Easter/fall break

So I'm not used to Easter and fall breaks coinciding, but that's what you get down under. We had over two weeks off from uni, starting with Good Friday and continuing through the second Sunday after Easter. The first few days I just hung around college doing nothing in particular. There were a fair number of people around at first, but they slowly began to trickle off as the days passed. By the time I left early Friday morning, there were only a handful of kids left around. So I was happy when my trip to Cairns began.

Cairns is FANTASTIC. It's up in northern Queensland, which is in the northern part of the country, so it's pretty much tropical. It's basically a gateway city to both the Great Barrier Reef and the World Heritage Rainforest, which were two of the things I most wanted to see while in Australia. Not bad, killing two birds with one stone. It was a great time of the year to go as well. The peak tourist season is from May to September, when the weather is relatively cool and the rest of the country is in the middle of winter. By the beginning of April, the main part of the wet season is over, so the area is in transition. It still rains occasionally, but for like 10-15 minutes every few hours, as opposed to for days on end. But since it wasn't the heart of the tourist season, there weren't too many people around, which made it easier to do everything I was looking forward to.

I got into Cairns around noon on Friday, and after checking into my hostel I set out to explore the city. I was staying at Tropic Days Backpackers, an awesome hostel about 15-20 minutes walk out of the main part of the city. The city itself was pretty standard as far as tourism destinations go -- lots of souvenir shops, restaurants, travel agencies, etc. The weirdest part of the whole place was the Lagoon, a man-made pool-like thing about 15 meters from the beach. It's not safe to swim in the ocean close to the mainland in that part of Queensland because of crocodiles. It also happened to be jellyfish season, so that's a double no. So instead, you get to swim in a man-made lagoon that's onshore and look off in one direction and see the ocean not far away. Kind of a cool compromise, but a bit strange at the same time.

On Saturday morning, I got up bright and early to go on a snorkelling trip out to the reef. It was amazing. I had never been snorkelling before, so it was a bit weird at first, especially because the snorkel they gave me had gotten messed up in the storage tub so water kept coming in every time I breathed. But I figured out how to fix it, and then the whole thing was awesome. It's cool how much you can see even from just under the surface. It was a bit cloudy that day, so the coral didn't show up in all of it's full color (i.e., the pictures don't look like still frames from "Finding Nemo"), but it was still really pretty. The trip I was on stopped at two separate locations. First we went to Michaelmas Cay, which is a small sand island in the middle of the reef. It was a good location for first-time snorkelling, since you could return to shore as needed. The shallowness of the water also made it really easy to see everything. After about an hour, we reboarded the catamaran and moved out into the reef itself, away from all land. The water was deeper here, but there was more coral around, so it was just as cool. I saw all kinds of fish out there, including a clown fish. The people who went diving saw a few turtles and even a reef shark. The trip was fantastic, but by the time it was over, I was exhausted from so much sun and swimming, so I was more than ready to crash by the time I got back.

The next day (Sunday), I took a ferry out to Fitzroy Island, a rainforested "steep mountain-top peeping from the sea" (according to Lonely Planet). It's a protected national park, so there's almost nothing on the island except a small resort. There weren't very many people on the island that day either, so I got some much needed alone time. I spent the whole day hiking over the island's different trails, including one up to the lighthouse and then up to the summit. The views from those two high points on the island were fantastic. The water was so blue, even compared to the sky, and at points you could even see the dark patches where the reef was particularly close to the surface off shore. It was so beautiful. After spending several hours at the island, I took the ferry back over the the mainland, where once again exhaustion set in.

Monday marked my departure from the city of Cairns into the small rainforest village of Kuranda. There are several transportation options between the two locations, but I chose to take Skyrail, the longest sky cable car line in the world -- over 7.5 km! It travels over the canopy of the rainforest, stopping at two spots along the way so that you can look around. The first stop is in the middle of the rainforest, where a park ranger takes you along a boardwalk and points out different plants (and animals if you're lucky enough to see any). The second stop is close to Barron Falls, a waterfall in the area. Since it's no longer the wet season, the falls were not in full torrent. I would love to have seen it in full flood, but it was still spectacular. The rest of the Skyrail journey was just over the top of the rainforest canopy, providing great awesome views both down into the rainforest and out over the city, the coast, or the mountains.

The ride lasted about an hour and a half, bringing me into Kuranda around 11 am. I then set off to wander around the village with all the other tourists. It's a typical tourist town, with lots of shops and restaurants along a single main drag. I stopped in several of these, and then after a quick lunch set off to find the Kuranda Rainforest Accommodation Park. It was a good distance out of the village center, and was really located in the middle of the rainforest. After walking the long way around to find it, the owner pointed out a shortcut to me in the event that I wanted to head back into the village. That day, however, I chose just to hang around my room and read and listen to the rain. It was some much needed relaxation. That evening, I went to dinner at the on-site restaurant, which was the best fish and chips I think I have ever eaten. And certainly the biggest portion. Every Monday, the restaurant owner shows an old movie after dinner, so I hung around to watch "The Magnificent Seven", a western starring Steve McQueen among others. It was a good ending to the day.

The next day, I slept in later than usual, since I had no specific time table for the day. Around 11 am, I headed back into the village. I didn't really want to spend all day wandering around the shops again, so I chose to hike out to Barron Falls. It was 3-4 km each way, so it was a decent hike, but it was well worth it. After I got a bit out of the village center, the whole walk was through rainforest, and the views from the lookouts along the trail were spectacular. The final lookout was a bit closer to the falls and from a different angle than that of the Skyrail stop, so I got some fresh views. After spending some time there, I headed back into the village and got an early dinner before going back to my accommodation and just hanging out there for the night.

Wednesday was the day of my return to Adelaide, so I woke up early to head back into the village and catch a bus back down to Cairns. It wasn't nearly as scenic, but there was no need to do Skyrail twice, and the bus was only $2. Upon my return to the city, I stopped by Tropic Days to pick up my luggage and then took a shuttle to the airport. And here I am, back in Adelaide. Okay, so I've been back for a week and a half, but I'm just now updating my blog (terrible, I know). I just got so excited as people kept coming back to college that I completely forgot that I had never written about my trip. But here it is, in full long detail. Hope you enjoyed it, because I sure did.