1-14 thru 1-24-11

We made it to Sydney without any problems and is was great to be back to our sort-of "home base".  We took the train from the airport and made it to our camp…we were blown away when the lady said they were fully booked!  Crap this is not going to be good if we can't find a spot…luckily we got the tent spot of someone who did not show up in time. We were on a corner spot and right across from the camp kitchen and bathroom it was a prime location for our last week in Australia!

We had three days before we took the train into the Blue Mountains  so we went downtown and checked out other neighborhoods and the ins and outs of the Sydney harbor.  We walked through the Rocks neighborhood that reminded us of Portland's pearl district and stumbled onto a weekend market that was fun to ramble through.  We spent a few hours looking at all the goods and drooling over all the food venders and settled on an Irish Bar to have a pint and eat some food.  After a few beers and some French fries we headed toward Darling Harbor which is a long walk but we found cute neighborhoods and amazing condo's to live in after we made our millions!  Darling Harbor was full of people; there were tons of water front cafes and restaurants along with museums and kids type amusement including a huge ship museum, a wild life center, aquarium, and a large casino across the harbor.  This is the place to be if you had small children with you, after dodging our fair share of prames (strollers) and wandering kids we decided we were in the mood for something less chaotic. We went back to camp and chilled by the pool.

It was finally Blue Mountain day, we boarded the first train to the mountains early in the morning and kicked back for the 2 hour smooth ride.  We had thrown the last of our granola in the yogurt container which swelled up over night and provided a nutritious but weird textured breakfast.  When we got off the train at the Blue Mountains we saw a town and no mountains.  Strange…we found a booth that we could sign up for a bus tour that would drop us off at various points of interest in the town including some trails that are in the Blue Mts.  After a short bus ride through town we got dropped off at the start of a trail head, the trail walked along the ridge of the mountains so no climbing necessary!  The weather was perfect and the mountains were so beautiful, they were more like deep canyons with big vertical walls covered with eucalyptus trees.  Not the traditional mountains we are used to but they were gorgeous nun the less with a blue haze as far as the eye could see.  The walk along the ridge offered many great views of cliffs, and waterfalls and really cool red parrots all over.  We stopped and ate an apple at honeymoon point and reflected on our wedded bliss, but grew a bit sad that our trip was coming to an end at the end of the week.  At the end of the trail we came to the famed three sisters (distant relatives of the three in Bend) this is where we ran into the hordes of tourists because most people did not want to walk the trail and opted to get dropped off right at the sisters.  Wanting a break from the heat we found a complex with a food court and multiple gift shops.  We found some coozies, kangaroo socks, and I got a pair of shorts.  Some of the souvenirs were a bit much like the pouch that was made out of kangaroo balls, and the back scratcher made out of the paw of a kangaroo! Poor kangas :( After the shopping we hoped back on the bus and had it drop us off in a different neighborhood that had more shops, it took us about 5min to see that we were not interested in any of the shops so we walked back to the train station and waited 10 min for the train to arrive to take us back home.  We are glad we spent only the day there and not a night or two because we saw it all in a few hours.  Really fun place but more set up for the older tourist.

Back at camp we spent our last days at the pool reading and sunbathing, Paul even taught me how to dive into the deep end! I was feeling good about my dives until a little squirt about 10 asked if I was a teenager! REALLY kid, I don't look that young! Feeling less than womanly I resumed my lessons and the little squirt made herself assistant coach, soon her demonstrations turned into a "see what I can do" game, she was a sweet kid but I had to pull out all the stops to one up her and in the end it was drinking a beer! Sweet victory! As we were leaving the pool she asked where our camp was I lied and pointed to the opposite side of the camp, I did not want a shadow for my last days in Sydney.

Another day we decided we had better get to Bondi beach baby!  This is the famous beach in Sydney and a little father out than Manly (my favorite) it is one of the "places to be on New Year’s” and just about every other day.  Bondi is its own community that seemed like a mini city, to get to the beach we had to cram into a bus and drive past a huge mall that was about 4 blocks in size (I secretly wanted to go through the mall they had so many great stores, oh shopping how I have missed you!) A grassy park separated the beach from the board walk area, there was so much traffic both pedestrians and vehicles, but I was beautiful and understood why it is so popular.  After lounging we walked around the beach on a path Paul told me that I could get him to live in a sunny place (no snow) for a year or two as long as he could replace skiing with surfing or beach volleyball and now that it's in print my plotting may begin!

