(If you didn't realize, Australia is HUGE. This diagram I think shows it well.)
We flew in on December 30. We had spent a night in Wellington on the 29th. Used Hotwire for the first time. NOT impressed. Booked a 3.5 star hotel in a zone near the airport. Mind you this is out of four stars, for example they listed Hilton as an example. It was called the Leisure Inn and I was so bad. Loud, old and unsafe. The shower was up on a subfloor so it was a huge step in and out. The top of the tub was above my knee standing next to it. I felt like I was going to fall going in and out, oh and it leaked. The bed was hard and only had one pillow per person. The tv didn't work and the road noise was bad. 3.5 stars?!!? Anyway I think I'm done with Hotwire or at least it better be 4 stars period. It was clean enough that we stayed because we had a flight at 6:45 am the next morning at we got in town at like 9:45 pm and had no time for a different hotel.
Anyway, we were up and on the road at like 4:30am. Stood in line like normal in the airport forever and made our flight. We only left two hours early I wish we had done three hours like in the us. Had it been more busy we may have missed the flight. Thank GOD that didn't happen. Flights were normal flights I guess. Flew Virgin Air from Wellington to Brisbane. About five hours, I slept 95% of the time. At this point we had to go get our luggage, go through customs and then check back in at domestic flights. For those counting that means three long waits. Wait one was to get baggage. Wait two was through customs. You know that took forever and we even got sniffed by a bio security dog (yes bio security not drug, they are more concerned about invasive species) Then wait three is the shuttle/wait to check your bag again. Finally then we took a second flight from Brisbane to Cairns. Smooth flight except the toddler behind me kicked my chair like ever thirty seconds for the three hour flight. I like kids for the most part but really? I even turned around and they stopped the kid when I did but after the first five times it was futile😖. I love experiencing new places but traveling there is never fun. Eh?
(our hotel)
Anyway we got to cairns about noon and took a cab to our hotel, the Reef Palms. Good budget hotel. Clean it old basically. Bad wifi though. Like really bad… reminded me of aol dial up and spotty. It's not on the coast and 15 minutes from the boardwalk but it was a nice place. What it does have is a kitchen and fridge. Cec and I left our bag at reception and walked (in the POURING rain as it is the rainy season and it was bad) to subway because we were starving and hadn't eaten. Mind you there is a time zone change so we had eaten breakfast at the crack of dawn and then didn't have time to get lunch and it was like 2pm by this time. We also went to a grocery store and picked up some eggs, bread, butter, bananas, soup and Coke Zero. We have been making breakfast and dinners in these hotels to save money. We would rather spend the forty to sixty bucks on excursions or souvenirs instead of getting fat eating greasy food.
Anyway, We got back and the hotel booked us a Tjapukai by night tour. The Tjapukai are the aboriginal people around the Cainrs area and they do a night tour of the center. A little pricey in retrospect but fun time. Started off with a cocktail and appetizer hour. Had some art to see and they painted your face for you. Lots of unique appetizers, like my favorite, braised emu and sweet potato. It tasted similar to wild turkey but not at the same time. They then explained. The tribes marriage laws and the meaning of wet and rainy seasons in dance. We traversed to the stage and had a half our long show with dance and interactive music making- they gave us music sticks and we played along in the fire making ritual and then lit a giant fire. This was followed by a buffet dinner (normal food unfortunately but average) and more songs. Transport to and from hotel was included. Cec and I crashed after that because we had an early morning and were beat!
