I had a ton of time to kill in Cairns, because the cheapest flight to my next stop, Darwin, required me to wait an extra week. Since I was there for so long, I ended up booking quite a few activities. After skydiving, my next adventure was the Raging Thunder white water rafting tour. The night before rafting, I watched 2 Guns, with Carol from England and a Canadian girl named Pamela Anderson...Seriously, best name ever. That night I woke up at 1:30 in the morning as my roommates were rolling a joint. They were trying to be super quiet to not disturb me, but as Steinbeck one wrote, the best laid plans of mice and marijuana enthusiasts oft go awry.
Once we got to the river, we met our groups and piled into our rafts for safety lessons. Our group had a pair of newlyweds from Spain on their honeymoon, Santi and Belen, as well as a Canadian college student, Sylvia, and two English birds, Laura and Colette. Our instructor was an Aussie named Tim, who lost a tooth to the river on a previous rafting excursion.
To be honest the rafting was pretty lame, it was supposed to be a level 4 out of 5, but it was not challenging at all. There were 10 rafts, so you had to wait for each raft to pass a section before moving on, meaning you spent more time waiting than rafting. There weren't any big drops, though we did get stuck on rocks a few times. We got to paddle underneath a waterfall, swim/float down the river, but I expected more. There was one really cool moment though, where a giant branch from a tree fell on the raft, and the only reason it didn't land on someone and kill them, was because we were all gathered on the back half of the boat, to prepare ourselves for a flip. It's weird how many times you barely avoid danger. Call it fate, call it luck, call it karma.
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| The rafting may not have met expectations, but the views were beautiful |
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| Some people got to jump off a log...that's not extreme bros |
After getting back from rafting, I went to have a few drinks on the hostel patio with my dorm mates, Yan and Andy and ended up running into some girls I knew, so I headed back to Gilligans with Carol, Pamela Anderson, my fellow American Becky, and Swedish bird named Hannah. I love that you can call a girl a bird here, it's so cool. The bar's main event for the night? Jello Wrestling. I don't even know why there's strip clubs in Australia, you can just go to a backpacker bar to see women take their clothes off. It's also entertaining to see all the guys whip their cameras out as soon as boobs are mentioned, however I'm too mature for that....plus I have an insanely good memory.
I spent the next few days detoxing and working out, because my figure was unacceptable by Bali beach-body standards. Cairns has a pretty good fitness setup; There's a bunch of free outdoor workout stations that offer resistance based weight training. One evening, I also suffered what can only be described as a night terror. I had a crazy dream that I was being kidnapped, so when the light flooded the room and two shapes moved through the doorframe, I awoke with the scream of a little girl. It turned out that the two shapes, were just Yan and Andy coming back after a night smoke, so being stoned out of their minds, they were dying laughing. What can I say, I am kind of awesome like that. We also went out for their last night in Cairns and had the pleasure of returning to the hostel during a fire alarm, so we had to stand outside until 5 AM as one of the shops below the hostel was emanating smoke.
There's one destination everyone in Cairns goes to: the Great Barrier Reef. Since I had already snorkeled the inner reef on my Whitsundays tour, I decided to hop on a boat with Compass Cruises, because it takes you to the outer reef, which I was told has clearer waters and more diversified marine life. The boat I was on was really slow, so it took a few hours to get to our first snorkel site, Breaking Patches, but we were offered free coffee, tea and fruit for breakfast, so it was all good.
When I started snorkeling, I was surprised to find everyone snorkeling in a big group, which means you can't really see anything and various particles will be splashed in front of you, distorting your view. Thus I decided to go rogue, and found some awesome patches of shallow coral with super clear waters. Eventually others followed my lead and started branching out as well. #trendsetter
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| Amazing coral |
I was about to call it quits and head back to the boat, but decided to do one last lap around. As I was swimming along and looking at some coral on my right, I decided to turn my head and saw that on my left was a shark, eye fucking the shit out of me. A normal person would probably be nervous, but I was more of the mindset of: oh my god, I need a picture. The shark was so fast, I didn't stand a chance at getting a good shot as it darted forward and then banked right and swam through the coral. In my mind the shark was massive, the size of me at least, but the truth is that your snorkel goggles are also magnifying glasses, so everything looks much larger than it really is. Thus the shark was probably only a meter long, but when I tell this story years from now, the shark will be 8 meters long and it will have given me a high five with it's fin as it passed by. That story will also end with me making sweet, sweet love to a mermaid.