Our last great memories of the Sydney camp were: pizza, the French couple’s food, the Denmark family, nocturnal animals and crazy birds.  A pizza joint opened up under a canopy tent at the ranger station that made wood oven pizzas for way too much money.  When we checked in we got a coupon for it, and since we love pizza we gave them a try, this was a mistake since all we thought about was having the pizza every night for dinner, it was that good!  We also met a French couple that let us try their kangaroo steaks, it was really good dark meat, I think it was a good cut of meat and had a great marinade. We also chatted with a couple from Denmark traveling with a 5yr old and a 2y old, we idolized them since they were up before us and stayed out later than us with their kids every day.  We hope that when we start a family we will continue to travel just like they did.  And oh the nights, hearing the possums knocking over the garbage lids and cook stoves, fighting with one another, and running right by our tent then stopping right at our door to stare at us then squeal and run off once I notice and jumped three feet off my sleeping bag, also the bandicoot running around , big lizards blocking our hiking path and who knows what else running around in those woods.  Another great time was hearing and watching the birds that knock the baby magpies out of the nest and pretends to be the baby (although its huge, twice as big as an adult magpie) and makes ma and pa magpie look for food nonstop to feed it. This bird makes the most awful loud squawk constantly and there were a couple in the camp that was always hungry! Oh Australia we will miss you!



USA here we come!

01-11 thur 13-11 Magnetic Island

It was time to turn in the car so we hit the road early and headed toward the Townsville airport.  The drive was nice and we passed some small towns along the way, we were making good time when we hit road construction and had to wait half an hour at a stop.  This put us a little behind schedule but we still made it to the airport before 11am and turned in the car, we found a bus from the airport that would take us to the ferry terminal.  Along most of the road every 10-20 miles there were huge rope bridge crossings spanning the 4 lane highway for the tree kangaroos, we hope to see one making its way across but never did.

Once on the ferry the ride was a quick 20min, and we were picked up by Ian, the owner of our hostel,  in an old pea green Rolls Royce, boy  did we feel special!  Our hostel was a quick 5min drive from the ferry terminal, we were located right across the street from the ocean and away from the resorts on the other side of the island, it was such a great spot.  Our safari tent was wonderful, it had a large queen bed with very comfortable mattress and a fan so we could get some circulation at night, but the best part is we had the safari tent area to ourselves, and there was only a few other people there but we never really saw them.  

We lounged by the pool and went to a small local grocery store, and a bottle shop to treat ourselves to some Gin and Tonics, we borrowed the Pixar movie Cars to watch in the open air lounge area and enjoyed the movie, our G&T's, and watching all of the lizards and gecko's climb on the walls.  We slept well with the fan on, it is amazing how much more comfortable the humidity can be when you get that thick air circulating.

The next day we decided to explore the island so we walked down the road to check out a place that rock wallaby's lived, another family arrived just before us and brought some fruit reins and peels so we walked up on quite a few the wallaby's eating! They were super cute and the mom's had babies in their pouches so once the mom stopped hopping around the baby would poke it's head out to see what was going on, it was so so so cute! We watched them for a good 30mins before we walked back to the hostel to catch the bus to the start of the Fort's trial head.

