Crocs and Cairns: Final Week in Oz

After our rainy week in Armpit Beach we were eager to get north as fast as we could. So we hopped the bus up the coast- four hours to Townesville, which was beautiful but also far too rainy- stayed a night, and bussed another five hours to Cairns.



Cairns was bustling with thousands of tourists preparing for the Ironman competition that weekend. Ewan and I pretended we were part of the elite athlete packs and went for a few morning jogs along the waterfront...but there were a few key differences. (ewan claims it was mainly just his leg hairs that tipped 'me off - the ironmen are remarkably hair free and aerodynamic.)



As we were at the end of our Oz trip, we were feeling a bit worn down from all the travel, and wanted to get as much Aussie beach time as possible. So we put our faith in the weather forecasts (hard to do after our years in seattle!) and booked a studio in one of the northern beaches at Trinity. The first day was pretty disappointing, rain, doom and gloom. We were convinced that mother nature was getting back at us for all our ridiculously good weather up until the final week and a half, and we were not happy about it.

But the sun came out in full force on Sunday and the most difficult decision we had to make for the next two days was whether we wanted to move from the beach or head to the pool. Tough life.



We were leaving for Singapore on Wednesday, and decided we had to get one more Australian experience in the books before we left forever. We'd already snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef and gone sailing, so we opted for a visit to some of Australia's land based animals this time.



The crocodile far was awesome- hundreds of meat eating, salt and freshwater crocs just waiting for someone to fall over the side and into their swamp. Our colorful Aussie wranglers laid on the croc jokes left and right, and we loved every inappropriate and corny minute.



The "saltys" are even more dangerous than their American counterparts, the alligators, because they don't discriminate any body of water. Freshwater, saltwater, it's all fair game. These guys survived the dinosaur era for a reason - their jaws snap with up to 3,000 lbs of pressure, they can hold their breath underwater for up to four hours and they can survive without eating for up to two years. Ridiculous.



We also got to hand feed some of the country's gentler animals, the Casaway birds (giant rainbow colored emus), wallabys, kangaroos and koalas.

We were excited to move on to Singapore, but knew we'd miss the Australian lifestyle. Sun, beaches and bbqs, and the distinctly Aussie laid back attitude.

On the way to the airport the next morning we shared a van with an older Australian couple who'd been visiting Trinity beach for more than 50 years. They chatted with the driver about how much times have changed, and how built up the area had become. The husband remarked how he remembered hunting for rabbits back during the war days, which got them all going on all the different animals you could eat in Australia. (there are no vegetrians here!) Kangaroo meat was delicious, the government really should let people hunt them more since they aways ran over their gardens and farms anyway. Crocs were one of the most beautiful meats, somewhere between a fish and a chicken. Shark was good, rabbit tasty... Basically anything that moved you could eat. But they drew the line when it came to flying foxes. You never know what diseases those bats had these days.

Some good ole fashioned Aussie rules to live by.




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Armpit Ailie Beach and sailing Summertime

We left Brisbane at the perfect time - we'd enjoyed three straight days of sunshine, and the weather was just about to take a turn for the worse. It's a 17 hour bus ride on the greyhound from Brisbane to Airlie Beach, the next stop on our itinerary. And while we entertained the idea of roughing it on The bus for a straight day and a half... We decided our sanity(and our 8 month marriage) was well worth the upgrade to plane tickets!

A mere 90 minutes later and we were safe and sound on Hamilton Island. When we checked in for the flight, Virgin handed us each two boarding passes. We weren't quite sure what the second was for until we arrived- our second leg was a boat trip to the beach! Ewan was thrilled and spent the hour layover snapping pics of any boat, plane, or seaplane that came within a ten mile radius. In the interest of time we'll spare you those...



We'd thought we had sneakily beat the bad weather, but it turned out the nasty spell followed us (and the entire east coast). Airlie Beach is a bit of a pit stop on its own- its the gateway to the picturesque Whitsunday Islands, and not much else. There's an esplanade packed with backpacker hostels, backpacker tourist agents, and backpacker bars. And every third window had a "to let" notice, a sign of the economic times for tourist destinations. We were only supposed to be there two nights, but as the weather went from bad to worse, we had to rebook our thursday sailing trip for Sunday. That meant an extra four nights in the armpit that we weren't thrilled about.






Since we'd covered the town in about a day and a half, and figured out that anything we wanted to do to get us out of Airlie would require lots of cash (which we didn't have) and great weather (which they didn't have) we swapped the hostel we were scraping by in for a deal on a nice apartment outside of town. We spent the better part of the day waiting to hear whether we could rebook our boat, and went from apartment complex to complex trying the honeymoon card to see what kind of deals we could get. Dad, you would been so proud! We ended up talking the Whitsunday Vistas into giving us a nice one bedroom apartment for a steal, and waited out the rain with a king bed, soaker bath, full kitchen and washer and dryer (gasp!) all to ourselves. Yes, i know... We are such backpackers.

Even with the nice digs, it was a brutal wait to see if the weather would clear. These were definitely the low points of the trip this far, and we werefar too excited when Sunday rolled around and the rain clouds rolled out! Finally, we were off!

We'd booked a three day two night sailing trip onboard the Summertime -It was a bit pricier than most of the boats,but we were keen to avoid the party boats (imagine 20 nineteen year olds filling waterbottles full of vodka) and our friends had done the same trip last year and highly recommended it.

An hour into the sail and we weren't so sure this trip was a good idea. The captain warned us that the weather was still rocky, and he wasnt exaggerating. Summertime pitched side to side for the next few hours, leaving everyone in front soaking wet from the waves crashing over us, and anyone in back puking over the sides. (luckily I was wearing one of those nerdy seasickness patches my dr. Had prescribed... Lifesaver!)



Finally we reached calmer waters and one of the most pristine beaches we'd ever seen - White Haven. We laid out our towels, donned our stinger suits and waded into the crystal clear water. We also finally got to meet our fellow sailors, as this was the first chance to make conversation other than "are you alright? Oh, you just want me to move so you can puke..."

Our cabin mates were a great bunch. We had some scots, some Aussies, and a few Norwegians who rocked out in a Metallica tribute band together. One of them was massive and had a braided goatee. It was an interesting (and fun!) bunch.

The next day we woke up to glorious sunshine, and spent the day snorkeled in several different barrier reef spots. We saw turtles, huge Maori fish and even a baby shark! Later that night after dinner, we were all sat on the deck sipping our drinks when goatee man spotted a dolphin swimming off the bow of our boat. Turns out he liked the squid that was attracted to the light on our boat, so we spent the better part of an hour running from side to side as the dolphin swam around the bow. The crew was below deck putting a slideshow of the day together, and knew we had spotted him because off the "dolphin effect" - all the tourists pitching the boat side to side as we took pictures. Whoops :)







The third and final sailing day we woke up to rain and grey clouds, which made for another rocky ride back to airlie beach! But everyone was smiling by the end of it and we all met up at a bar in town that night for a final pint together. The Whitsundays were definitely worth the dreary wait, and ended up being one of the highlights of our trip so far!






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