Now, Decemeber 31 (New Years eve baby) we did what we came to do! The Great barrier reef!! The day started early... again... with a hotel pickup. They drove us to the port where be boarded a large boat along with probably 100 other tourists. They fed everyone a Bacon and ham sandwich while they gave out diving/snorkeling gear, cameras (if you bought them) and other items. It was about a 2 hour ride to Norman Reef, the reef we were going to. They took us pretty far out because its Jellyfish season and that was a safer zone to be in. Needless to say, I'm super happy I drugged myself before leaving as they suggested to. I took Dramamine and a a Scopolamine patch. Cec didn't and got a little woozy. Several people had to throw up. Anyway, on the way they also had a safety briefing which was done with a great deal of humor especially from the crew who, I'm sure, get tired of it. They gave us about two hours at our first stop to snorkel. Cecil and I were not allowed to scuba dive. It was really a bummer but his allergies and my blood thinners made it so that we were stuck just snorkeling. Honestly I don't think it really hurt the experience very much. Because the reef was so close (some parts of the reef were only 4 feet away! you had to be really careful not to hit the reef with your fins). Now if you've ever been snorkeling before, you know the drill. Snorkeling in and of itself is fun. However, the great barrier reef has so much biodiversity that there's literally something always to look at. We spent about two hours in the water there. Then they fed us some grilled chicken and salad for lunch and we went to another spot on the reef. There we swim for another hour and a half and looked at more incredible wildlife. That's where the underwater photographer also got our photos see below. I don't even know how to describe it really so many colors so many fish so much life it's impressive I'm very glad we do it did it. I can see why they called it one of the seven natural wonders of the world. We also got to do glass bottom boat tour. But honestly the snorkeling was a lot better. We saw everything from angelfish to parrotfish to brain and tree and hundreds of corals. Even the butt of a sea turtle! The way home was a lot easier sailing. Basically we ended up just sleeping because he was tired. Cecil and I were promptly dropped off at our hotel ate some soup and bread and fell asleep early because we had another day tomorrow :-). At least the weather held out. It was supposed to be rainy and stormy which it could be it's the wet season and we had it decently clear day with good visibility. The only negative really,The suntan lotion on my calves got locked away by the waves and I got to nasty sunburns on the back of my calves. Which ticked me off because I'm obsessive about sunscreen at this point and I had been putting it on everywhere else and had no Burns anywhere else so it was really the water lapping at my calves because there was no wet-suit on at that point of my body. I'm so jealous of Cecil sometimes for not having to worry about those things. The burn hurt so bad Cec even ran out to get pawpaw lotion which has aloe vitamins e and is a healing cream. I was so thankful! So yeah, New Years Eve 2015 and we were both snoring by 8:15PM because snorkeling for 6 hours!
The next day we went to the Kurunda scenic train and sky rail experience. It was meant to be a laid-back day because I thought we might be tired. I had good insight on that point LOL. The day started with a late morning pick up and they drove us to the train station. The train is a historical train the drive-through and important piece of track that was lay down to connect the port with other parts of the country. It was apparently very hard to build as the rain forest doesn't like construction. Lots people died and was also really important during some of the wars. Anyway, there were sweeping views of the rain forest which is also present in cairns. It's huge and magnificent scope we passed several different waterfalls and the announcer gave a rundown of all the things we should be looking at. A nice touristy morning. After that they dropped us off at this village which can only be described as hippie-ish. And by hippie I mean artsy foods Tourist trap kinds of good stuff like that. Cecil and I basically got something to eat and looked at some of the funky souvenirs and art shops. It was unbelievably humid that day, and sees got a little dehydrated so it really slowed us down. We spent a lot of time at lunch trying to re hydrate. It was still nice but Cecil and I aren't into buying stuff on vacation so not the most fun thing we did but the town itself was still nice and I wish we had a little bit more time because they did have a Birdpark, venomous animal attraction and koala area but we simply ran out of time in Kurunda. We had to catch the sky rail at 2pm. The sky rail is like a giant ski lift over the rain forest. We got to see a cockatoo flying. That was actually really cool because I've never seen a wild cockatoo. We also got to see beautiful views of the river and the canopy from above it. Which was a really interesting perspective. There are two stops you can get out and walk around and get nice use of the falls and other interesting things. I love the sky rail. We also got to meet daisy, a little moodle (maltese + poodle) who was adorable!!
(Thumbs up because this was awesome!!)