The Fort's hike takes you up to a hill that had an army fort and hidden artillery back in WWII to fight off the Japanese, but the main reason for us going on this hike was to spot wild Koala's!  The trail was nice and did not have debris on it so I felt safe knowing if we were around a snake we would probably see it before we were up on it, but then I read a sign to the side of the trail that said "Stay on the trail, death adders are in this area", crap…when I read up on all the snakes in Aussie it said that most will feel your vibration and slither away to hide but the death adder keeps his ground and will not slink away. Oh how the Aussie wildlife keeps you alert and scared! The hike was pretty with gum and eucalyptus trees all around even though my eyes were on the trail 99% of the time which was good thing because someone had written with sticks “Koala” with an arrow pointing to the left of the trail. As we looked up we did see 1 koala sleeping in a ball and he did not even wake up as we were taking pictures and whispering in excitement.  We would have walked right past this Koala if someone had not let us know to look they are very hard to see!  We started our climb and a little further up the trail heard this snorting pig noise and we knew a koala was close, we stopped and looked around for a while and finally we saw a mama and a baby way up in a tree! We were so lucky they made that noise or else we would have walked right by them, the baby was trying to feed and the mom was falling asleep on the job.  We tried to get some pictures but both of their faces were behind branches and they don't move around much. We continued on the hike and looked at the old war ruins and climbed one of the standing towers to look at the great views.  On our way back down we saw that the mom and baby koala had still not moved, but we waited about 10min and the baby moved and climbed to a higher branch and then settled in to sleep facing us, we are so glad we waited and got some awesome photos!

Back at the hostel we met a new guest Edo from Israel.  He was overweight, super nerdy, and arrogant, we figured he will live with his mother for the rest of his life!  He was a nice kid but was a freaken expert on everything, Paul and I bit our tongues quite  a bit during our conversations since with these types of people it's all you can do.  It was still fun to talk to him about Israel and his military service, his job was to pick who was recruited into each job for their military service, interesting…

On our last day at magnetic island we rented stinger suites, snorkel gear and walked across the street to a reef Ian told us about.  We could not find the reef and my mask was not working so we took the bus to horseshoe bay on the other side of the island and hiked to B bay. The hike was not far and I was on the lookout for snakes, then the trail turned into a waterfall trail and we were not sure if we should continue or if this was normal, we decided to turn around.  Heading back we ran into a local walking in flip flops who asked us why we turned around and we told him that the trail was flooded, he told us we did not have much farther to go and this beach was the best on the island. He also asked if we had walking sticks, (we did not) he said he uses his to get snakes off the trail, but he only see's about 4 a year so we should be fine without one.  We decided to follow this crazy local in flip flops to the beach, he was right, we were just about there and it was beautiful. Once we arrived this local also informed us it was a nudist beach, yes he was a nudist, and if you ask me he needed to hit the gym before strutting his stuff. He was respectful though and walked and swam in the ocean on the other side from where we were. Paul snorkeled again without much luck, and since the guy said once you leave the bay's there are large tiger sharks (yikes!)  he stayed in the bay.  After that we enjoyed relaxing and soaking up the sun.
The next day we boarded the ferry to head back to the mainland.  It was hard to leave relaxing magnetic island, but we were excited to fly back to Sydney and see what the Blue Mountains were all about.

01-10-11

We had such a great night’s sleep and woke up to a beautiful morning, over breakfast we had to decide if we should drive the 3hrs to Townsville and stay the night there so we could drop the car off at the airport by 10:30m, or stay at Mission Beach.  There was a lot of activities to do a Mission and pretty much nothing to do in Townsville, so we decided to stay at Mission and get up early enough to make it to the airport.  We found out that the beach had a net in the ocean to keep the stingers out so we went to go swim in the ocean and hang out on the beach without stinger suites on!
The beach was so pretty, golden sand, Palm tree's, beautiful clear blue ocean and Dunk Island off in the distance, we thought we found paradise!  We decided to take our fist dip in the ocean without stinger suites since Sydney, and as we waded in we were shocked by how warm the water was, we knew it was the tropics but we felt like we were in a bath! With the heat and humidity outside the water was not refreshing at all, so we walked along the beach and watched some skydivers land just ahead of us. On parts of the beach there were thousands of little balls that were so soft to walk on, it was from the crabs digging there holes in the sand and rolling out the extra, it looked and felt really cool.  We took one last dip in the very warm water and then headed back to the pool hoping it would be cooler and offer us some relief from the heat.
The pool was everything we hoped it would be; we spent the rest of the afternoon sun tanning, swimming and reading.   At 3pm we took a free tour offered by the hostel to spot some wallaby's and possibly a Cassowary, we were thinking it would involve some sort of hiking but once in the van the gal told us it was a driving tour.  It was just Paul and I on the tour so the gal showed us some more of the town and took us to the spot where the wallaby' s come out of the tree's and on to this field, at first we only saw a few, but just at tree line in the shade we spotted a lot more lying around.  They were so cute, we even saw a grey kangaroo laying in someone's yard like it was a dog or a cat!  As we were driving to a second spot that wallaby's frequent Paul and I noticed a Cassowary in someone’s front lawn! Holy crap we could not believe it! We had the driver pull in front of the house trying to get the best angle for a picture; the Cassowary was an adolescent not too big (probably 6 feet tall) and just starting to grow the plate on his head.  He kept walking behind some bushes and would be totally hidden from view then pop out eating a different tree in the yard. Finally after waiting for him to emerge we got a great pic of him from the side and watched him walk along the street like he owned the place.  We felt so lucky to see one in the wild even if it was in a person's front yard.  We were told they are rare to see and even locals only see a few each year.  This silly little tour turned out to be a big jackpot for us, and the hostel owner was pleased to see us so excited when we came back she even came over to hear the story.  After the tour we had a nice dinner and played some cards a bit sad to leave Mission beach in the morning but excited to spot some Koala's on Magnetic Island.

