Wow…it has certainly been too long. Apologies, we’ve been busy. So the last place we left off was Airlie Beach. We arrived at around 9am after a long 12 hour bus ride from Hervey Bay. We checked into our hostel and began to survey the area. This was a beaching party town. We decided to cool off at the beach and on our way we learned that nobody swims at the beach, due to the infestation of deadly “Stingers”, including the Portuguese Man of War, Bottle Necks, Box Jellyfish and several more that I can’t name. The alternative was the lagoon, an enormous man made saltwater pool. It was massive and neatly shaped with asymmetrical curves. We were discussing our lack of work situation and thinking of where to travel to next. Feeling a little discouraged, we made our way to a health food store for a bite, where we came across a bulletin board full of postings. Someone in Innisfail (hour south of Cairns) looking for help around the house in exchange for a free accommodation; a caravan parked in his back yard! Being the gypsies we are, we decided to give it a try, “to live like a local” as the post read. But before making it to Innisfail we had a little more exploring to do. We were in very close proximity to the Whitsunday Islands; we could see them from the forbidden beach. While in Sydney we saw some amazing pictures from a local artist from the Whitsunday’s, so we were looking forward to experiencing it for ourselves. We booked a day trip to go snorkeling. When we boarded our boat “Ocean Rafters” we were pleased to see it was a small group we’d be snorkeling with (it’s less crowded in the ocean, so your not getting kicked in the face with other swimmers fins’). The boat ride to get out to the island is the fastest in Airlie Beach. We were flying, riding waves, doing 360-degree spins, and turning so fast it felt like we were going to flip. It was awesome; extreme boating. To top it off we had a very entertaining host “Will” who kept things interesting. We stopped at a beautiful beach first where we trekked up a mountain to this incredible view of the islands. The sand was 98% silica, the softest cleanest sand we ever saw…beautiful. After rolling around in the sand (great exfoliater) and eating a lunch provided by the boat we set off to snorkel. The coral was described to us as really young and therefore more colorful. The fish were also crazy colorful and in abundance. Unfortunately no sea turtles were seen that day. We were able to get off a few shots before our ‘waterproof’ camera broke (water got in). Tim is replacing it with a better model for roughly the same price, once we arrive in Melbourne. On the way back to the marina we stopped at some fancy hotel that had a lagoon of stingrays, sharks, Nemo’s and more. All and all for $109/person it was a pretty good deal for the day.
We had a fun time in Airlie Beach but as nomads must do, we moved on. This time to Mission Beach, an hour south of Innisfail. The hostel was set in the rainforest and with rainforest living comes rainforest insects – spiders. ‘Crab spider’, as we dubbed it was harmless but nonetheless scary. We named it “Crab” because it looked like a big furry crab moving along the ceiling. Mission Beach was a bit lack luster compared to other spots we’d been, but we made the best of it. We spent most of our time in Mission Beach looking for Wallaroos – in the roo family but a smaller variety. We were lucky to spot a group grazing on a hillside and got close to one, one day at sun down, it was just as curious of us as we were of it. We also did our first yoga class in Australia while there. On Sunday March 1st we left for Innisfail. When we arrived Steve, our new host, instructed us to walk to the house and make ourselves at home because he was still in Cairns and heading home. The house was cozy, but had a ‘work in progress’ feel to it. Steve had been building it up for a few years. It contained all the essentially elements like running water, electricity, etc. After the last big cyclone tore through the area two years back the ‘clipboard’ people had been kind enough to give Steve some new windows and gutters. The Government in Australia messes about with all the peoples’ tax money it seems except when it matters most (i.e.: Bushfires, Floods, Cyclone damage, etc). Government workers come by with their clipboards after major devastation and hand out sums of money to everyone in the form of home repair. Steve offered us the option of paying $100/week for the spare bedroom inside the house or the trailer in the backyard for free. Both options would require 10 hours each of help around the house. We chose the trailer. It was comfortable enough with a double size bed and electricity. We had full use of the house’s facilities as well. Steve was an interesting character. He spent a lot of time in South America in his youth utilizing his artistic abilities to pay his way (i.e.: Didgeridoo and jewelry making, etc.) He had many funny and amazing stories to tell. While we enjoyed the company of Steve we did not enjoy the town of Innisfail. It is a very small town white trashy kind of place. There are no tourists, no shopping centers, no lagoons, and no fun beaches, just McDonalds to get free internet. We had abandoned our effort to secure farm jobs. Every time we heard someone speak of farm work it was usually negative, bad pay and exhaustingly labor intensive. With these anecdotal stories and our own experience on a farm for a day we lost our ambition for it. The new plan has become to move to Melbourne and find work in the city. We will remain there until we head to New Zealand for the last few weeks of this overseas adventure.
We are currently in Cairns, the biggest tourist destination in Northern Queensland and a nice change from Innisfail. We have been swimming in the lagoon, eating local cuisine, doing some shopping, and SNORKELING THE GREAT BARRIER REEF –WOOO! Yesterday we left the marina at 8:30 am on a high-speed motor yacht called ‘Silver Swift’. (Note: The Great Barrier Reef is not one connected reef but rather an intricate maze of smaller reefs in very close proximity to one another). On this particular day we ventured to Flynn Reef on the outer part of the Great Barrier Reef. Over the course of the day we did three separate snorkel spots with each one lasting about 40 minutes to an hour. Again no turtles but we did see two sharks (white tip – small and harmless), clown fish, clams the size of microwaves, parrotfish and much more. We rented an underwater camera have took loads of pictures. When you hop off the boat, which had giant stairs leading right into the water, you are about 15 – 20 feet from the bottom. After swimming about 20-30 feet away from the boat the depth varies from 3-10 feet depending on the structure of the coral underneath. There is so much underwater life and we had such a great time surveying it all. They would blow a giant horn above and below water when it was time to go. After many head counts by several crewmembers we would be off to the next spot. The weather was perfect and the crew was very helpful. Unless you want to scuba dive for the experience of scuba diving we recommend just snorkeling. You see all the same stuff with less having to deal with heavy equipment, and it’s cheaper. On average a snorkel swimmer probably spends close to an hour longer in the water doing his/her own thing than a novice scuba diver on these day trips.
Today is Tuesday, March 10th. Tomorrow we fly to Melbourne on a 9:45am flight with Jet Star. We have a picture account online that will eventually display all our pictures to everyone for free. The only problem so far is finding a fast enough internet connection to upload the pictures. Otherwise it has been taking over 10 minutes to upload one picture. We’ll get it together soon though. Bye for now!
J&T