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| Not the clearest photo, but you can see the shark in the middle! |
Once everyone was back on the boat, we were served lunch, which was actually pretty solid. We got sausages, chicken, and 4 different salads. Then we made our way to Hastings Reef, which had massive schools of fish, rainbow colored fish, fish with lazy eyes, sea turtles, etc. After that snorkel, we were given the option to partake in an activity called boomnetting whilst making our way back to Cairns.
Boomnetting consists of throwing a net behind the boat and having people hang onto it while the boat speeds up. The further back you are on the net, the more submerged you become. It's more a measure of holding your breath than endurance. After thirty seconds on speed level two, and a gallon of saltwater in my lungs, I decided to let go. As a reward for returning alive, we were offered wine, cheese and fruit. It was a great day trip and relatively cheap at $99.
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| Never could find Nemo... |
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| School of Fish |
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| Camouflaged Turtle |
My last activity to do in Cairns was a tour of the Tablelands, which is a giant rainforest housing waterfalls, volcanic craters, and poisonous butterflies. That's right, there's even poisonous butterflies in Australia...WTF is wrong with this place! There are a few options, but I went with Captain Matty's Barefoot Adventure, and true to his name he showed up barefoot and made everyone hug him before getting on the bus. His tour also wasn't on any sort of schedule, so you are allowed to hang out for as long as you want at any given spot. Our first stop was Lake Eacham, which is a lake formed from a volcanic crater. After a quick swim, we were served hot tea/chocolate/coffee and fresh fruit. Delicious!
Matty was also feeling a little adventurous since it was such a beautiful day, so we took a little detour to a lookout point, that housed an amazing view of the hilly land below. Then we headed to Millaa Millaa falls, which is the place from the Herbal Essences commercial where the girl flips her hair up in front of the waterfall. I was trying to be manly, so I didn't partake in any hair flips, but I did swim underneath the waterfall, which was pretty amazing.
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| There are amazing views everywhere in the world, you just have to open your eyes and realize what you're staring at |
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| Millaa Milla Falls |
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| Call me an optimist, but I think the GoPro is half full |
After the falls we headed to a pub to grab some lunch. There were also free jugs of beer lined up on the bar waiting for us, now that is how you run a tour! Matty also owed some shots to people, because he offered any girl that flashed some construction workers or any guy that mooned them a free shot. Two of the English girls also took their tops off and let guys take body shots off of them. I think they forgot it was 2 PM and not 2 AM...The British are a rowdy bunch!
Our next destination was Zillie Falls, where we took a recently cleared path to the bottom of the falls. We were climbing over tree trunks, maneuvering through brush, and hopping rocks across a stream. However, the reward was quite nice, as seing Zillie from below was beautiful. After hiking back up to the bus, we headed to our last stop, Josephine Falls. Talk about saving the best for last, Josephine has a natural rock waterslide. It was a pretty fun way to end the day, although I did slip in the stream on the way back, which caused my camera bag to get wet, but luckily it's insulated and everything was kept dry on the inside.
We then had one final tea time, complete with chocolate cake, cookies and TimTams. Oh the Tim Tam, how I will miss ye. One of the most delicious cookie snacks I have ever had. TimTams are possibly more delicious than Oreos...Yeah I said it brah! The tour was solid and took up the entire day, lasting from 730 AM to 730 PM. Definitely worth doing if you are in Cairns.
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| Zillie Falls |
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| Josephine Falls |
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| Best water-slide ever |
I really enjoyed my time in Cairns, it's a great spot to hang out for a while if you are in Australia as there is a lot to do and it's cheaper than the other places along the coast. My next stops were Darwin and Bali, but that is a story for another blog.
Random 7Ds (Switching it up, used the GoPro as my main camera due to all the water activities)
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| I am never living more than 3 hours from the Ocean ever again! |
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| Lake Eacham |
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| One of my favorite views on my trip thus far...jaw droppingly beautiful |
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| Millaa Millaa Falls |
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| Zillie Falls |
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| How can you not be outdoorsy if you live here? |
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| Waterfall Rock Slide! |