01-09-11

It was a rough night for us, there were dogs that barked all night, some nocturnal critters that kept jumping on things and making them crash to the ground, and a neighbor who was up all night talking loud on his cell phone.  It was one of those nights that make you just want to cry.  At 4:50am the alarm went off, but it was still way to dark to see anything so we rested for another 20min for dawn to arrive before we went to the river.  It was a nice morning with a beautiful sunrise and we were hoping that after a sleepless night we would at least be able to see the shy platypus, and hopefully a tree kangaroo too.  
We went under the bridge a waited a few minutes before we went back down the trail to Paul's spot, at his spot we saw a shadow under the water close to the other side of the bank from us, at first we thought it was another turtle, but once it swam closer to us we could see it was a platypus! He was so cute, just a little guy swimming then he surfaced and continued to swim downstream.  It was hard to get a picture of him because he swam pretty fast and the lighting was not the best. Most of our still shots turned out blurry, so we tried to get video, but once we switched to video we stepped on a branch and the little guy dove under water and could not find him again. They are such shy little guys.  It sucks that we did not get good footage but we were so excited to have seen one in the wild it was defiantly worth getting up extremely early.

It was about 6am by time we were done viewing and we drove to curtain fig and walked along the main road trying to spot a tree kangaroo, this is where Damien suggested we go to see one. We must have used up all of our luck for the day on our platypus sighting as we did not see any tree Kangaroos, but it is such a pretty area that it was a nice morning walk regardless.  We returned to our hostel and ate some breckie and showered before we rolled up the tent, we contemplated staying another night since the place was so nice, but as far as activities go we had done much of what Yungaburra had to offer and the day trips you could take were on the way to our next destination.

We said our good bye's and hit the open road, first on our list was Wallaa Wallaa falls the most photographed falls in Aussie they say.  Coming from Oregon we have seen our fair share of waterfalls and they are always beautiful but we never get that excited or linger very long, and with Wallaa Wallaa falls we felt the same but it was slightly more exciting because it was surrounded by rain forest and exotic flowers, very pretty setting.  We found that there were two other falls along this drive and decided that since we were there we might as well complete the drive and see the other two.  I don't even remember the other falls names, they were not as pretty as Wallaa Wallaa so did a quick look and left.  

