Gondolas, Trains, and Catamarans

After recovering from my overnighter to Cairns and relaxing for 2 days around town, I finally got my act together and booked some things to do. I booked a gondola and train ride to Kuranda, just north of Cairns in the Atherland Tablelands (rainforest) with Vicky. Gorgeous! We first took a gondola to Kuranda and tooled around there for a bit. We visited the butterfly sanctuary and Australian Venom Zoo. By coincidence, the director of the AVZ was on the cover of the Cairns Post because he was called to a house to remove a very large python that attacked and killed a family dog and the pic on the cover was this guy with the python in his arms with an obvious bulge in the middle. The stupid part? The family had their cat and gerbil killed by the same python and now decided to call someone. Duh. Natural selection will deal with these people. We then took a scenic train ride down the hillside, in the pouring rain, back to Cairns and it was still really pretty, even in the rain.

The next day was a big one, diving on the Great Barrier Reef! It poured the night before and I was greeted with sunny skies in the morning, but they quickly dissapated by the time our boat got to the first part of the reef. My first dive was so-so. I was buddied with an older woman who hadn't dove in a while and she couldn't keep up (we go reallllllly slow) so I had to hang back with her, so I missed out on some things the guide was pointing out. We also had to stop and wait several times for the instructor to assist with people's bouyancy issues (you should check that shit once you get into the water) or whatever and there were some budding photographers in the group who insisted on just swimming wherever to take pics (which won't come out since they were too far away from the subjects) and I had to push one person away from me because she kept running into me. Dude, you gotta follow the guide and stick with your buddy and swim in a nice line following otheres. Plus, I cannot stress how important it is to stay with your buddy because if something goes wrong, this is the person that is saving your ass. Oh well. Things looked up for the 2nd and 3rd dives when I got paired with Erica from Minnesota and we were a great team! We had good bouyancy and air usage so we swam together without incident, pointing out stuff and communicating effectively with each other. Our guide had to leave, again, to help others and she left us to tool around at the bottom for a bit. I was swimming along and a few minutes later I feel something clamp and tug on my back fin and I just about pooped myself. It was our guide telling me she was back, but for a hot second, I panicked thinking something out there wanted me as a scoobie snack! A minute later, Erica yanked on my arm and pointed to her right. Sitting on the bottom of the sea bed about 15 meters from us was a 3 meters white tip reef shark! It was very still and then it started to move away from us and we followed a bit, watching it move gracefully glide through the water. We saw another one on this dive and it was so cool. You would think it would be terrifying, but white tips are extremely shy and non-aggressive, so no worries. Actually, the scariest thing was a 2 meter grouper that appeared in a small break in teh coral as we swam by and he took us by suprise a bit. He saw us and then seemed to smile at us to revealed some sharp teeth, kinda like he was telling us to get the hell away from him. So we did! Before the dive, Vicky and I attended a 2 hour lecture on the fish and corals on the Reef called 'Reef Teach' and our presenter taught us all about the wildlife on the reef how to identify it, the history of the reef, and how to deal with potentially aggressive or poisonous fishes. It was nice to know what I was looking at! Below are the pics the underwater photograher took of me on the trip. I am posing with Nemo in some of them.

Funny story, there was some minor drama in the dorm last night. Five girls and it seemed we all had different opinions on what temperature to set the air conditioning. It was very comfortable, no humidity, but not an icebox, when three of us went to bed. Some chickie comes in late and decides she is cold and instead of just lowering the temperature, but keeping the AC on, she just switches it to the fan. I woke up in a pool of sweat, along with the other girl. Most of you know how pleasant I am when woken in the morning, so I got up and turned on the air again. She then turns it off a bit later. Errrrrr, it was almost time to get up anyway to check out, but really, if you are cold, get a blanket from reception or at least ask the other people if it's cool to change the temperature! Gosh...

Tonight is an overnight bus to Arlie Beach and sailing and diving on the Whitsundays!