(The sign says "Australia Great Barrier Reef")
(The corals and the boat we were on)
(This gives you an idea what we were looking at with the corals)
(There was some recognizable wildlfie!!)
(Even in this picture, the corals are beautiful nd see the fish? I know its small but lots to look at)
(Parrotfish up close. I LOVED these guys)
(Our location, notice how far away it is from the City itself)
The next day we went to the Kurunda scenic train and sky rail experience. It was meant to be a laid-back day because I thought we might be tired. I had good insight on that point LOL. The day started with a late morning pick up and they drove us to the train station. The train is a historical train the drive-through and important piece of track that was lay down to connect the port with other parts of the country. It was apparently very hard to build as the rain forest doesn't like construction. Lots people died and was also really important during some of the wars. Anyway, there were sweeping views of the rain forest which is also present in cairns. It's huge and magnificent scope we passed several different waterfalls and the announcer gave a rundown of all the things we should be looking at. A nice touristy morning. After that they dropped us off at this village which can only be described as hippie-ish. And by hippie I mean artsy foods Tourist trap kinds of good stuff like that. Cecil and I basically got something to eat and looked at some of the funky souvenirs and art shops. It was unbelievably humid that day, and sees got a little dehydrated so it really slowed us down. We spent a lot of time at lunch trying to re hydrate. It was still nice but Cecil and I aren't into buying stuff on vacation so not the most fun thing we did but the town itself was still nice and I wish we had a little bit more time because they did have a Birdpark, venomous animal attraction and koala area but we simply ran out of time in Kurunda. We had to catch the sky rail at 2pm. The sky rail is like a giant ski lift over the rain forest. We got to see a cockatoo flying. That was actually really cool because I've never seen a wild cockatoo. We also got to see beautiful views of the river and the canopy from above it. Which was a really interesting perspective. There are two stops you can get out and walk around and get nice use of the falls and other interesting things. I love the sky rail. We also got to meet daisy, a little moodle (maltese + poodle) who was adorable!!
Since we had some energy and we're back at a decent time like 4:30 that day. We decided to take a walk into town. Cairns has a beautiful boardwalk that is probably about a mile long along the beach. It works for me because I didn't really get sand on myself. And it was a beautiful walk. There were even while lorikeets in the trees. Which is really weird to see concerning were used to little Brown birds versus these bright many parents. There's also a place to eat this is the night the season I decided to go out to eat. We split a dinner at a nice restaurant and tried kangaroo loin Baramundi and alligator. Personally, I like the kangaroo it reminded me of beef and deer at the same time but not his game is dear. Then we got some gelatto because as I mentioned it was very humid and we wanted some ice cream. It was delicious and everything good in the world. We didn't go out on New Year's Eve because were both exhausted from diving. But the New Year's dinner made for a good photo op :-). We also did some shopping. I got some Opal jewelry and Cecil bought himself a watch. A little unusual for us but they had some really nice deals. Overall a really low-key laid-back day. The next day we were looking forward to almost as much is the reef
I had been looking forward to the next day all week. We were going to a local zoo called Cairns tropical zoo. Basically it was a little zoo that had all native wildlife to that area. And a few other exhibits. We had signed up to do what it was called as a zootastic 5 experience. This basically meant we would get a keeper to escort us around and we would get to interact closely with different zoo animals. We started off by meeting our keeper whose name was Tristan. Nice guy, young and enthusiastic which I appreciated. We started by going to the Cassowary pen. You've never seen a Cassowary looks like a velociraptor with feathers. We got to feed them grapes. They were actually very gentle. Fun fact for you, they have beautiful eyelashes. The mail was even pulling out some of his feathers to create a nest for the female. Fun fact, males are actually the ones to incubate eggs and watch chicks in the wild. After that beautiful animal, we went to the Lemur pen where we were led inside, and got to feed figs and dates to the lemurs. They would gently either eat them out of your hand or take them from your head with their tiny little fingers. Adorable! When they were done eating they basically left and took a nap, which I respect (Cecil: I had the laziest lemur ever, my lemur was too lazy to even pick it out of my hand and I had to bring the dates up to its mouth and it would open its mouth and then stick out it's tongue!) On our way to our next encounter, which was the pythons. We mentioned that we were had to come back and look at the wombats because we hadn't seen one before. The keeper actually got into the wombat enclosure and picked up the wombat so we could pet him. They actually have a cartilage plate on the back which helps for protection from predators and during mating season. It's like how your ear feels and a protective service with no feeling. They were adorable and reminded me of my guinea pigs except way bigger.
