Off to the Reef!

So excited for next week! I am staying in a hostel tonight in order to make it to the Cairns Dive Center tomorrow morning real nice and early. I am going out for a week on the Kangaroo Explorer, their live-aboard boat. I am going out as a hostie, meaning I clean dishes, wipe tables and that sort of thing. All that is in exchange for about 3 dives a day, and 7 nights on the boat, at no cost to me!

There is no internet on the boat, so it will not be until I get back that I am able to post anything, so I will leave you with this sunrise.

My House

I thought I would do a post to show what my house looks like. It is a really nice place, and I quite enjoy living there.

This is the view coming out the front door.

Guess what this room is.

The living room looking towards the back door.

The living room and kitchen from the back door. My room is on the right in the alcove near the door.

My bedroom.

My bathroom.

The patio/dining room.

Looking towards the pool area from the outer patio.

Looking the other way from the same place as the previous photo.

Peeking around the corner towards the escarpment. As I hope you can see, it is a pretty nice place! I am glad I found it. And I am glad that this is just a five minute walk away.

I have said it before, I will say it again, I will miss this beach.

An Epic Saturday

I had a great saturday this past weekend. I woke up early to a beautiful blue sky. No clouds, nice and hot. I just simply could not face going to the uni to study, so I called some people and we rented a car! I have wanted to drive for ages, and wow was it ever good. It was a peppy little stick shift car. We headed out of town heading north towards Port Douglas. I had been up there once before in febuary, and have really wanted to drive the winding coastal road ever since. It was amazing. The weather was perfect. The company was great. All was well with the world.

We stopped at Kings Lookout to take some pictures and for me to find the geocache there. The next stop was the beach. Port Douglas has a very nice beach. It is very flat, and the sand very compacted so it is nice to walk on. The water was cool enough to be refreshing, the stinger nets having been removed so you can swim anywhere! We lay on the beach for a few hours, then headed towards Mossman Gorge. A few clouds were peeking their heads over the escarpment up there, so it was a bit cool. We did the loop trail and had a wonderful time walking through the rainforest. It is a pretty amazing place, but the water was really cold so we didnt go swimming.

It was getting a bit late so we headed straight back towards Cairns. The full moon was just rising as we were heading back and man oh man was it an amazingly huge moon. Golden yellow and massive it continued to rise as we drove back.

It was an amazing day, thanks to Monica and Alex for coming with!

Red Falls, a View From a Tiny Planet

There is a nice weird view from the top of Red Falls. Tiny planets are neat!

Field Trip - The Final Episode

We set off the next morning. We had a long day ahead of us, needing to make it back to Cairns that evening. We were taking the back way to get there along lots of small little roads with cool places to stop and things to see.

It would not be nice to come over the crest of one of these hills and encounter a road train coming in the opposite direction!

We stopped for gas at a tiny roadhouse. This was the only thing along this road in a hundred kilometers in either direction. We needed gas to make it back to the main paved roads, so we stopped to see these two signs.

As you might be able to see, one says open, the other says closed....After about ten minutes a lady came out and said she could sell us fuel. It was pretty pricy!

One of about five vehicles we saw all day.

Still driving.

Looking at the Kangaroo Hills formation. Ancient seabed which has been all squished and thrust up hundreds of meters.

Parked on the side of the road.

Kangaroo Hills formation on the bed of a river.

Dirt road driving.

Driving more.

Aaaand still driving.

Some cool bits of dirt.

On the banks of the Burdekin.

The bridge across the Burdekin.

This road was really not good for the rental van. It sounded like it was going to fall apart.

There was a lot of driving that day...I think you can see the pattern in the pictures...

Looking at some duricrusts.

Our little convoy.

Trying to find the bus...

Wild kangaroos!

Lunch!

Turtle.

Bus.

Grass and bus.

Emu!

Smaller road.

Cow.

Even smaller road.

Scoria cone! Super cool!

Climbing up!

Up the top in the clouds.

Looking around the top.

Descending into the mist.

Heading towards Ingham we descended the escarpment.

One more quick stop later we parted ways with the Townsville folks and split to head north. That was at about 4:30, and after a short fuel stop in Cardwell we arrived back in Cairns around 8:30.

Dust from the roads coating everything in the trailer!