I walked out of my apartment this morning and had sweat pouring down my face before I could take a half-dozen steps. By the time I had walked across the road to meet some friends for breakfast, I was soaking wet. The heat and humidity were already a lot more uncomfortable than I'm happy with, and the day hadn't even started.
Luckily, I'd be spending most of my day at sea, where at least the wind would keep me from melting...
Arriving at the reef...
Time for a snorkel...
After snorkeling, we headed to "Plantation Island" for lunch and to goof off at a resort. By the time we got there, clouds had moved in and it was overcast. This caused a couple people to be quite upset... saying "THE CLOUDS ARE RUINING OUR HOLIDAY!!" I just smiled politely while being secretly thankful that the clouds would muffle the direct sunlight that was killing me. It was still hot, but at least I wasn't melting.
After lunch it started raining, which caused even louder protests from the peanut gallery. I just secretly laughed to myself because, at last, it was cool enough to be comfortable again. Besides, Fiji is so fucking beautiful that it still looks amazing... even in the rain...
Unfortunately for me, the cloud cover did nothing to filter out the burning rays of the sun. I should have reapplied sunscreen after I was done snorkeling, but with the rain and all, I thought I'd be safe.
Er... Not so much...
I am frickin' Lobster Boy here.
Oh well. I'm in frickin' Fiji, and it's going to take a lot more than a sunburn to ruin that.
Despite every single day being jam-packed, I can honestly say that this is one of the most relaxing vacations I've ever had. Then today I ended up in Fiji, which somehow ends up being even more relaxed and laid back than Australia.
And why Fiji? Well, there's a Hard Rock Cafe here I haven't been to... but I've actually wanted to visit ever since I first heard Lister wax poetic about his dreams of Fiji on Red Dwarf.
So when it came time to plan my vacation, some hard choices had to be made. And because I didn't have six weeks available to see everything on my wish list, I eventually drew a line through Sydney and split my vacation options into two choices, North or South...
Not that I don't want to see Perth and The West, but that's another ballgame entirely.
Ultimately, I went with the North itinerary because it fit better into the two weeks I had available and was quite a bit cheaper. Adelaide, Hobart, Melbourne, Canberra, and New Zealand will have to wait until next time.
And so Fiji it was. It's a short three-hour flight out of Brisbane, so why not?
Especially since Hard Rock #140 was within my grasp...
It's a really nice old-school two-level property that's pretty impressive. I look forward to visiting again when I have a little more time to explore their memorabilia collection.
In the meanwhile, it's time to put a little vacation into my vacation...
Today was doubly lucky for me as I got to meet with one of my long-time blogger friends, Mooselet, and visit the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary!
Koalas, like most animals, are adorable when they're babies. Unlike most animals, koalas stay adorable no matter how old they get. So, as you can imagine, visiting a sanctuary which has 104 koalas on the premises is guaranteed cuteness overload.
And it didn't disappoint.
I've seen koalas in zoos before, but at a distance and in a very different setting. The experience you get at Lone Pine Koala sanctuary is something entirely different...
Koalas are mostly nocturnal, so you see a lot of sleepy guys in the daytime.
Baby koalas are, as you'd expect, a veritable explosion of cuteness.
This guy is about as relaxed as you can get when it comes to sleeping in a tree.
Everybody starts to wake up.
Baby koalas get to hitch a ride wherever they go. Must be nice.
Looks kind of like he might be koala surfing on momma there.
Koala pals.
Koala cuddle cluster. You find yourself saying "Awwwwww!" a lot at this place.
Talk about cute overload! (I'm the one on the left).
Lone Pine has more than just koalas though... they've got all kinds of animals, reptiles, and birds around...
Crocodiles have a killer smile.
RUN, TURTLE! RUN YOU FOOL!
Tasmanian Devils, which I just love, are highly endangered and will be extinct in the wild soon.
Wombats are too adorable. Like fuzzy piglets or something.
Feeding a kangaroo. They're amazingly polite about it.
A wallaby and a kangaroo hanging out.
A momma kangaroo with a joey in the pocket!
Joey on the lookout.
I CAN HAZ CRUNCHY FOOD PELLETS? NOM! NOM! NOM!
Soggy bats try to sleep through the rain.
After rain broke out at the koala sanctuary in yet another bizarre weather change (there were flawless blue skies when I arrived this morning), Mooselet was nice enough to drive me up Mount Coot-tha for a look over the city...
After lunch, the rain started letting up, which made for a nicer view of Brisbane...
