Greetings from the Internet Outpost in Cairns, where finally the weather is warm and I feel like I'm in the tropics. It's nice out here, albeit incredibly touristy. The Contiki tour ends here, we're resting for 2 days before heading into the Daintree Rainforest.
Aside from that, the East Coast of Australia has been very cool. In Surfers Paradise and the Gold Coast, which is incredibly commercial, I decided to do the rainforest trek instead of lounging on the beach. It was wonderful, we drove through the Tamborine Mountains and Lemington National Park looking at very weird vegetation like strangler figs and gimpi gimpi, very painful venomous plants. I'm glad our guides knew what they were doing as all these plants are incredibly dangerous here in Australia! So are the spiders, there are a few that are lethal. Isn't that lovely? But thank God we didn't get to really meet any of them :)
Then our tour got lucky in Fraser Island as we got upgraded to the hotel facilities at Kingfisher Bay, the only large resort there: it was very comfortable. I'm told the original eco-lodges where we were supposed to be were a lot less nice :) There, we did a 4wd day tour, going on 75 mile beach (cool beach which is also a highway and an airstrip :) and where it's not recommended to swim because of 1) undercurrents and 2) tiger sharks gathering near the beach at the start of whale season. Lovely. There were weird sand formations called the Pinnacles, and a shipwreck, the Maheno, the size of the Titanic lying on the beach. Fraser Island is the world's largest sand island, indeed there is rainforest and lakes and animals but the whole thing is just a gigantic sand dune popping out of the sea! It is said that there is more sand on Fraser Island (because it is 700 m deep below sea level) than in the whole of the Sahara. Pretty cool. It was a great place to see, if any of you have seen the Animal Planet episode with Steve (the crazy Australian guy) on Fraser Island, I saw most of what was shown. Dingoes, stingrays, microbats and fruit bats, large weird trees and lizards. Very cool.
Another dangerous beast that they have in this country is the saltwater crocodile. We actually got to have supper at a crocodile farm, where animals recuperated from zoos (because they ate their keepers!) and from areas too close to civilization are kept. They are true beasts: 15 feet, 800-1000 kg. Ça c'est de la bête! We ate some crocodile kebab - something between fish and chicken, really not bad at all! -, saw a baby crocodile and held a young 2 year old - with its mouth taped shut :). Pretty awesome.
And then in the last three days I just finished the three day sailing in the Whitsundays yesterday, we were 9 + 2 crew on a 40 feet sailing yacht, it was very well organized. The only thing, though, is that I got somewhat seasick during the crossing of the Whitsunday Passage in spite of wearing my patch. Didn't throw up but I really wanted to die at one point...it's a horrible feeling. In spite of that, the 3 day sailing (which was actually 2 1/2 days since we departed on the evening, spent 2 nights and 2 days at sea, and came back to the marina for the last night) was totally awesome. On the first day we got to go to Whitsunday Island and spent 1 1/2 hour on Whitehaven Beach, which was absolutely stunning. It's by far the best beach I've ever seen. An infinite spread of white, fine sand and transparent, turquoise waters. Too bad we had to wear stinger suits to go into the water as there has been stinger bites just 2 weeks ago, even though the stinger season is supposedly over in March. On the second day, we went to a few different snorkelling spots, and it was constantly getting better. An interesting one was by Langford Reef which is a sandbar that only appears at low tide; the quality of the coral really impressed me. Then on the last snorkelling spot, there was a big Humpheaded Maori Wrasse swimming around as we were feeding the smaller fish. Soo cool: got some pictures with my waterproof camera :). The weather was nicer on the second day than the first, but overall I was pretty happy. The bunch on the boat was diverse, we got to know each other quite well as we were in quite small quarters :). A majority (including the crew) were heavy drinkers; just another girl and I didn't touch alcohol because we were too afraid to get sick. The bunch went through 90 beer cans, a bottle of vodka, and a bottle of bourbon - drinking games and all. It was really fun. I'm really glad I got to go on this sailing trip; the 1 day sailing trip never got to Whitehaven because the seas were too rough. On top of that, it's resolved one thing: sailing is definitely not for me, I get too seasick! I'm a little terrified of the upcoming dive trip next week, because we'll be on even rougher seas as we're going to the Outer Great Barrier Reef. I don't know what I'll do... maybe I'll just zonck myself out with heaps of Gravol and sleep through the crossing...
