Trip of a Lifetime

Crocodiles, Birthdays, and The Announcement

Hey people! Hope everyone's doin well over there, I know I am! Well... Alright, I'm kinda hungover from my birthday party last night, but what can you do? I'm 23 now, but my friends will tell you I'm not a day past 10 ;) As far as the post title goes, "The Announcement" will have to wait until the end of the post, so you don't just stop reading right here :) Now, on to my travels - I've got a lot to talk about. In the last few days I've been up to Cape Tribulation, been on a crocodile cruise, seen Port Douglas and most of Cairns, been out to the great barrier reef, and had a very awesome birthday party. Hmm, where to start... Cape Tribulation is a most wonderful place where the rainforest of northern Australia meets the ocean where the Great Barrier Reef lies - it's the only place in the world where two world heritage sites meet. On the way up there, though, we stopped at a few places, including Port Douglas, where I found this cute little church overlooking the ocean. http://www.geocities.com/spiker43930/P4070151.JPG We also found a very nice beach where we spent some time sitting on the sand. We never went swimming, however, because this part of Australia, at this time of year, is absolutely infested with box jellyfish. Apparently getting stung by one of these things is like putting a cigarette out on your arm. No thanks! We also found some very nice foliage - this one reminds me of a weeping willow, though I've got no clue what it actually is. http://www.geocities.com/spiker43930/P4070158.JPG After Port Douglas, we went out into the rainforest for a look at the interesting and frankly scary world that exists there. Spiders as big as your hand, snakes as long as a boat, and crazy lizards that look like dinosaurs, but still manage to blend completely into the plant they happen to be sitting on... http://www.geocities.com/spiker43930/P4070180.JPG flora and fauna I've never seen before, or even imagined. Thankfully, once you accept that there are numerous things in the rainforest that can kill you, you sorta forget about it and just walk around wide-eyed, studying the gorgeous landscape in which you find yourself immersed. Take a look at these pictures and you'll understand what I'm trying to say :) http://www.geocities.com/spiker43930/P4070167.JPG http://www.geocities.com/spiker43931/P4070181.JPG http://www.geocities.com/spiker43931/P4070184.JPG Pretty amazing stuff. We did a crocodile cruise next, and we saw.... A crocodile! http://www.geocities.com/spiker43931/P4070188.JPG Apparently, this croc was a pretty small one at 2.5 meters. The guide was saying the biggest croc he's ever seen was 8.5 meters long, weighed 3 tons, and was estimated to be 120 years old. Can you say dinosaur? If you hung it from a building, it would hang down like three stories! I'd like to see Steve Irwin take that thing on :) The Crocodile hunter would get great ratings for that episode, being his last. Next, we made our way up to Cape Tribulation, where we stayed in a sweet hostel in the middle of the forest, close to the beach. We were pretty hard done by, as you can see by this picture :) http://www.geocities.com/spiker43932/P4080232.JPG Cape Tribulation is actually named after English explorer Thomas Cook (I think it's Thomas), who was exploring just off the coast, and smoked the Barrier Reef with his ship. They went ashore for a bit, and he made camp in Cape Tribulation - so named because of the tribulations of this particular journey. You all know I love sunrises, so we couldn't miss the chance to get some pictures of a nice Cape Tribulation sunrise. The results were quite nice! http://www.geocities.com/spiker43931/P4080207.JPG We had a free day in Cape Trib, which we used to spend even MORE of our money! We went kayaking on the ocean, out to the mangroves and creeks where the crocodiles live. http://www.geocities.com/spiker43932/P4080227.JPG I love kayaking, and though I did get a wee bit sunburned (Australia has no freaking ozone... Seriously), I still had a fantastic time. The guide was kinda worried that Vanessa would lag behind, cause... Well, cause she's a girl, but I think maybe in a former life she was an Olympic kayaker... Maybe even the person who actually invented kayaks. After kayaking, our guide split a coconut using a screwdriver, and we ate some of it, leaving the rest for the massive bush rats, that can get up to two feet long. Our time in Cape Trib was fantastic, well worth the money, though it was expensive... Speaking of spending excessive amounts of money, yesterday we went out and saw the Great Barrier Reef for the first time. It was simply amazing. Vanessa and I snorkeled our little hearts out, and saw some amazing things. Every kind of fish imaginable, every color, every shape, from tiny schools of fish as big as your