After that we went to the pythons where we got to meet a beautiful female all and have her crawl all over us. I also really appreciate about each of these encounters we got to ask the keepers lots of questions and they didn't rush us from thing to thing. Each encounter was at least 15 minutes long if not longer. From the pythons we then went to go feed the crocodiles. They basically gave stick and put meat on the end of it and we got to tease the crocodile. You should hear the jaws pop when they feed! I've seen crocodile feedings before but there's nothing like being on the end of the stick. Then we got to hold a baby alligator. They are strong! It's like holding a muscle that squirming and wants to bite you but can't because it's mouth is taped shut. Cecil really liked holding the baby alligator :-). After that, we went to the bird enclosures where we got to feed the lorikeets. I've done stuff like that before by this they're so much adrenaline it was just fun to have little birds crawling all over you. Their nectar feeders they basically just put some nectar in a ball and they come to you. Finally, our last encounter was with the memorable Koala. To go into the Koala pen and pet the different Koalas. They basically had an area where the pregnant females and young males were. They are so soft and lazy. But then again if all I ate was leaves I probably would be really lazy too. After that we got to actually physically hold them for quite a bit of time probably like 10 minutes and we got her photos taken over and over. And they gave us two souvenir photos to keep. What a memorable experience. Koalas also have that cartilage on the bottom like the wombats, for protection. The Koala also have a really unique double-digit thumbs for grabbing things. Did you also know that Koalas don't eat every species of eucalyptus, only about half of them. They're actually really picky about which eucalyptus plant they will eat they only the least poisonous of the varieties so they don't kill themselves.
After that amazing to our experience, we decided to get a bite to eat, because we were hot. As I've mentioned already, it was very hot and humid in Australia where we were (up north). We were both dripping wet with sweat and when we got done we realize we were very heat exhausted. I was even wearing long pants because I had to had those burns on my calves and refused to wear shorts. So needless to say we both needed a break. The lunch was iffy but it was your food. However they had a Koala pen right there and free Wi-Fi so it was a good time. We basically walked around and took our times each of the pens rather than just jumping from thing to thing like we done at the beginning. We wanted to stay for a bird show that was at 3 PM that afternoon so we really just looked around didn't dillydally through the day. The birds it was worth waiting for. Even though it was short we got to see some Australian birds we had never seen before including a white eagle take a golden eagle or bald eagle turn all white and give it black wingtips. They also had lots of owls that word catch food and they got really really close to you. There was even a crane that walk to the people at the beginning of the term. And he did work for food he actually work for scritches. I do you mean the keepers would scratch them underneath his wings and he would make happy turtle sounds and squiggle around. It was possibly the cutest thing I've seen in animal do all day. Not maybe the cutest animal but the cutest action I had seen all day. After that, Cecil and I made our way back to the bus, and then back to the hotel. We change decided to go into town again. Because we wanted to try this gelato place that our hotel person Colleen I told us about. Apparently a master Italian gelato maker was in town. And the place was called divine gelato. Seriously it was amazing. We got ice cream and eat our soup and it was a delicious evening. I'm not sure if I liked The great barrier reef better. Grab your reef is probably more of an impressive place but there was so much adrenaline and fun things that were done in a small amount of time. It made for a memorable day
Our last day there, we took our duty manager Colleen suggestion and do a tour to Daintree rain forest and cape tribulation. This was about an hour or two away from cairns. It's actually in a different part of Australia. Daintree is difficult to access. You actually take a trolley over and there's no electricity sewer water systems there. It's actually the largest area tropical rain forest in Australia. We also we're going to take a visit to cape tribulation which is another big name beach in that area. We also did it in a four-wheel-drive vehicle because that is the only thing you're allowed to take in those vehicles. The vehicle itself was a gigantic and could go through water above the roof apparently. We drove through rivers and streams of some major Hills. I'm glad I wasn't driving. Now you might be asking why someone would go from an hour away when there was another rain forest near the hotel. Daintree is a very special rain forest. I remembered the guide who we had who was the best Guide we've had the whole time by the way, telling us how much biodiversity there was. So I looked back up on the Internet and according to Wikipedia:
(Campy photo while waiting for the train)
(View of the train, from the train during the ride)
(Cec and I on the skyrail)
(View of the water from the skyrail, nice birds eye view)
(They had these at the stops where you could walk around. Couldn't resist)
(Barron Falls in the rainforest)
(View of the rainforest)
(One of the wild lorakeets we saw on our boardwalk trip)
(Happy new year Australia! Note my jewelry bag lol.)
(Our kangaroo, baramundi/fish, and crocodile dinner)
(As night set, fruit bats came out. See the black specs? They were everywhere!
yup, take the length from the tip of your finger to your arm and that is how big they were!)
yup, take the length from the tip of your finger to your arm and that is how big they were!)
I had been looking forward to the next day all week. We were going to a local zoo called Cairns tropical zoo. Basically it was a little zoo that had all native wildlife to that area. And a few other exhibits. We had signed up to do what it was called as a zootastic 5 experience. This basically meant we would get a keeper to escort us around and we would get to interact closely with different zoo animals. We started off by meeting our keeper whose name was Tristan. Nice guy, young and enthusiastic which I appreciated. We started by going to the Cassowary pen. You've never seen a Cassowary looks like a velociraptor with feathers. We got to feed them grapes. They were actually very gentle. Fun fact for you, they have beautiful eyelashes. The mail was even pulling out some of his feathers to create a nest for the female. Fun fact, males are actually the ones to incubate eggs and watch chicks in the wild. After that beautiful animal, we went to the Lemur pen where we were led inside, and got to feed figs and dates to the lemurs. They would gently either eat them out of your hand or take them from your head with their tiny little fingers. Adorable! When they were done eating they basically left and took a nap, which I respect (Cecil: I had the laziest lemur ever, my lemur was too lazy to even pick it out of my hand and I had to bring the dates up to its mouth and it would open its mouth and then stick out it's tongue!) On our way to our next encounter, which was the pythons. We mentioned that we were had to come back and look at the wombats because we hadn't seen one before. The keeper actually got into the wombat enclosure and picked up the wombat so we could pet him. They actually have a cartilage plate on the back which helps for protection from predators and during mating season. It's like how your ear feels and a protective service with no feeling. They were adorable and reminded me of my guinea pigs except way bigger.
After that we went to the pythons where we got to meet a beautiful female all and have her crawl all over us. I also really appreciate about each of these encounters we got to ask the keepers lots of questions and they didn't rush us from thing to thing. Each encounter was at least 15 minutes long if not longer. From the pythons we then went to go feed the crocodiles. They basically gave stick and put meat on the end of it and we got to tease the crocodile. You should hear the jaws pop when they feed! I've seen crocodile feedings before but there's nothing like being on the end of the stick. Then we got to hold a baby alligator. They are strong! It's like holding a muscle that squirming and wants to bite you but can't because it's mouth is taped shut. Cecil really liked holding the baby alligator :-). After that, we went to the bird enclosures where we got to feed the lorikeets. I've done stuff like that before by this they're so much adrenaline it was just fun to have little birds crawling all over you. Their nectar feeders they basically just put some nectar in a ball and they come to you. Finally, our last encounter was with the memorable Koala. To go into the Koala pen and pet the different Koalas. They basically had an area where the pregnant females and young males were. They are so soft and lazy. But then again if all I ate was leaves I probably would be really lazy too. After that we got to actually physically hold them for quite a bit of time probably like 10 minutes and we got her photos taken over and over. And they gave us two souvenir photos to keep. What a memorable experience. Koalas also have that cartilage on the bottom like the wombats, for protection. The Koala also have a really unique double-digit thumbs for grabbing things. Did you also know that Koalas don't eat every species of eucalyptus, only about half of them. They're actually really picky about which eucalyptus plant they will eat they only the least poisonous of the varieties so they don't kill themselves.