We hit the road again heading to Paronella Park dodging big dark thunderstorms all around when we spotted a park that Damien told us about that had a cool rainforest walk to a waterfall so we stopped to eat our lunch and check out the hike.  I was wearing a sundress but put on my boots so no more leaches would suck my blood and snakes could not bite through my boots,  Paul was brave(or just really hot) and kept his teva's on and shirt off.  The walk started off ok, but as we started to climb there was more and more debris on the trail that snakes could be hiding in, and the bush was so thick around us that it was hard to see in past 3 feet so any sort of rustle in the bush made us jump. We crossed a steam and right after the steam the trail became very bad, there were trees laying on the trail, branches ready to fall off any second, and the humidity was making the air thicker with every step.  We saw some dropping with seeds in it on the trail and were convinced it was Cassowary (they have ancient stomach that lets the seeds pass through them unharmed and they then scatter the seeds throughout the forest and help the forest grow if the Cassowary becomes extinct the forest will change dramatically in Queensland).  Paul really want s to see a Cassowary but I'm not sure I want to run into one on this trail, we also saw some holes that had been dun iin the ground but could not tell if it was Cassowary or wild pigs or who knows what other crazy animal it could have been.  Soon after crawling over and through a bunch of insect infested trees across the trail it was too much, and feeling vulnerable and soaking wet from humidity we made our way back to the car.  Luckily our only wild encounter was Paul walking through a spider web that had a HUGE spider on it and was sitting on his head, he moved the fastest I have ever seen with arms waiving around the air and making cuts that would have the NFL trying to draft him as a running back. One advantage of the spider being so big was I was able to see him fall to the ground in the blur that was Paul, that and I was pretty sure I felt the ground vibrated when the spider hit it!

Getting the last of the web out of Paul's hair he discovered that a leach had found him as well, but he caught it before it could start feasting on his foot.  We had made it to the car right when the thunder started to rumble and the rain came pouring down, and we were grateful to have A/C in the car.  The drive to Paronella was cool we were leaving the rain forest and heading into sugar cane fields, banana groves, and tea fields, but before we left the bush we saw a few places that had a small rope latter high across the road, this was for tree kangaroos to cross, how cool! The rain was hit and miss for most of the drive, but when we pulled into Paronella Park it started to down pour so we went to the covered cafe, got a snack and waited for the rain to pass. The staff was running around with umbrellas helping guests get to and from their cars in the downpour.

The story of the park is about a man from Spain came and fell in love with Queensland and wanted to build a castle, along with the castle he built a gravity fed irrigation system and the first hydro electric dam in Aussie to power his place.  It was much more that I was expecting (Paul did not care to stop, but he ended up being impressed too) the old building looked so cool with stone building surrounded by jungle and it gave the feeling that we were in the jungle book.  The grounds and walking paths that he made were so beautiful with plants I had never seen before, there were little streams and he even made a mud spa, it is not in use now but we did go into it and saw tiny minky bats that now live there! It was a beautiful place and full of history and we were glad we stopped.  Once done with the tour we were exhausted so we drove to straight to mission beach our next overnight stop.

Mission beach brought us back into the tropical rain forest and once we turned off the main hwy toward mission beach we started seeing signs about Cassowary crossings every few hundred feet.  Our Aussie book told us Mission Beach is home to a Cassowary conservation park and they have taken the Cassowary on as the official town mascot (there are large statues of the bird everywhere) so we slowed down and kept our eyes peeled.  We did not see any birds but the town was the perfect beach town.  We loved it, but we since it was still raining and there were puddles everywhere we were looking for cabins to stay in for the night, and every place had cabins were out of our budget so we found a hostel with a private room for half the cost of a cabin. Absolute Backpackers was a very nice big white hostel with a large dining/common area in the middle of the bottom floor, a nice private room for us and there was not too many people staying there.  We had A/C in our room, and there was a nice swimming pool too, we made some dinner and fell asleep quickly.

