March and Australia!

It seems that I am always paying catch up with this blog. My original intent was to be very diligent and post right after we returned to the house or our hotel during this year in New Zealand. Obviously my intentions were great but my actions sucked! Thus always playing catch up. I don't mind writing - once I get started - it's the getting started that seems to be the problem for me.

So the month of March found us in Australia. What a month & what a country. We flew into Sydney and then caught a flight to Cairns on the northern part of the east coast of Australia. While in the Sydney airport, there were cards everywhere advising the one should protect themselves in tropical countries. "When travelling through tropical countries wear a repellent during the day and stay in screened accomodation. If you experience any symptoms (headaches, fever, aches and pain) of dengue fever, see a doctor immediately." Wow, what an eye opener!

After living in Texas for 24 years, I didn't think Cairns would bother me - heat wise. I knew it was tropical and hot but was I surprised. The temperature were in the 90s (F) as well as the humidity!!!!! Cairns is the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef and one of our days would be spent snorkeling on the reef. Our first day found us laying around by the pool and planning the rest of the week. Here are a couple of photos of the pool. We did swim in the ocean - across the street from our resort - but had to be certain to swim inside the net. Yes, they had a net that extended from the beach into the water to keep out the stingers. These are small jellyfish and are extremely common in the Australia waters. The other option was to wear a stinger suit - basically a wet suit. We went for a walk on the beach that night and met up with a local woman. We were waking away from the resort and she asked if we were visitors. Upon hearing yes, she advised that sunset comes very fast in Cairns and unless we had a torch (flashlight) with us we would be walking in the dark unless we turned around then. Also, at night, the crocs come out. Yes they have crocodiles all over the places. Unfortunately, or fortunately, we didn't see any - only ate some while we were in Alice Springs but more on that in a later post. We also saw the QE II sailing from Port Douglas on her maiden voyage in Australia.

I know, it was tough forcing ourselves to lay around, read, swim, and drink gimlets by the pool but we are troopers and made it through the day!













Our first tour was on the Catch-A-Crab on the Trinity Bay and Estuary. We went out with Tony, the captain and professional mud crabber. He showed us how the nets are set and we checked several of his nets to see if he caught any crabs. When he finally pulled up a net with several crabs in it, he show us how they are tied up and taught us all about the mud crab. Basically, it's an Atlantic blue crab on steroids. They weight about a kilo each. Tony already had a big batch of crabs on the boat since part of the tour was a lunch of mud crab. We then fished until lunch when we feasted on the crabs. They are sweet and oh so good - like the blue crabs.

You have to be really careful with these guys. Their pinchers are so strong they can take off your fingers.

Next day was at the pool again. tough tough life! Next tour was on the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway and a return on the Kuranda Scenic Railway. The cableway is 7.5K long with two station stops along the route ending at Kuranda. There were walks at each of the stations. Check out the spider we saw on the of the walks. This guys was about 6 inches from top to bottom. Thankfully was was up high and wasn't interest in us. The cablecar went through the Barron Gorge National Park which is a World Heritage protected place. While in Kuranda, we stopped for lunch in a small German cafe. They had Ernie's favorite beer and the sausages and fried potatoes and onions were amazing. We haven't had sausage that good since we were in Germany. They were playing German music and we got to speak German with the chef and our waitress. It made us both so homesick for Germany.

Construction on this railway began in 1887. Up to 1500 men at a time endured terrible hardships and an unforgiving landscape. Armed only with picks, shovels and dynamite, they moved over 2 million cubic meters of earth. It was completed in 1891. The 37K of track from Cairns to Kuranda ascends 328 meters and includes 15 tunnels, 37 bridges and 98 curves.

This is a photo of the Skyrail taken from the train on the return trip.

The next day we took the water taxi to Fitzroy Island to snorkel the reef. We had a great day. Right after we entered the water - the reef was right up to the shore - I saw this giant sea turtle and followed it for quite a while. He was just meandering along the bottom feeding off whatever he found. I finally stopped when this big reef shark swam underneath me. I decided it was probably better to check out stuff in the other direction.

Well that's all for today. We're getting ready to go out for some pub grub and a few beers. I may not get back to our Australia trip for a couple of days since we are going to Christchurch in the morning to take Jasmin to the Antarctic Center and will spend the night there returning the next day. Y'all take care and sleep tight!!!!