Cairns!!!

9.14.10

Well,

Last week was an exciting week since I was anxious to actually leave Brisbane for a weekend vacation. The week started out like every other week. Except, Thursday, I had a percussion sectional for Wind Symphony instead of regular rehearsal. That was the last school related obligation I had. Once I was done with that I started packing for Cairns [pronounced ‘Cans’].

On Friday, Kirsten an my flight left at 6:40am so we had to be at the airport about an hour before. The taxi came at 4:30am. It was the earliest I have woken up wince I got here. The airport is kind of small. Security is super fast and easy compared to DIA; we were through within minutes. I did get “randomly selected” for bomb test because I got through security and was putting my stuff away and it was taking longer than everyone else. Then we found our gate. Surprisingly, it was not the one furthest away from everything; it was the first one we passed. We grabbed some breakfast (I had that closest thing to a breakfast burrito I have had here) and then boarded the plane. The flight was about 2 hours long. Once we landed in Cairns, we got our luggage and waited to be picked up by the Calypso Inn Backpackers Hostel. This is where we stayed over the weekend. The place was nice; it had a pool, a pool table, a bar, and a kitchen. The front desk was a certified Raging Thunder booking desk. This is the company we booked all of our tours with. Once we got settled in, we hopped onto the free shuttle ride to the city. At this point it was not even 10am so a lot of shops were either just opening up or not open yet. We wander around to figure out where everything was. We found Cairns Central which I guess is the main mall. We had lunch there and continued walking around. I decided it would be a great idea to forget my water proof disposable cameras in my room at King’s, so I picked up a water proof case for my digital camera. We headed back to Calypso to drop stuff off before heading to dinner. Once we got back to the city it started getting dark and we saw hundreds of bats. We had no idea where they were all coming from, they just kept appearing. Then we went to dinner. We ate at a place called Barnacle Bill’s. I am proud to say that I have eaten barramundi, alligator, and kangaroo. This was a fantastic dinner, super expensive, but worth it. Then we headed back to Calypso and crashed.

The Next morning we had to be up to catch the 7:10am shuttle to the Reef Fleet. The Reef Fleet is the terminal at the marina that has stations or all of the dive/scuba/glass bottom boat/island tours. We went with Down Under Dive and Cruise to go scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef. The boat ride was about two hours to get to the reef. On the boat ride, I found out that due to my asthma and the fact I have used an inhaler within the last 5 years, I legally was not allowed to scuba dive. So, I did a lot of snorkeling while Kirsten dove. We first went to Saxon Reef and then to North Hastings Reef. Both of the places had awesome fish and reef life. At North Hastings, I also got to ride a glass bottom boat out along the reef where we weren’t allowed to snorkel. That was probably my favorite part. After that we headed back to the marina. On the long ride home, Elvis broke out his guitar and PVC pipe didgeridoo for us. Elvis is a Torres Strait Islander and one of the guides on the boat. Once we got back, we headed to a pizza place for dinner. We then caught the shuttle back to Calypso and crashed, again.

On Sunday, we checked out and had to catch the 7:10am shuttle again back to the Reef Fleet. Even though we had checked out, they had a place for us to store our luggage so we didn’t have to carry it all day. This day we went to Fitzroy Island. After grabbing breakfast, we boarded the boat and headed for the island. The ride was just under an hour. Once we got to the island we walked around before having to meet up to go kayaking. We kayaked for about 30-40 minutes to get to Little Fitzroy Island. This was a tiny island about 100 meters from Fitzroy. This is where we went snorkeling again. I saw much different marine life here than out at the Great Barrier Reef. After snorkeling for about a half hour, we kayaked back. At this point we walked around a little more and then found a shady place to just relax. At 4:30pm, the boat headed back to the marina in Cairns. We got back in enough time to catch the shuttle back to Calypso so we could grab our stuff and get to the airport for our 7:40pm flight back to Brisbane. We finally got back to UQ around 10:30pm.

Now it’s time for Week 8. Two more weeks until Spring Break!!