After that amazing to our experience, we decided to get a bite to eat, because we were hot. As I've mentioned already, it was very hot and humid in Australia where we were (up north). We were both dripping wet with sweat and when we got done we realize we were very heat exhausted. I was even wearing long pants because I had to had those burns on my calves and refused to wear shorts. So needless to say we both needed a break. The lunch was iffy but it was your food. However they had a Koala pen right there and free Wi-Fi so it was a good time. We basically walked around and took our times each of the pens rather than just jumping from thing to thing like we done at the beginning. We wanted to stay for a bird show that was at 3 PM that afternoon so we really just looked around didn't dillydally through the day. The birds it was worth waiting for. Even though it was short we got to see some Australian birds we had never seen before including a white eagle take a golden eagle or bald eagle turn all white and give it black wingtips. They also had lots of owls that word catch food and they got really really close to you. There was even a crane that walk to the people at the beginning of the term. And he did work for food he actually work for scritches. I do you mean the keepers would scratch them underneath his wings and he would make happy turtle sounds and squiggle around. It was possibly the cutest thing I've seen in animal do all day. Not maybe the cutest animal but the cutest action I had seen all day. After that, Cecil and I made our way back to the bus, and then back to the hotel. We change decided to go into town again. Because we wanted to try this gelato place that our hotel person Colleen I told us about. Apparently a master Italian gelato maker was in town. And the place was called divine gelato. Seriously it was amazing. We got ice cream and eat our soup and it was a delicious evening. I'm not sure if I liked The great barrier reef better. Grab your reef is probably more of an impressive place but there was so much adrenaline and fun things that were done in a small amount of time. It made for a memorable day
(Here we go zoo time!!)
(Cec feeding the cassowary, note the colorful skin)
(Look at the eyelashes and giant eyes!)
(Lemurs like dates)
(And have a pretty intense stare)
(Wombat!!!)
(Cec was sooo excited)
(So proud of cec who doesn't like snakes(
(The eyes on this thing were AMAZING)
(See the stick with the chicken?)
(Thats the view from our persepctive)
(Baby gator!)
(SMOOCH!)
(Lorikeet feeding)
(KOALA!)
(Notice the double thumbs)
(Blue feathered Kookaburra, I though he was gorgeous!)
(Sign was technically wrong it was 2016 lol)
(Look how close the birds got!)
(He liked scratches!!)
(white Eagle)
Our last day there, we took our duty manager Colleen suggestion and do a tour to Daintree rain forest and cape tribulation. This was about an hour or two away from cairns. It's actually in a different part of Australia. Daintree is difficult to access. You actually take a trolley over and there's no electricity sewer water systems there. It's actually the largest area tropical rain forest in Australia. We also we're going to take a visit to cape tribulation which is another big name beach in that area. We also did it in a four-wheel-drive vehicle because that is the only thing you're allowed to take in those vehicles. The vehicle itself was a gigantic and could go through water above the roof apparently. We drove through rivers and streams of some major Hills. I'm glad I wasn't driving. Now you might be asking why someone would go from an hour away when there was another rain forest near the hotel. Daintree is a very special rain forest. I remembered the guide who we had who was the best Guide we've had the whole time by the way, telling us how much biodiversity there was. So I looked back up on the Internet and according to Wikipedia:
"The Daintree Rainforest contains 3% of the frog, reptile and marsupial species in Australia, and 90% of Australia's bat and butterfly species. 7% of bird species in the country can be found in this area. There are also over 12,000 species of insects in the rainforest. All of this diversity is contained within an area that takes up 0.1% of the landmass of Australia".
