad hearing this all now that I am home safe?? :)

After walking through the rainforest we got back on the skyrail and rode the rest of the way up to Kuranda. Kuranda is a small town with lots of tourist shops, restaurants, and attractions such as the Venom Zoo, Bird Sanctuary and Butterfly Garden. All of the attractions cost about $15 per adult and we only went to the venom Zoo. The venom zoo houses ONLY deadly animals except for a handful of geckos and tree frogs. They have a large variety of venomous snakes and spiders as well as centipedes, scorpions and other icky crawly things. While it was really cool to see all the different snakes to look out for in Australia and learn a bit about the spiders and other bugs the Venom Zoo is probably only really worth it for people that absolutely love bugs and snakes. However, we did get to get our picture taken holding a (non-venomous) snake. See?


We then walked around the town for a bit and checked out the various gift shops and even saw a people making candy at the candy shop. Very cool to see. We then took an ice cream break (I had mint chocolate chip...yum!) and decided to go for a walk through the jungle. Don't worry, it was on a clearly marked path and we could totally see peoples houses through the trees in some sections, so we were definitely safe. Except for the part about there being crocodiles in the river, but we didn't go near the water....

At about 3 pm we got on the train and rode back down to Cairns. The train goes through 15 tunnels and takes about 45 minutes to get from Kuranda to Cairns and it is known as one of the most scenic train rides in Australia.
That night was pretty boring...we ate dinner and went to bed as we were a bit tired still from traveling.

The next day we did some errands such as buying groceries and booking our greyhound ticket. We also walked around downtown Cairns quite a bit and found the wharf as well as the esplanade which has a pretty neat swimming pool that looks like the beach, its surrounded by sand and beach chairs and bbq's...very cool!

We couldn't stay out too long, because we had booked a tour with Wait-a-While tours and they came to get us at 2pm. Wait-A-While tours takes you into the rainforest and up close to lots of wildlife. We saw flying foxes (bats), musky rat kangaroo's, three species of possum, platypus and lots of different birds native to Australia. Part of our tour took place after nightfall and we were walking through the trees with large flashlights looking for animals. Ever slight sound I heard I'd shine my light in the direction and there would be NOTHING there. However, one time I did spot a possum (I believe it is called a ring tailed possum?) and another time Eoin found one. So we were pretty awesome at possum spotting. We got back to the hostel at around 11:30 pm and went straight to bed as we had a boat to catch early the next morning. We were going to the Great Barrier Reef!

yes yes, The GREAT BARRIER REEF! It took about 2 hours from Cairns harbor to get to the section of the reef our boat moors from. It is about 1 km off the shore of Green Island. Green Island is basically a fancy place where people who have so much money they don't know what to do with it go for vacation. I say this because rooms start at $600 per night and if you get a craving for oh, french fries its about $8 and a hot dog (JUST a hot dog) is $15. I am not joking. Those are the correct prices. Ridic?! Yeah. Green Island also has a reptile park where you can watch a crocodile feeding and hold snakes etc. But mostly its just a nice place to relax on the beach (but if you want to sit in a chair you have to pay $20...crazy!).

Anyway, our boat dropped anchor and we were given a quick lesson on where to swim (basically if you cant see the boat you went too far) and how to use a snorkel. Eoin paid a bit extra and got to do an introductory scuba dive. Me, being the wuss that I am opted to just snorkel for the way, which was pretty awesome too. While Eoin was scuba diving (for about 30 minutes) I went out snorkeling and noted some cool places to show Eoin when he came back from his trip. One of the cool places was where you could swim right over the top of the reef. There was probably less than a foot between me and the reef and there were tons of fish swimming all over the place and going in and out of little holes...very interesting and amazing. I was afraid that I was too close though, and I didn't want to disturb anything so I didn't stay there too long. There were other cool places where the corals were all different colors and the schools of fish were clustered together. There were a few really large neon blue fish that were hanging around as well, and some rather ugly black fish with scary teeth. I didn't like those, just the sparkly fish.

After we had about 2 hours to snorkel we got back on the boat for lunch. As expected, Eoin was still out in the reef while everyone else had started eating. I made him a plate of food and waited patiently for him to realize he was the only one in the water. It took him about 20 minutes to notice, and he swam back to the boat and ate as quickly as possible so that he could get back in the water. Unfortunately, everyone was required to go to Green Island for at least an hour. So we walked around the island and sat on the beach in the sun before the little motor boat came back to get us. When we got back onto our main boat there were about 5 sharks in the water right near where everyone would soon be getting in to swim and snorkel. The staff threw in some shrimp and other various meats to keep the sharks nearby but I guess they weren't that hungry because they soon swam away. Eoin went back into the water and I sat in the sun and read a book and drank some coke. Yummm. After about another 2 hours went by everyone was back on the boat and we were headed to Cairns.

On the way home, they hoisted the sails and the boat tilted to about 65degrees. Awesome. You had to hold yourself onto you seat or you would slip right off, and the waves came right over the sides and splashed us in the face quite a few times. I got quite seasick as well, and for a while I was pretty sure I was going to lose my lunch over the side of the boat. I am convinced the only reason I didn't get sick is because I couldn't move my legs (they were shaking sooo bad) to get myself to the side of the boat. I remembered (and was also told) to watch the horizon as that can help with seasickness, and it did. I felt a bit better and by the time we got back to the harbor and slowed down a bit I felt a LOT better. In fact, it was the first time in my LIFE that I did not puke while on a medium/small boat in the ocean.
I deserve a cookie.
Next blog. Brisbane!


This tree is formed when a "parasite" tree implants itself on the top of an already mature tree and then grows DOWN from the top. Looks pretty cool!



The Great Barrier Reef! I am sure Eoin will post better pictures as he had the underwater digital camera and I had the not so not wonderful point-and-shoot film camera.

Beautiful sunset outside Cairns. In this pond were some Platypi, and we watched them for quite some time.

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