Pretty much the perfect way to spend a vacation day... thanks for coming along, Mooselet!
After finally making it to my flight out of Cairns, I landed in Brisbane two hours later. From there it was a 35 minute ride to my hotel, followed by another hour and 10 minutes on a train, followed by yet another 30 minutes on a bus... before I finally made it to the Gold Coast and the Hard Rock Cafe Surfers Paradise.
The Gold Coast has a feel very much like Miami Beach, with loads of high-priced properties and plenty of beachfront. When I arrived, the weather was flawless, with blue skies and warm sunshine tempered by a slight breeze...
The cafe itself is a beautiful older property with loads of cool memorabilia to look at...
After having lunch and looking around the cafe for a while, I headed to the beach only to find that the clouds had started moving in...
By the time I had wandered around for a while and made it back to the Hard Rock, the weather had taken a drastic turn...
That's quite a difference considering it happened in under four hours!
Luckily, the skies were clear once again when I made it back to Brisbane.
And now that Hard Rock #139 is out of the way for me, I suppose I'd better see about unpacking my suitcase.
I have ranted endlessly over how stupid Daylight Saving Time is. In this modern age of electricity and fanciful inventions LIKE THE FUCKING LIGHT BULB, there is no reason to be docking around with the clocks. Just split the difference, have everybody move forward by a half-hour one final time, then leave the clocks the hell alone.
Never was the dumbassness of stupid Daylight Saving Time made more clear to me than this morning when my iPhone woke me up at 3:30am so I could get ready for my taxi to the airport at 4:15am. Except when I got down to the reception desk to settle my account, they were all confused because it was only 3:15am. Why was I an hour early?
Well here's why... in their infinite wisdom, Queensland, the state where Cairns is located... does not practice Daylight Saving Time. Bravo for them. Well done. Except New South Wales, where apparently my iPhone is getting its time data, does observe stupid Daylight Saving Time, which went into effect at 2:00am this morning...
Maps taken from Wikipedia, where you can read about the whole damn tragedy
And I thought the USA was a mess.
The upshot of all this is that I lost an hour's sleep for nothing.
And the best part of all? I get to go through all this bullshit yet again when I get home. Because stupid Daylight Saving Time in the USA ends November 6th and stupid Washington State still practices stupid Daylight Saving Time... unlike more enlightened states like Hawaii and Arizona.
When I am Supreme Ruler of the Known Universe, stupid Daylight Saving Time is the first thing to go.*
*After the entire cast of Jersey Shore, obviously.
While trying to fall asleep as American tourists were fighting on the balcony below mine last night, it suddenly occurred to me that I have no idea what's going on back in the USA. I haven't once bothered to look at a news site, glance at a paper, or watch TV news since I got here. For all I know, President Obama resigned after declaring war on Canada, and Lindsay Lohan did her patriotic duty by stepping up to run the country after staging a military coup where she firebombed Montreal*.
I'll bet Seattle never gets a Tim Hortons' now. Thanks a lot, President Lohan.
Anyway...
I had just three goals here in Cairns.
There are quite a few ways to visit the rainforest. Most involve tours, and I really, really hate tours. I also really hate renting a car, getting lost, and driving into a crocodile den where I get eaten as an appetizer. So I decided to split the difference by ignoring my fear of heights and taking the "Skyrail Buckets of Death" up over Daintree...
The controlled-burn fires in the area really smoke up the horizon.
Skyrail is (of course) the longest tram line system in the world. Which means the terror never seems to end. Indeed, you can't even see the end of the damn thing from high up in the buckets...
WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIIIIEEE!
Along the way there are stops you can take to see the local sights. Like Barron Falls...
Apparently during monsoon season the falls overflow and is quite an impressive sight.
But the main attraction once you reach the end of Skyrail is the village of Kuranda. There's all sorts of stuff to see and do here with plenty of eateries and shops to keep you busy. I was told more than once that the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary was worth a stop. I thought it was included in my Skyrail ticket cost, but that's not the case... it costs $18 AUD to get in. EIGHTEEN DOLLARS! I very nearly skipped it, but had four hours to kill, so I bought a ticket. And wow, was I ever glad I did...
Some of their wings were so raggedy that I was surprised they could fly at all. Poor butterflies.
After lunch I got a little bored with Kuranda and headed back to the train station for my trip back to Cairns.
