The one you've been waiting for

Okay so I'm back from my vacation. First things first, I am moving again. I am moving up to Bondi. It is the just a couple of suburbs north of where I am, but it is on the rail lines and has tons of shopping and stuff. Also it is still only about 20 minute walk down to world famous Bondi Beach. The rent is a little more but the apartment is nicer. 6th floor views of the beach, three balconies. Think moving from Townhouse Apartments to Southern Village (for those of you familiar with Chapel Hill) or in other words, kind of crappy to nice. Before I go into the details a few things you must know:

1. I lost a lot of my pictures, not sure how. I had downloaded them to my laptop and was naming them. Then they were just no where to be found. The good thing is that I made several friends and will be getting pictures from them as soon as I can.

2. Hostels - this is for those of you who have never stayed in one. I stayed in dorm rooms (3-4 bunks or 6 to 8 people). These were all mixed sex rooms, in Cairns there were communal single sex bathrooms and in Airlie each room had a bathroom (like a hotel but not as nice). The residents in hostels that I met ranged from 18 - mid 40s. Some were party animals some not. But that is what you get in hostels. Both hostels I stayed in were both licensed, therefore you were not supposed to bring in your own alcohol, as they had licensed bars on the premises...

3. Both these cities are in Queensland. Queensland would be the stereotypical idea of Australia. Its hot, humid, palm trees, rain forest, you know what I mean. Also both towns are basically massive backpacker towns, think Spring Break 24/7 (bars are open until 3 or 5 am) ...
T R O U B L E

Ok here is the trip -

12/23 Flew to Cairns (pronounced Cans). Day 1 pretty relaxed nothing planned. Checked into the hostel (Calypso) and went exploring some around town. Cairns is right on the water but you can't really go into the water from the beach. The beach doesn't really exist, its a bit dirty looking when the tide goes out. There is a lagoon, basically a pool, that the town keeps up and is free to access and use. I walked along the esplanade (think boardwalk) from the hostel to the lagoon and the marina. It was a nice town. Not small but not real big, about 130K people. I returned to the hostel and resident bar (Zanzibar - que the Tenacious D music). The local waterhole had the foresight to have 2 happy hours each night... and a pool table.

12/24 Day 2 - Whitewater rafting on the Tully river. Had an early morning to meet the bus to go rafting. We drove for a couple of hours up into the mountains. There are an unbelievable amount of sugarcane fields here. As it turns out, we drove through one of the largest plantations and then the largest banana plantation (3k+ acres). The Tully was a cool river, class 3 and 4 rapids, nothing crazy. The water was controlled by the dams and since it was just the beginning of the wet season, the river was fairly low. Once we were near the bottom of the run, we went diving off a 5 meter rock. It was a fun day. Then back to Calypso to meet up with some new friends and share a few $8 jugs (pitchers). We also had a pool tournament. Each entrant took one shot and if you didn't sink a ball you got a strike. Three strikes and you got out. Somehow I actually managed to finish second. First place was a free bungy jump and second got... absolutely nothing. Oh well.

12/25 Day 3 - MERRY CHRISTMAS!! Seakayaking out to Fitzroy Island. So I caught a ferry out to a large island (Fitzroy) to go seakayaking. There were actually three Germans going out there too, but not to go kayaking. The island basically has a small bar and rental equipment on it and thats it. They are building a resort but it isn't finished yet. The island was originally used as a leper colony, penal island, WWII lookout and various plantations. Now its a tourist attraction, funny. It also has some nice beaches, except that they are coral. Not nice soft sandy beaches but old, dead coral. We paddled around the island, it took a couple hours and stopped on Little Fitzroy Island for lunch. Did a bit of snorkeling and got to try on my sexy stinger suit (fully body lycra). Yea good times. You see we had to wear stinger suits because there are deadly jellyfish in the ocean. We saw several box jellyfish (deadly) and there are supposed to be irukandji (deadly but really small, can't see them) in the water as well. I saw some cool coral, fish and giant clams. We also went exploring on the island, climbing some of the rocks and stuff. The island was full of little skinks and even a couple of monitors (the one we saw was about 3 feet long). After that it was a paddle back to the pier and back to Cairns to meetup with new friends and share a jug or two.

12/26 Day 4 - Trip to Cape Tribulation. So today I got on a massive 4wd bus. The bus was cool, but more like a tank than a bus. Good thing it was 4wd too, we had to drive through some flooded creeks and fallen trees. As we drove up the coast, our first stop was a wildlife refuge. There we got to walk amongst and pet wallabies, kangaroos, emus, koalas and crocs. But once you ran out of food they weren't really interested. I was tempted to feed a small child to the croc to see how quick they moved but its parents might have been angry. They also had loads of birds. I saw cassowaries (weird blue headed prehistoric looking things), lorikeets, ibises, ducks, swans, and tons of others but I have no idea what they were. After that we drove up the coast some more and into the rainforest. We stopped at Mossman Gorge, a scenic over look and valley. It was a nice walk through the rainforest but really not much to look at. Eventually I made it to the hostel I was staying at that night. There is actually a lot to do in Cape Tribulation, but I was feeling not so great so I just chilled out for awhile. Besides it was raining off and on and I was feeling lazy. Eventually I walked through a mangrove swamp out to the beach and played some beach cricket. Later on it was time for a beer or two and an early night (still not feeling good).

