Cairns

I think it's about time to give an update on my adventures up in Cairns! My holidays started at the end of October and were supposed to finish on the 4th of November. Today is the 16th of November... OOOOOPPPPSSS!!! I pretty much quickly realised 4th of November was not going to be realistic, so I decided not to even care when I stop holidaying and start working again. I had originally planned 7 nights in Cairns which seemed reasonable enough as there is not much to do in the town itself. There's plenty to see and do around the area though. As soon as I arrived in Cairns I decided to go for a walk in town the next morning and check out the man made lagoon "beach". Another town in a beautiful location but no beach! Needless to say there are endless stretches of beach around Cairns though. Things get particularly beautiful North of the city. Back to my big plans. Well, I ended up going to a random travel agent with certain things in mind that I definitely wanted to do. I gave the agent the list and asked whether I had missed anything. She said I had covered everything and even more as normal backpackers don't even do all of it. Sorry but I am a flashpacker and I am only here once in my life most likely, so the best thing to do is to do everything! I ended up booking almost 7 days of action packed tours. My first one would have been a day trip to the outer reef of the Great Barrier Reef with an instructed scuba dive. Being under water and breathing is the strangest feeling I have had. Once I got my wetsuit and all equipment on we were asked to float under water while holding on to the railings and trying to breathe normally. My first reaction was: "Oh my god, I can't breathe properly. It is so difficult and I feel like everything is too tight!". The instructor then advised me to take really really deep breaths and try to stay under water. I followed his advice and in a minute I was already cruising. Obviously not going anywhere myself but got used to the breathing pretty quickly. Before starting to go further down the instructor made sure we understood simple hand signals and that we were able to clear water from inside the masks underneath the water. We also had to demonstrate that we are able to remove the oxygen gauge (not sure if this is the right word to use...) and then put it back on our mouths. Once everyone was able to do these things we started going towards the bottom of the seabed. The instructor took 4 people at once. We formed a line while hooking onto each others elbows so that noone would get lost. We would have gone somewhere between 6-8 metres deep which did not seem that deep at all while being down there. The dive only lasted about 20 minutes which was a bit disappointing as I was hoping it would last at least half an hour. It must be some sort of a regulation or requirement not to stay under water no longer than 20 mins because all the dive boats seem to do the same thing with all introductory dives. Otherwise, I had a great day out and GBR is definitely worth a visit! Managed to make friends with a Sydney girl who was on holidays with her friend too. We ended up going out together that night. Great night, plus I've got a couch to crash on in Sydney if I ever needed to :)

One must do thing ticked off, I did not take a break and had another tour already booked for the next day! Although only having 2,5 hours sleep I was as fresh as a daisy and ready to roll the next morning! Next on, my bucket list was a two-day tour to Daintree rainforest, Mossman gorge and Port Douglas. The tour bus picked me up from the hostel and  took us to North of Cairns. The drive itself was beautiful, along the coastline opening up some magnificent views! The tour guide Jo was very knowledgeable and could pretty much talk about anything making it sound very interesting. I complimented her for her good work.

It took around an hour and a half to get to a river (which's name I can't even remember any more) where we stepped on a boat that took us on a 45-minute river cruise in hope of spotting some resident crocs. Apparently there was a big one hidden somewhere but I couldn't possibly distinguish it from the tree roots.

We spotted a baby croc, just about half a metre long. They really do move fast when they need to! Further on, the trip took us into the Daintree rainforest where we had a 20 minute walk before heading to PK's Jungle Hostel where I was going to stay overnight. The hostel was situated in the rainforest, no phone reception, therefore no social networking and plenty of time for myself! I went on a quiet stroll on the nearby beach and enjoyed the breathtaking views of the ocean and nature around me. My loneliness didn't last long, soon a German guy appeared on the beach who recognised me from the dive tour that I had taken on the previous day. We hung out on the beach for a while and headed back to the hostel. Turns out he was in the same room with me! The hostel was hosting a Halloween party that night and everybody was setting up the decorations and getting into the party mood. As the evening got closer, it turned out to be more like a staff party since there were not many visitors around. I didn't mind that, I wasn't feeling up for the party anyway after having slept 2,5 hrs the previous night.

As unfortunate as it was I ended up staying in the same room with young English girls who were definitely up for the party. They stormed into the room while I was asleep and pointed a bloody torch in my face asking who is this girl! Damn, let me sleep people. They were gone soon enough and I could almost peacefully sleep until morning. Spent the next half of the day walking around Cape Tribulation and once again enjoying the beautiful views! Life can't be any better, even when I am unemployed and slowly running out of money...

Got to continue my adventure blog some other time. Time to hit the pool!!!