The Global Guy

In order to get down to Sydney, I’ve booked with a company called "The Oz Experience" They specialize in multi-day bus trips stopping at interesting places during the evening. I’m a little older than their target audience, but its been a lot of fun. The only real complaint I’ve got is that their drivers are way too hyper for 8:00 am! The first day we left Cairns, and headed to the town of Kuranda. We took a cable-car over the mountains and into the local rain forest. We wandered around the forest on boardwalk paths for an hour or so, just appreciating all the green colors and earthy smells…at least I really enjoyed this..maybe I’ve got extra appreciation because of the recent deprivation.

After our hour was up there, we headed south, driving thru lush greenery on both sides of the road. It was a nice change to see after the stark red center around Alice. Our next destination was the Johnston River Crocodile Farm. These guys raise crocs for both their meat and skins. For extra money, they give tours, and we happily let them show us around. It’s amazing to me how fast these animals can move when they want to. Being around them, you get a very strange feeling…an almost primordial sense of danger that seems to awaken some long dormant danger instinct. Looking into their eyes, you feel that they’d like nothing more than to eat you, and they wouldn’t have a second thought about it. One cool thing at the farm was that they’re raising cassowaries. I’d read about these birds, but never seen one before. Ugly, but in an interesting way.

We stopped for the night in Airlie beach. It’s got a beautiful coastline, but due to the box-jellyfish, it’s another forbidden beach for swimming. The town has taken care of the problem by building an artificial lagoon that’s netted off of the ocean so it’s safe for swimming. Later that night a bunch of us decided after way too many beers that it would be a great idea to go skinny dipping around midnight. Luckily the local magistrate thought it was funny too, and let us go with just a warning.

I just upgraded my dive license to a PADI advanced card. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, and what better place to do it than on the Great Barrier Reef! I flew from Alice Springs to Cairns, and somehow I got upgraded to first class on the flight. Unfortunately I was pretty hung over from the party the last night of the Ayer’s rock trip, so I wasn’t able to enjoy it as much as I should have, but the food was still amazing.

Anyway, I booked a live aboard trip out to the reef for three days. The cost of the certification was only an extra $35.00 US, so I couldn’t say no to that. During the class I ended up with a great dive buddy named Caroline who was extremely competent, and a pleasure to dive with.

The first day we did four dives, including one night dive. There was tons of animal and fish life, but I was disappointed with the quality of the corral. It was later explained to me that in order to see the best of the reef, you have to spend a good bit of money to get out beyond the standard tourist sites. Next time I’ll make sure I take advantage of this knowledge.

The 2nd day we moved to a different spot. While the boat was traveling, we finished up all the book work for the certification. We did another four dives, including one of the best dives that I’ve ever had a camera on. This spot was a lot better than the first day; we saw a white tipped reef shark, surprised a sea turtle, and encountered the biggest potato cod I’ve ever seen. On our night dive that evening we came around a piece of coral and nearly ran right into a sleeping white tip shark. I don’t know if the shark or our group was more startled!

The third day was three more dives and then back to shore. By this time I felt like I’d finally gotten rid of my Antarctic tan, and had finally dropped all my winter weight.

I’ve just gotten back from a 3.5 day trip to Ayers Rock. It was great! The people were fun, and the scenery was breathtaking. Day one we visited Kathleen springs since it was stormy at our primary destination of Rainbow Canyon. No big deal though…the real highlights of the trip were the next couple of days. We spent the next morning hiking in King’s Canyon with some spectacular gorges and waterfalls. That afternoon we started to do the walk around Ayers Rock when it started raining. The rock turned from a deep red to gun-metal grey and waterfalls just appeared out of nowhere. Apparently we’ve been very lucky to see this…not many people get to see the rock during a rainstorm.

The third day was the best. We finished the base hike, and visited the cultural center. After killing an hour there, the rock was finally dry enough for the rangers to open the climb. Only four out of 12 people (including me of course) actually made the climb. It was tough going for the first third, but the views were well worth it.

We got a lucky bonus…there was a total eclipse of the sun and we were in the path where we got 88% of the sun blocked out. It happened right before sunset, but it was awesome to see the sky get dark and then light again as the eclipse ended. There was something in the air that evening because we were treated to the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen. We weren’t expecting much, so no one had a camera.

Last night was the after trip party, and I’m still recovering from it. It was a great ending to hanging out with some fantastic people.