And on top of that it it's right by cape tribulation. It literally straddles it. Our guy took us to a boardwalk tour and pointed out interesting parts of the rain forest as well as wildlife that we saw. He also was funny and had a lot of background about the history about sugarcane about the gold rush and other things to talk about. We had several different stops along the way that day. After the boardwalk, because everybody was hot and sweaty after all it is a rain forest. He took us to a local fresh water swimming hole and we all got in the river and swim around. Then he did a tropical fruit sampling for us and we got to try some crazy tropical fruits and honestly all of them are delicious. After that we then got to go to the Cape and the mangrove forests and after that we ate lunch. The mangrove forests had the most mosquitoes I have ever seen in my life we got eaten up bad. That being said it was still unbelievably gorgeous. At the lunch location, we also got to feed wallabies. Apparently they like sweet potatoes :-). They also fed us gigantic steaks which I appreciate because it this point we were all starving. If that's not enough, our day wasn't over. After lunch we drove to the daintree river and took a river cruise where we got to see wild crocodiles. The guide also found a green tree snake for us that we all got to pet. They also let us try some natural Daintree tea that is grown in that region. I had to buy some. That was my souvenir from the trip. As you can imagine that is a full day. I fell sleep on the ride home. Such a great end of the trip. Probably not as cool as the great barrier reef although the guide was by far the funniest nicest and most entertaining of the whole trip. I wish that they had done a great barrier tour.
(View of the forest and cape)
(Specilaized Buttress Trees. It is thought they either help catch rotting leaves when water floods the region or stabilizes the tree from falling or both)
(Look at that canopy!)
(Artist taking liberities with the cassorwary crossing and speed bump signs)
(Freshwater river was refreshing!)
(Even with a little bit of rain, after all its the rainforest!)
(all the fruits!!)
(Cape tribulation)
(Selfie!)
(Wallabee feeding)
(They like sweet potaoes)
(wild crocodile)
(Just a nice view of the river... ;-) )
(A nice view of the cape, mangroves and rainforest in the background)
Now, I probably should mention we did have some problems getting home the next day. Our trip to the airport in the morning was fine and we made it from Cairns to Brisbane with no problems at Brisbane we got to meet up with Cecil's aunt Grace and her daughter Roshni. We had a cup of coffee but unfortunately we had to leave pretty quick because we found out that our flight to New Zealand had been delayed by an hour and a half because of a birdstrike. That's no joke though can really hurt the engine and I understand, (just look up Miracle on the Hudson). However we probably were not flight to Wellington. So we had to go talk to the people at the counter and see what could be done. We spent a lot of time in line for them to basically tell us and try to make the flight and if you don't will figure it out then. So we waited in the airport for a really long time. Once we finally got on the plane, the flight itself was great. We ended up on one of the big 777 and had entertainment systems. I got to watch a special about bat kid and Cecil played video games. Overall a great flight air New Zealand is the best. Anyway, we did take forever to get through customs of course because our baggage with and we very much missed our flight to Wellington. So, we ended up being put up in a hotel in Auckland for another night and flying out the next morning at 7 AM. Luckily, Cecil's coworkers were kind enough to switch his morning shift and evening shift so because there was no way he was going to make it to work the next day at 7:30. Definitely a stress we didn't need but we're not gonna let that negative experience overshadow a great trip. Overall, everything worked out and we're home and it was an awesome awesome trip. What a way to spend the New Year's!!
What a wonderful adventure. Cairnes is awesome and the road to Port Douglas is beautiful. Enjoy!
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