01-08-11

We were so excited to pick up our rental car and see more than the main highway and train tacks have showed us.  Again our final destination is only 4 hours down the coast but we drove in land for a little over an hour to our first spot Yungaburra for exploration.  The drive was so cool, we drove through farms of sugar cane with large mountains in the background and over a pass with huge tropical forests all around, we loved the drive, neither of us have spent time in this type of tropical environment, it is hard to put into words but the landscape has a certain draw to it even though the inhabitants scares the bejebers out of me. We climbed for about 40mins over a mountain that gave us incredible views of Cairns and the surrounding valleys and Paul spotted a sign for Cathedral fig off to the right so we went to see the hype over this tree.
We parked the car and walked about 20 yards when this towering tree came into view, this tree is large on the scale of the Redwoods and Sequoias, but these figs have roots that grown down all over the place.  The fig strangles the host tree and eventually kills it but has so many shoots that the tree is basically thousands of roots that can grow hundreds of feet in the air. It was such a cool site to see!
Yungaburra was only 15min down the road, and once we pulled into town we were surprised by its charming feel (we expected some kind of bush like town) it was very small but did cater to travelers with the streets  lined by cafe then B&B then cafe then Hotel, etc...  We spotted a sign for Curtin fig right past the platypus viewing deck, so decided to check it out, the curtain fig is the same kind of fig as Cathedral but its roots grew down like a curtain, it was equally impressive in size, but we both like cathedral fig better (I'm sure which ever a person see's first is their favorite since the initial shock sticks with you).  
Back in town we went to the information center to see about accommodations, and ask about the best time to see the platypus (around 5am or 7pm) the guy also showed us the way to very a close lake that we could swim in since they don't have croc's in Yungaburra because it is to cold (it is hardly cold but we are very high above sea level and it is noticeably cooler than Cairns).  Skeptical over the man's no croc statement we made our way to the first lake, there were 30-40 people there swimming (so i guess it's true)  and a lot of others bbq’ing and hanging out.  There was no sort of beach so we drove to the second lake that had a rain forest walk.
The lake was crowded as well but was also really pretty, surrounded by the thick tropical rain forest and mini fig trees that in a hundred years would be massive like the ones we had visited earlier.  We put on our sunscreen and started walking, about 5min into our walk it started to rain pretty hard.  We found a spot on the trail that had large trees that provided shelter from the rain and waited about 10min till the rain let up to carry on down the trail (life in the rain forest I suppose).  We spotted lots of beautiful butterflies and vines that were braided like ropes and stretched from one tree to the next, we were also on the lookout for pythons and tree kangaroo's however the only wild life we saw was the leech that attached himself to my heel and was having a feast, and I never set foot in the water!  After the leech I did have a minor beak down I felt violated from all of the bugs just using me for my blood, and Paul once again not even getting a mosquito bite.  Once we completed our hike Paul took a dip in the lake then we headed back to find some lodging for the night.

We found "On the Wallaby" a hostel really close to the platypus viewing and we figured we’d check it out. The place was really cool and Damien the manager told us we could set up a tent in the back yard for $10 cheaper than any of the motor camps, he also told us to go past the viewing platform and under the bridge for the best chances of seeing a platypus.  We booked a spot and grabbed our torches and headed to the river, we went to the spot Damien told us to and waited….waited….and waited…. once it was completely dark we left disappointed and agreed to get up at 4:50am (just before sunrise)  and walk back down to see if we had better luck.  We did see hundreds of fruit bats and lots of frogs on the way back, and a large snake that was dead thank goodness (just seeing it gave us the creeps) we could not tell what kind it was because most of it was flat.  Damien asked us if we spotted a platypus and we sadly said “no”.

We spent the rest of the night playing cribbage and listening  to a compilation of artists singing cover songs that some radio station in Australia had put together anytime an artist came for and interview, it was great.  We really liked it so Damien said he would transfer some on to our hard drive. He was such a cool guy and we loved the place with its big living quarters and clean facilities on the bottom floor of the hostel, we went to bed contemplating spending one more night but would see in the morning.

01-05-11 thru 01-07-11

We arrived in Cairns after about as much sleep you can have in a Greyhound, it was 6:30am and we were hungry, luckily we found a McDonald's not far from the bus station. Over brekky we took in Cairns, it is beautiful city, right on the ocean with a beautiful esplanade with shops, restaurants, flowers growing and swimming lagoons.  The lagoons were a necessity, already at 6:30am it was warm and the humidity was at 100%.  After brekky we took a cab to our motor camp since the thought of any physical activity in the humidity seemed horrible. The cab ride was cheap and the motor camp was great, we had reserved a tent site however since they had basic cabins with AC available for a $20 upgrade we jumped at the opportunity.   
Our cabin was so nice, a queen bed, a small couch, a.c., t.v,  and a mini fridge we totally scored.  We napped for a few hours then walked from the motor camp to the esplanade, it was a 30min easy walk along the ocean with crazy birds running around and our first crocodile warning signs.  We never did see a croc in Cairns, but we did see other cool marine animals like a mud skipper and weld,  while the tide was out.  We walked through art galleries that showed aboriginal art work which we have found a great love for, and filtered through many cute cafe's.  A high light of our days consisted of 50 cent soft serve McDonald's ice cream cones, and gorgeous views of the ocean and tropical rain forest that merged with it.