And so there I was waiting to board the train back to Cairns when I hear this shrieking coming down the stairs. It's a woman dragging her offspring down the steps to the station. The little hellion is obviously not hurt, he's just being a little brat. But that doesn't stop a woman on the platform next to me from saying "Oh, the poor dear, I wonder what's wrong?" Whereas my first instinct is to douse the little shit in holy water and scream "THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU! THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!" in an attempt to perform an exorcism. On the brighter side, the station is pretty nice...
Established 1891... and still going strong.
Probably the best-maintained rail station I have ever seen, which is very cool.
I think that's a representation of the giant snake that the Aboriginal people believe carved out Barron Canyon?
I paid extra money (too much money, probably) for the "gold service" which allows you to sit in the luxury compartment with free drinks, free snacks, and a souvenir gift (a pin and a pen). The car itself was quite beautiful, and very probably close to 100 years old...
The chairs are probably new, but the interior is carved wood. They don't make 'em like that any more.
The train ride down is pretty special. Most of the time you're clinging to the side of a cliff where the onboard entertainment system beguiles you with awesome facts like "This section of the railway was the most difficult to build because the rock kept crumbling away." Not exactly something you want to hear, which is why I wanted to scream "HOLY CRAP! WHY ARE YOU TELLING US THIS NOW?!? But I just gritted my teeth and enjoyed the views...
The train makes a quick stop so everybody can look down Barron Canyon... from the West this time.
In all honesty, this photo doesn't do it justice. This canyon is SUPER MASSIVELY HUGE!
Stoney Creek Falls, which seems like it's at the half-way point to Freshwater Station.
The bridge over Stoney Creek Falls on the opposite side of the train.
Once I got to Freshwater Station, my Skyrail ticket included a transfer back to my hotel via bus, which was nice. Now I'm hungry, but don't dare risk a dining experience as crappy as my "nachos" last night here at the hotel. Since I have an early, early, early flight, I guess I'll just go hungry.
And dream of Tim Hortons doughnuts.
*And don't think that they didn't have it coming. Lindsay Lohan may spend most of her time drunk off her ass in a cocaine-fueled frenzy, but she knows the strategic importance of a first-strike scenario where the French-Canadians are concerned.
**Okay, I'll admit that visiting the Daintree Rainforest was not actually on my list of goals. But you can't fly after diving for at least 24 hours, so I had to do something.
Not quite the awe-inspiring experience I was hoping for.
Even before I became a certified diver, I've longed to dive The Great Barrier Reef. It just seems like one of those things that everybody should have on their bucket list. And while my actual dives were nice, it was a fairly underwhelming day. At first I thought it was just me, but my German table-mates felt the same way. I guess we can chalk it up to overly-high expectations?
Or maybe not. Because when I spoke to the dive master, he had mentioned that our first dive site "Coral Gardens" used to be amazingly beautiful. But it was wiped out by a cyclone eight months ago. This begged the question "Why in the heck don't you dive someplace else then?" but I don't know enough about the region to even know how widespread the damage was*.
But oh well. Not every dream is going to turn out as we had hoped, and I've been luckier than most.
Anyway...
I still had a good time. I haven't been diving in well over a decade, but it all came back to me really quickly. I don't know how, but I had forgotten what a wonderful experience diving is. It's about as close to flying as mere humans can get, as you are neither sinking or floating... you just are.
I bought a new underwater camera for the trip, but didn't end up taking many photos. After I almost missed seeing a turtle because I was concentrating on my camera, I thought I'd put my attention to better use. There's just so much to see.
Here's a few snapshots I took before retiring my camera...
Sadly, no sharks made an appearance.
I know people think I'm joking but, having swam with sharks before, I was really hoping to see one. They are absolutely fascinating to watch. And, no, I'm not saying I wanted a man-eating Great White to drop in... just a regular shark would have been fine.
Though the nachos I had for dinner tonight were so bad that I found myself kind of wishing I had been eaten by a shark so I could have avoided the suffering.
For some inexplicable reason, Aussies mix the salsa into the chips & cheese when they make nachos (instead of serving it on the side). This makes absolutely no fucking sense, because the chips on the bottom end up a soggy, inedible mess...
Seriously, what the fuck? I've been testing out a lot of unusual dishes since I got here, like this delicious pumpkin-feta pizza from last night...
But the terrible "nachos" have been my first disappointment. Blargh.
No worries. I'm sure tomorrow's dinner will be awesome.
*Speaking of damages... I was shocked... shocked... at how many people were sick on the boat-ride out. No less than six people were puking their guts out non-stop. Thankfully, I don't get sea-sick, but the sight of so many people hurling was not an easy thing to take in. Fortunately, there are barf-bag stations all over the ship...