the nail on your thumb, to sea turtles, to massive fish that troll the bottom of the reef looking for unfortunate food. I actually got to pet one of the fish - I'm not exactly sure how I ended up petting a fish, but there you have it - his name was Wally, or so I was told. He was about a meter long, and I think the only reason he let me touch him was because he was way too big for me to hurt, and he knew it. Most of the snorkelers just looked down at the huge fish, which was about 8 meters down. Luckily, I think I got a lot of my genes from Neanderthal man, including my large chest cavity, which lets me hold my breath for nearly a minute will I'm swimming around. I just swam down to where the scuba divers were and hung out with the big fish, swimming along beside it while it tried to ignore me. It felt amazingly soft, not what I was expecting at all. I tried to give it a hug, but it didn't like that very much... Still, I made a new friend :) We got lots of pictures from underwater, but they were with Vanessa's underwater camera, which uses regular film. I'll try and scan some pictures if possible, but don't hold your breath. The only picture I can offer you is this one, taken from inside the small semi submersible they had on the reef. http://www.geocities.com/spiker43932/P4090242.JPG This reef is only one of many types of reef that grow here. The entirety of the reef is massive. In fact, it's the only natural wonder that can be seen from space! I only saw a small part of it, but I'll get another chance to see some reef when we hit the Whit Sunday Islands. Oddly enough, the amazingly fine sand that makes up the beaches in the Whit Sundays comes from a most unlikely source - it's fish poop :) And now, getting to my birthday... What a strange, exciting night. It started out as all birthdays should - Having pints with some friends we'd made. These two English blokes were hilarious, it's too bad they're traveling North, since we're headed South. They're brothers, Lloyd and Byron. http://www.geocities.com/spiker43932/P4090251.JPG From there, it went places I definitely did not expect... You see... They have a coyote ugly type bar here in Cairns, named PJ's. Apparently they pick people from the crowd to come and dance on the bar, and whoever wins gets some kind of prize or something... All I know is, one minute I was drinking my beer, the next minute everyone around me was shouting "PICK THIS GUY, IT'S HIS BIRTHDAY!!", and soon after that I found myself... well, just look at the picture. WARNING - The image you are about to see is not only shocking, but it may cause temporary blindness. http://www.geocities.com/spiker43933/P4090264.JPG I know what you're all thinking - Proud day for me and my family! Luckily, I didn't make it past the first round. Even so, once I got down I was an instant celebrity, and everyone started buying me shots and drinks. From there, the night is a little hazy... What I can say for sure, though, is that I felt a lot better last night than I did this morning. Observe - Before: http://www.geocities.com/spiker43933/P4100270.JPG After: http://www.geocities.com/spiker43933/P4100272.JPG What a night. I had a ton of fun, and met a lot of excellent people, though I can't remember anyone's name... Finally, we went shopping today for sandals and books, and to my surprise I met up with a good friend I know from Canada, and from Thailand. I look somewhat like him, especially with my hair getting longer. I think most of you will know him too - He goes by Ronald. http://www.geocities.com/spiker43933/P4100274.JPG Ronald Macdonald that is. Didn't I tell you Macdonald's transcends the universe? Tomorrow we head off to Airlie beach, where we sail to the Whit Sunday islands. We've got an 11 hour bus trip ahead of us, which I'm not excited for, but the Whit Sundays are supposed to be absolutely gorgeous - the definition of the word paradise. Squeaky sand and tropical sun should make for a fantastic time - The only drawback was, as usual, that this trip is bloody expensive. Then again, you can't come to Australia and miss the Great Barrier Reef, the Whit Sundays, or Fraser Island, where we'll be going soon after our Airlie Beach sailing adventure. I will not be able to post for a few days, since I'll be on a boat in the middle of the ocean, though I'm sure it will take a while to read this post anyway - it's as long as a crocodile :) The only thing left now is the announcement! As you may know, last summer I worked in Kelowna at a camp called OAC, and I applied for a job there again this summer. I've just received word from the hiring staff, and I got the job! This means I'll be spending all summer in Kelowna, making lots of money for school and such, soaking up the sun in yet another waterfront location. My 24th year is shaping up to be a good one :) Spiker

posted by Spiker @ 12:36 am