One morning we woke up early around 6am to take a rainforest hike, and try to beat some of the heat and humidity, silly us we were in the wet tropics and it is that way 24-7.  The walk had us go over a muddy river that as we were looking at a local asked if we saw or heard a croc, we said “no” and she told us that there is one around and to not get to close to the edge of the water. Shitt'n croc's can really make you walk faster!  Our walk left the river and headed through a beautiful park then for the bush and started to climb. We came to several signs that warned of Cassowary's in this forest and that they may be curious and could possibly attack, the signs then went on to explain that if a Cassowary attacks you should try and put a back pack in front of you since they kick high and drag their massive claw down your middle. How lovely, crocks, cassowary's and pythons everywhere, now I’m a little out of shape but the main reason my heart was beating so fast and my breathing was heavy was not from hiking but  was due to all of the dangers we might encounter.  Of course we made it to the top of the lookout no problem, I was relieved but Paul really wanted to see a cassowary in the wild.  Off the main trail was another trail that was a loop and was longer so we decided to check it out,  not long after we left the main trail the grass got waste high and it looked like the last time trail maintenance came through was years ago, we heard some rustling in the bushes and it was something big. After a short while the grass was too long and had too many places for snakes to hide and I'm convinced a Cassowary was stalking us so we turned around.  We really feel out of our element hiking here, we do not have gators and Paul does not have boots so bush wacking is a little sketchy.  We arrived back at our cabin by about 9am both soaked with sweat and ready to be out of the already hot day.
Since we had so much down time around Cairns we planned out the next phase of our trip. We would rent a car and drive the inland route to Townsville and catch a ferry to Magnetic Island, stay for 3 day's then fly back to Sydney. Townsville is only 4 hours away but we planned on taking 3 days to get there since we there are a few sights to see along the way and we wanted to get back into the bush.
On our last night in Cairns we went out to dinner, I really wanted to try Barramundi fish and Paul also wanted some good sea food (other than fish n chips).  We settled on a restaurant and were both extremely pleased with our meals, Paul got the catch of the day which the waiter told us was salmon, but it was a white fish (?, whatever dude) it was good, but we  both thought the Barramundi was the best.

01-04-11

We slept really hard since we were so tired from the night before, but we were a little stiff getting up, sleeping on a deck with no pad might have been the culprit.  Our snorkel was at 6am and not for very long since we were heading back to Airlie beach. Paul jumped in, I stayed in the zodiac since I was not awake quite yet, and I took some pics of the reef, Paul snorkeling and fish that I could see from the surface.  After about 20-30min everyone was back on the boat for our two hour ride back, I fell asleep on the way and Paul enjoyed the views as we sailed away.
Once we docked a manager met the boat and offered us a line of BS and $50 to do laundry at the marina for our now infested clothes, luckily we had very little of our things with us, however all of my bites started to appear. Most of us were just mad about the fact that they knew the bugs were there and still let us go back out.  Paul and I spent the next two hours washing and drying our clothes, then once the main load was done we changed and washed the outfits we were wearing off the boat. For our stuff we could not wash we put them in a black plastic garbage bag and let it bake in the sun.  As we were washing we watched them load up another group of people on the same boat and prepare to sail away, bed bugs still intact.  We were fortunate that our Greyhound bus did not leave until 8:30pm, so after two hours of washing we walked back to the sailing company to get our packs out of storage and to ask for some money back.  Paul had to write out a statement as to why we should get some money back and they would pass it on the boat’s owner, it was up to them if they wanted to give any money back.  
After picking up our supplies we got some lunch and relaxed the rest of the afternoon looking at the beautiful bay and counting my bug bites. Soon enough the bus came and it was on to Cairns and our next adventure.