Australia
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Getting ThereFri. 4/17 - Sun. 4/19, 1998: Ok, so it didn't look quite like this the day we left Manitou Springs. This is a photo from the week before; one whopper of a spring storm to contrast with our tropical destination. |
 747 Row 43 |
This was our home for the 14-hour flight from LA to Sydney. We were kept company by two high school soccer teams from Oz......SMILE! |
 Cairns Hatters |
Amazingly, we made all our connections and arrived in Cairns on schedule, Sun. 4/19. We had two hours before our boat left for Fitzroy Island, so we shopped for a genuine Aussie hat for Chris. |
 Fitzroy Island |
Tropical ParadiseMon. 4/20 - Wed. 4/22, 1998: Fitzroy Island is mostly National Park, but there is a "resort" with cabins and bunkhouses tucked into the rainforest, a restaurant and snack bars. There are trails & beautiful white coral beaches with palm trees and, uh, no snow. It was very green. We loved it here. |
 Geared Up |
Fitzroy has its own PADI dive shop. We had received our SCUBA certifications before leaving home, and we went diving all three days. Great fun! A little boat took us right from the dock to the dive spots (Dramamine is a good thing!) The water was a little murky, but it was a great way to get our feet wet, so to speak, diving in the open ocean. |
 Castaways |
Wed. 4/22, 1998: We returned to Cairns. Paddy Colwell's "Reef Teach" lecture this evening was memorable, as was our accomodation, the Castaway's Backpackers. Oh well, it left more $$$ for diving and we didn't spend much time in our room anyway! |
 Pontoon/Bad Hair Day |
Thurs. 4/23, 1998: We took a day trip to the Outer Great Barrier Reef to dive from the Great Adventures pontoon at Norman Reef. |
 Amazing Sights |
Between the two dives, there was time for snorkeling with an underwater camera. It's difficult to show how incredible it was diving and swimming here; a pure white sand bottom at about 30' with the reefs rising through the clear water to the sunlight at the surface. Excellent visibility and all sorts of fish, corals and plants. It was like being in the aquarium. |
 Dive Team |
Great Adventures runs both the dive shop on Fitzroy and the tour we took to the Outer Reef. As newbie divers, we appreciated their professional approach. Thanks to Ross, Nick, John, Warick, Kenji, & Mike. John, originally from NZ, took the time to map out a route for us to follow in NZ since we could see our plans for there starting to change based on driving (not) and how much we were enjoying diving. |
 Boulder Park near Babinda |
Fri. 4/24, 1998: We figured we should see some sights above the water, too, so we signed up for the Jungle Tours Rainforest Tour. From Cairns, we went southwest to the Atherton Tableland. This is a prime agricultural region surrounded by rainforest. Lots of sugar cane, bananas & other fruits grown here, along with cattle, dairy and horse ranches. Lots of green. |
 Not Government Approved |
The tour, a small group of fun folks, included stops for butt surfing here at Josephine Falls and another rainforest tramp to Tjapala Falls. Dirk, our guide, fixed us lunch on the barbie at Milla Milla Falls, and we continued on to Lake Eacham, a volcanic crater, for another swim. |
 Waterways Dining Car |
Sat. 4/25 - Sun. 4/26, 1998: We headed south from Cairns to Brisbane on the Sunlander train. It was an overnight trip, 1681 km (1008 mi) down the east coast and we were glad we opted for the sleeper coach. It was a real luxury after our backpacker's cubbyhole in Cairns! We saw LOTS of sugar cane...some kangaroos in the fields, too! |
 Oooooo, I got to hold a Koala! |
Sun. 4/26 - Wed. 4/29, 1998: For a city, Brisbane was a real joy. We got a cute little room at the Explorer's Inn in the center of the city and enjoyed great meals on the mall. The highlight of our time here was a beautiful day we cruised up the Brisbane River to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. We saw wild fruit bats on the way and koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, emus, dingoes, wombats & more at the Sanctuary. |
 Stunning Scenery.... |
On Tues. 4/28, we took a day trip from Brisbane to the Tangalooma Wild Dolphin Resort. It was our first actually rainy day! Tangalooma was sort of an odd place, with sunken wrecks off the coastline that made it look like Waterworld. We liked Fitzroy better as it was less commercial (no condos.) |
| We had been
scheduled to leave Brisbane Wednesday afternoon. When I called to confirm the flight, we
learned it had been moved up two days & we had missed it. We were rescheduled
and left Wednesday morning instead for Christchurch, on the South
Island of New Zealand. The change in plans left us short on souvenir-shopping time, (broke Chris' heart you know...) although we saw some beautiful things at Australia the Gift and Rainbow Serpent. We wished we had had a little more time to see the "outback" of Australia and more of the Aboriginal culture. We could have kept diving indefinitely. But, we had a great time there. Met lots of nice folks and did lots of fun things! Back to No Worries Page |
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