Jade Down Under

Reading week is this week and although I probably should be reading I instead caught a flight to the city of Cairns, about 4 hours north of Townsville. Cairns is directly off the GBR and is full of rainforest. The picture below is us landing, at 7am! Liz and I had to be up at 4:45 Monday morning to catch a cab at 5:10; our flight was for 6:30. Unfortuantley, I was anxious to go (I have been going stir crazy in my prison cell) so I didn't sleep much. When my alarm went off nearing 5 I jumped out of bed and was ready to go; GET ME OUTTA HERE!!


Once in Cairns (8:30 am) we had nothing to do... we couldn't check into our hostel as it was too early, and our first tour wasn't starting until 1pm. The thing about Cairns is the city is very similar to Townsville so we easily found out way to the 'Strand' where they have a manmade lagoon and boardwalk. Nothing like a massive infinity pool to start the morning.


Some fishy artwork



I liked the look of the building, hence the picture. It's there City Council and Library.


Another great Aussie sign. No climbing on guns. The sign did make sense, there were WW1 guns mounted on big cement blocks but I still thought the sign was funny. Never seen that before.


I don't know what these are or what they are doing. They looked kinda creepy and I don't know what they are doing with thier appendages but I had to take a picture. There were a whole family of them all made from different colours.


To kill time we went to the Cairns City Museum. It was only $5 to get in (a single floor) but killed an hour of time. I have previously posted on the Cane toads and there awfulness here in Townsville. The museum shed a little more light on the subject. Look what they have been charged with; gotta love Aussies.


Aren't they horrible?! They literally are EVERYWHERE. When I was camping (with the grade eight class) we'd sit there at night and watch them all come out... there are tons of them. Eck!


Some more pictures of Aussie life. I don't know what these things are but they look pretty messed up!!

There were actual mouths on display. I got Liz to lay on the floor so I could show you how big their jaws are!! Looks like a weird saw!


I watched the movie Changeling on Saturday so the old phone system peeked my interest. I had no idea what I was doing but it was kinda fun. Got to love interactive museums.


And look! I found a Canadian.


After the museum we walked around Cairns killing more time until our tour. Every once in a while you will see Wicked Camper Vans drive by. These are rental vehicles that you can get while travelling through Australia. They sleep 3 people but that awesome thing about them is you can have them painted however you like! Do you think this van was full of boys?! Canadians could never get away with this in Canada!


Our next destination. We originally signed up for the Mingin Swing which is similar to the thing they have at Canada's Wonderland.


But then the signage got me thinking....


Liz and I chilling out waiting for her Minjin Swing operator.


Here she goes.

I also got a video but don't know how to load that properly!!


My turn!!!
The worst part about the whole experience (and the only bad part!) was the climb up the stairs. The tower is over 50 metres (164 feet) in the air and you feel every foot of it while climbing the stairs. By the time I made it to the top I wanted to collapse.


View from the bottom where Liz patiently waited for my leap!


Here I am!! By this point I was a little nervous but as I said the stairs were SOOOO much worse!

The first jump I did was called the Swan Dive and is the typical bungy jump. It's a lot harder than you think. We sat and watched a bunch of people try and fail but the two guys before me did it perfectly. MY TURN...


WHOOOOOOO!!! Awesome. That's all I got. It was awesome. I have a full video of the jump and the operators, who after I jumped made beaver faces at the camera. Before I jumped we had a conversation about the national animal of Canada and they thought they could pull off an interpretation. They actually did a wicked job, very funny.



After you jump you hang for what feels like forever, all the blood rushing to your head.


This guy comes out and gets you. He had only jumped twice before so I figured, why not?


The second jump I did is called the pendulum. This jump is way better than the first one because you don't know when he is going to let you go, and plus you can't see a darn thing behind you. lol.... I still have that silly feeling when I think about it. The pictures of this jump aren't so great so I'm not going to post them but hopefully I'll find a way to put up the videos for you guys.


A drink was in order. If you are ever considering bungy jumping just do it. It was well worth the money and will be a great memory.


At the end of the day we headed back to our hostel where we got free food. It wasn't the greatest I've ever had but it was free. Liz got the pasta alfredo, which apparently is a red sauce with vegetables!! Liz hates vegetables (weird, I know) so she ended up getting a bag of chips and eating that.


I had chili con con but it was more like taco meat with a few beans over rice. Luckily it didn't have many beans in it (I hate those little horrid things) so I was able to enjoy the meal. We went to bed shortly after dinner (asleep by 10:30) but we were woken up during many points of the night. It was brought to my attention the next morning (by the receptionist that I complained to) that people are uncontrollable and Gilligans Hostel cannot be responsible for thier guests. Grrrrr.... I was up many times throughout the night but was kept awake for an hour between four and five, I was a grumpy pants in the morning.


The next day was an early one because we were headed to Green Island to go snorkeling. Here I'm showing off my free t-shirt from the bungy jumping. I think I still had the jumpers high.


Here's Green Island.


This is the beach. We were not warned that the tide goes out very rapidly in the afternoon so Liz and I came in for lunch (which we brought), laid on the beach and then when we went to go back out the water was gone!! The ocean had retreated what looked like a km. As the ocean is filled with coral it makes it very difficult to follow the water as you can't walk barefoot on the ocean floor; the coral would cut your feet pretty badly. The only other option is to walk with the snorkel flippers on and that tires one out rather quickly. We gave up after 15-20 minutes and headed back to the beach. It was disappointing that we didn't get to snorkel for the second time.


Some pictures of the coral



At 1:45 we had a glass bottom boat tour. Liz and I got distracted and showed up right at 1:45, as the boat was pulling away. Darn. Luckily the staff were awesome and just threw us on the next one at 2:15.


Through the glass we could see many, many fishies... unfortunately the pictures don't really do it justice.

The boat operator threw handfuls of fish feed over the side and these big guys jumped into the air to get it. First food was thrown to the left side of the boat, then right (not using technical terms here) and the fish are trained (or remember this) and once they've eaten a bit on one side will automatically swim to the other side. Too bad they didn't learn how to avoid those sharp, metal hooks.


This is a giant clam. As I said, the pictures don't do it justice. Liz and I did buy an underwater camera but we only took a few pictures and have not developed them yet.


Leaving Green Island there are islands of mountainous terrain all around.


This is Cairns seen from the water


In the plane we went - the whole 45 minute flight from Cairns to Townsville. This is the last glimpse of Cairns I got before turning my attention to breaky and Eclipse.



We arrived in Townsville at 8:30am where our friend Alyce picked us up. I came home, spoke to the family and Jamie and then proceeded to fall a sleep for 4 hours. Guess I needed the rest. Tonight will be spent watching Season 2 of How I Met Your Mother, and refraining from eating all my ketchup chips my mom has just sent. I miss Ketchup chips SOOOOO much!!

Back to high school next week so I won't have much to post although it's ANZAC day on Saturday so I'll hopefully have some good shots. For those who dont' know what ANZAC day is it stems from WW1 when the Australian and New Zealand army took over Gallipoli - something like Canadians and Vimy Ridge - it's a national celebration. Since WW1 ANZAC day has turned into not only a celebration of those at Gallipoli but of all Australian and New Zealand soldiers. Townsville is a major army base so I'm sure there are going to be a lot of things going on here. I'll keep in touch.