We spent 3 days at the Great Barrier Reef. We took a speedboat out to a sailboat 30 miles from the coast where we got in 10 dives during that time. It was great. We saw most of the things we hoped to see. We also learned a lot about the marine ecology, both from the dive trip and from a reef teach lecture that we attended. (See, we are trying to feel like are at least studying, if not working). While diving, we saw a few medium sized sharkes, giant clams, stingrays, a squid, sea turtle and the best of all “Wally”. Wally is a Napoleon Maori Wrasse fish that is 5 feet and about 200 lbs. He seemed to have a personality all his own. We would swim right up to your face and if you held out your hand we would try to push you to the surface. You could even rub his nose to totally relax him. It was great. We also did 2 night dives during that time. That was a wild experience. My flashlight could illuminate a mall area and I knew that there were heaps of sharks all around. Heidi was a bit uncomfortable about this. We also saw tons of colorful fish, but we won’t bore you with the names or pretend that we know them all.
After diving we went to Cape Tribulation in the coastal rainforest for a couple of days. That was a very big change after spending a week in the desert a few days before. The first day we didn’t do much because we felt like had a scuba hangover. Our heads felt like they were full of water and we were exhausted. It was a weird feeling. But after a lot of relaxation we were able to enjoy walking around the rainforest. We didn’t see a whole lot. A bunch of spiders, big ones I might add. Mainly Golden Orb Spiders, which are about the size of our hands with our fingers fanned out. That is the female anyway; the male is the size of my pinky fingernail. He is basically only aroudn the fertilize the chic and then she eats him afterwards. Heidi enjoyed this little bit of trivia. Then Chad also found a Goanna (lizard) walking right where the rainforest meets the beach. It was about 4 feet long. Also, while entering the beach we saw 2 warning signs. The first said “Caution: Box Jellyfish present” which meant to us “No Way I am swimming here!” None-the-less there was a bottle of vinegar attached to the sign to pour on the wounds of any victims that were stupid enough to swim. (Granted the vinegard eoesn’t ease the pain that will send the victim into cardiac arrest, it only neutralizes any remaining stingers that didn’t fire). As if that wasn’t enough, the next sign siad “Beware of Estuarine Crocodiles” These are the saltwater crocs that have been known to be as far as 100 km into the sea and 100 km up the rivers. They can be up to 24 feet long! Anyway, we weren’t tempted to swim in the ocean. The thought of seeing a croc coming out of the sea and up the beach to the river was constantly in our minds as we strolled along the beach. Fortunately, we didn’t see any until we were safely on board a river cruise the next day.
After Cape Tribulation we returned to Cairns for a few days. One day we went and explored a few different waterfalls in teh area and swam in some waterholes. We also made another unsuccesful attempt at spotting the platypus. We have since decided that the platypus is a mythical creature and doesn’t actually exist. It only solidified our belief when we didn’t even see it at the Australian Zoo.
Next we headed south to Noosa and finally got in a few days of beach time where there were no life threatening creatures swimming about. They had a very nice main central beach where we enjoyed our first day there. The next morning we hiked through a National Park and ended up at a more remote beach and quickly discovered that clothing was optional. Unfortunately for Chad, it was predominantly frequented by senior men.
We are now in Brisbane, we took a short train to the Australia Zoo. This is the home of Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter. Unfortunately, he was not there today. But we still saw animals and an entertaining crocodile feeding.
Now we are trying to build up energy to go out for St. Patty’s Day, but it’s not looking good since our motivation is hindered by the fact that we have an early flight to Thailand tomorrow.
That’s all from down under.