12/27 Day 5 - Leave Cape Tribulation. Just kind of chilled out all morning, read a book and slept. Once the BUs picked me up it was back on the road down to Cairns. We stopped at a couple of scenic over looks in the mountains and rainforest. We went for a walk out in the rainforest and had a good break from the drive. When we made it back down to the Daintree river, we went for a little cruise looking for crocs. We finally saw two, one was about 4 meters and the other about 2. Thats pretty big, not sure how much but they really looked big in person. I'll take a lot of dares but there was no way I would have gotten in that water. Finally back in Cairns, yup you guessed it, time for a jug or two of beer.

12/28 Day 6 - Chillin in Cairns - overnight bus to Airlie Beach. Just hanging out today, got a little sun, did a little laundry and actually slept some. In Cairns I met several people from OZ, New Zealand, England, Germany but the funniest were two girls from S. California. One of them bet a guy from England that she knew more US states than he did. Needless to say he won, 39 to 26. Apparently she is convinced that East Virginia is a state but West Virginia isn't. After one more night hanging with the peeps, it was time to get on the midnight bus to drive down to Airlie Beach, 11 hours.

12/29 Day 7 - Arrive in Airlie Beach. Got into Airlie about midday, check into the hostel and explored Airlie. Din't do much, hung out at the lagoon a bit. Not so exciting but Airlie was meant to be a bit more laid back part of the vacation, boy was I wrong. See Airlie has fantastic nightlife that really only gets going good about 2am and a couple places are open until5.

12/30 Day 8 - Much about the same. Hung out with new friends and got some more sun. Found a couple good night spots and just hung out. I did manage to meet up with my new flatmate. Turns out he was planning to be in Airlie before I met him.

12/31 Day 9 - Sailing private yacht. My soon to be flatmate had rented a boat with one of his mates. So I joined them on their boat with a few other people. We sailed up a few miles to a small island and hung out. Fished a bit, got some sun and even sailed the boat (yea that scares me too). After the day on the boat, back to the lagoon and friends in the hostel. The idea was that I was going to take a nap before going out for New Years, but the party had already started in the room by the time I got there at about 6:30. Oh well good times. Fireworks at midnight and more than the usual shenanigans late night in the lagoon.

1/1 Day 10 - Umm, New years Day. What do you think. Sleep, lagoon swimming, sleep, sleep, dinner and back to participate in the nightlife.

1/2 Day 11 - Sailing in the Whitsundays. Morning came too soon, I should know, pretty sure I saw the sun rising before I went to sleep. I had signed up for a 3 day/2 night cruise on a sail boat, the Avatar. The Avatar was the fastest in the area or so they said (got up to 35 knots using full sales and spinnaker but we only got up to about 15). There were 24 passenger and 3 crew. Avatar is a really cool looking boat, its a tri hull design with netting stretched between the hulls so there is plenty of room above deck. We sailed out into the islands, stopping in the Cook Passage for lunch and on to Whitehaven Beach for dinner and anchorage for the night. Whitehaven is pure white sand. There is a water spout (underwater volcano) nearby that errupts almost pure white sand that accumulates on the beach. Its supposed to be 98% pure silica. All I know is its fluffy like flour, is near impossible to wash off and squeaks when you walk on it. We were shuttled back and forth to the boat with a small 6 person dinghy. Yup fun. There was a bit of excitment as one of the couples on the boat actually got engaged on the beach. Yea, got to hate guys like that, they set the bar a bit too high for the rest of us. After dinner we hung out on deck and relaxed. As we waited for dinner we saw lots of sea turtles swimming by and some fish breaching the water. It was really nice. Until the rain. See the bunks were a bit cramped so it seemed like a good idea to sleep outside. Unfortunately it was a bit too wet for that.

1/3 Day 12 - Sailing. Early the next morning it was time to explore some more islands. We went to Whitsunday island and walked up to the look out. Then off to a cove to go snorkeling. The reef was really cool. The coral was all kinds of different colors, kind of like floating above a forest during winter, just bare branches. Except that the branches were blue, red, green and white. Also saw tons of cool fish. And yes I saw Nemo and several other clown fish and loads of others that I have no clue what they were but the looked neat. A bit more sailing around and the occasional swim in the water was a good way to spend the day. Oh yea, but remember, still had to wear the stinger suits. Another fun night on the boat and relaxing in the sun. As we motored to our evening anchorage and the crew was making dinner, we got to see some sea eagles. The crew actually took the fat from the meat, stood out on the outriggers, whistled loudly (like hailing a cab) waving the fat. It looked funny but then two sea eagles started flying by. The deckhand would throw the fat up and the eagles would come in and pick it up from the water and eat it in mid air. It was really cool and the eagles are huge. Eventually we ran out of fat and it was dinner time. Then just chllin watching the sun set. This time I did get to sleep on deck, a brief shower wasn't that bad.

1/4 Day 13 - Sailing return to Airlie Beach. Last morning on the boat, sailed around a bit more, snorkeled some and went swimming/diving off the boat. I did get to see a poisonous ray, it was gary with bright flourescent blue spots. You know normally in nature bright colors mean to stay away, but for some reason they just make me want to get closer... I think Darwin had a theory about that... After a bit we headed back to Airlie for one last night on the town with the crew. Another night, another jug and another late night dance party.

1/5 Day 14 - Depart Airlie Beach. Oh well last day of the vacation. A few more hours to chill out in the lagoon and relax in the sun.

1/6 - sad to be back in Sydney

It was an awesome trip. I met lots of great people, some of whom I have already been able to catch up with, some of whom will be traveling through Sydney in short time. Definitely a trip that was worthwhile and I would do parts of again.