And while I really do feel sorry for those people whose day was ruined because of sea-sickness, I find it odd that people don't find out if they are prone to getting motion-sick before paying big money to head out on the open ocean like this.
No worries. I'm sure the rest of their vacation will be great.
After an early-morning flight sitting next to a little French kid so adorable that I wanted to take him home with me, I arrived in sunny Cairns (which is a pleasant change from the crap weather in Sydney).
After checking into my hotel, it was time to meet up with my friends Wes and Karen, whom I haven't seen in over a decade. They drove down from Port Douglas to have lunch and wander around a bit. This made for a nice afternoon since I had done -zero- research on the area, and had no idea what Cairns was about. First surprise was that the city proper doesn't have a beach. It sits on a mud flat...
As you head north, a beach does appear...
But it's not like you'll be doing any swimming there...
Luckily, the people of Cairns have an awesome water park right off the mud flats to compensate...
In what little I've seen of Australia so far, I've fallen in love with the "no worries" laid back atmosphere. But Cairns takes it to an entirely new level. The city is so laid back that it's almost as if even the locals are on perpetual holiday. And it's completely contagious. Right now I'm finding it very hard to give a crap about anything. Far easier to just be happy and see where the day takes you.
This attitude could be a real problem if I don't find a way to turn it off once my vacation is over.
My flight didn't leave until late afternoon so I took the opportunity to sleep in late, explore the resort, and have a nice lunch.
Mission accomplished.
I didn't really need a third day at Uluru, but seeing this area was so important to me that I booked it anyway... just in case the weather was bad, my flight was delayed, or some other unforeseen circumstance interfered with my plans. I've been traveling way too long to expect everything to go perfectly (even though it really did). Even so, I actually wish that I had more time so I could visit Kings Canyon and see Alice Springs, but there's more to Australia I have yet to explore.
Before leaving for the airport, I went to the hotel lookout for a last glimpse of Uluru...
...and said my goodbye to that magnificent giant red rock.
At this point, I'm into day two of being covered with flies all the time. No mosquitoes, thank heavens (I was told that's the biggest problem when visiting Uluru), but more bugs than you'd ever care to encounter. After a while, you kind of get used to them swarming you constantly, but you never get used to the flies crawling on your face. Particularly up your nose and on your eyes (where I guess they're searching for moisture or something).
On more than one occasion I found myself regretting that I didn't get an Aussie Cork Hat or a Bug Net Hat... no matter how stupid they make you look. They exist for a reason.
Anyway...
As the tour had us viewing Uluru (Ayers Rock) at sunset last night, they had us viewing Uluru at sunrise this morning. For which I had to get up at 4:30am. It was nice, but not 4:30am-worthy spectacular...
And to prove I was there at that godawful time of morning, a photo of me ready to go back to bed after sunrise...
And then it was time to hike all the way around Uluru, which was a fascinating 2-1/2 hour journey. The rock looks completely different depending on where you view it. Some areas are sacred and not allowed to be photographed, but I picked out a few of the hundreds I was allowed to shoot...
Once my blisters had blisters and I had made my way around the site, it was time for a visit to the Uluru Visitor Centre which was a look into some aspects of Aboriginal culture. Most of their way of life is highly complex and secretive, but even the basics are fascinating. What I found particularly interesting is how their stories and teachings are place-sensitive. Meaning that you can only speak of some events at the place where they happened. If a story takes place at Uluru, but then moves to a different location, you will only hear about the part that's at Uluru. In order to hear the rest, you have to travel to the place where the story continues. Also, men and women live completely separate lives, so all aspects of a story can change depending on the sex of the person telling it. Remarkable.
The tour ended after lunch, at which time I decided I hadn't spent enough money (ha!) so I signed up for a helicopter flight over Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) and Uluru (Ayers Rock). It was kind of a bummer, because most of your time is spent getting there and back, but what precious little time you do spend at the sites is pretty impressive...
Some cloud cover had rolled in, which made the already deep red color even deeper. Those are some very sexy rocks.
This area of Central Australia is known as "Red Centre" which is not quite an accurate description as of late. Over the past two years, unprecedented rainfall has caused the ground to really green up. This makes the rocks look even more foreign and strange, but in a good way.
My original plan was to take in some kind of sunset dinner at Uluru tonight, but I am pretty much Uluru-ed out now. I'm also thoroughly exhausted with blisters in places on my feet I didn't even know I had.
And so... my vastly overpriced bed in my massively overpriced hotel room is calling...
Atom Entries Feed Comments Feed
