02.28.10
Posted in General at 12:10 pm by heidihoho7
With a few jam packed days under our belts we decided to take it easy our last day in Cairns. We slept in a bit and went down by the pool to enjoy a nice swim and enjoy a bit of the sun. Blog written and books read we decided to head out and wander downtown again, this time checking out some urban cacheing and checking on lens options for me.
We end up finding 2 caches – 1 right next to the lagoon that required some tricksy maneuvering to not be seen, and another one was right in the middle town disguised as a sprinkler head (with me nonchalantly pointing it out). With the bats heading out for their afternoon snack we headed to the mall where i couldn’t make up my mind and chose to just stick it out with my ultra wide lens… we ended the night with a food court selection for dinner.
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02.27.10
Posted in travel, vacation at 10:44 pm by heidihoho7
Mareeba Hot Air Ballooning
So once again we have an early morning wake up… by 4:45 we were on our way up to Mareeba – the Hot Air Ballooning capital of the world. We had 2 groups going up in 1 balloon. We happened to be in the 2nd group so we would watch the 1st launch, then do a balloon chase, then go up ourselves.
We arrive just before dawn and watch the first group prep to take off. The bugs were horrific and to top it off my favorite lens (my 18-200) decided that then was the perfect time to literally fall apart. In the field. So I make a vain attempt to search around for unknown parts in the dark and eventually give up. Lens unfixable, I decide today is going to be a great exercise in using my new ultra wide lens (the only olther lens i had brought that day).
So we’re off on the chase – which ends up is more like just sit in a parking lot and wait for the balloon captain to give a heads up. Wait didn’t seem long for the quick 30 minute flight and next thing we know we’re off to another field where they made a soft landing.
We hop on in and are on our way. The sun is now up over the mountains and it’s a beautiful view of the Atherton Tablelands. We floated above mostly farmlands – mango trees, corn, coffee, lychee, sugar cane…. lots of cool crops. I had fun capturing the patterns – even with the ultra wide. We even saw a bunch of “skippies” – kangaroos as we floated along. We lucked out and as we tried to land the wind changed, so up we go to look for another landing site. Up and down, up and down – we all were happily content as the wind kept changing and we got a much longer ride over beautiful countryside.
After a slightly bumpy landing we all got to help pack up the balloon. Everyone grabbed an edge or leaned in to get as much air out as possible. It was like rolling up a huge sleeping pad. Then when all of the air was out we then had to put it in a huge stuff sack. So we all got in a line, grabbed a hold and started snaking our way to the sack. It didn’t take long with a group working on it and next thing we knew we were off to breakfast with champagne.
Kuranda Cables, Rails and Cultural Fun
Our day continued with a ride up the SkyRail (one of the longest gondolas), passing by Barron Falls and eventually taking us to Kuranda Village. We enjoyed the lookouts and stuck our heads out the gondola cars to get great views.
Once in Kuranda we headed straight to RainForeStation as we wanted to do some fun aboriginal activities. It started out with some dances, which I actually went up and joined them for one! Then we joined up with Dave (his abo name means dingo and i dont know how to spell it) who taught us to (attempt) to play the Didgeridoo, throw boomerangs, and then demonstrated how to throw spears for distance and then for accuracy (for hunting). he would have gone hungry that day haha!
We stopped at the wildlife area to see our first koalas. I opted not to hug one as it felt a little wrong after seeing the poor animals stuck there – sometimes i like zoos as it allows people to see animals you don’t normally get to (like the koalas for us) but the kangs and wallabies didn’t seem so happy there 
We decided to feel better by eating some more ice cream (Dragonfruit with lime was spectacular!)
Back in Kuranda we went to check out the legendary markets. There were a decent amount but it seems most of the shops around Cairns also carried a lot of the same items, though prices did seem a little better. After a quick snack we made our way to the Scenic Railway – an open air train that winds its way back to Cairns through a bunch of tunnels and passes some beautiful waterfalls, making a stop at Barron Falls and literally passing alongside another.
We again lucked out and our original tickets had us jam packed into 1 carriage and after Barron the workers suggest we move to another carriage where it was almost empty – we said OK! And enjoyed the view with windows seats for the both of us.
We get back and decide to do another dinner out that evening. We wander until we see Ouback Jack’s (or something like that) and decide to go for it – free appetisers, why not? Well we find out why not when we realize the service is totally chaotic. We decided that once again the Aussie’s are totally helpful, but not always useful . We had at least 4 people stop by to try to take our order and help us but we had to ask for our drinks twice and it took about 15 minutes for us to get those (whereas we’d received our apps but with no plates in about 5 minutes). Apps were great, entrees were ok… again huge portions but the service made us want to just come home and pass out (we were tired from our long day). Stuffed, we passed out and made a plan to just have a veggie day…
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02.26.10
Posted in travel, vacation at 10:29 pm by heidihoho7
Warning: Photos ahead!
With a semi decent wake up call of 7am, we head off for our next adventure – the Great Barrier Reef. We jump on the Osprey V and are on our way out to Saxon Reef. After some safety briefings for snorkeling, scuba, and just being on a boat we drop anchor and are set loose!
It’s stinger season (think box jellyfish that is fatal if it stings) and even though we probably didn’t need them, we opted to get stinger suits just in case. We figured the boys (and our parents) would approve even though we looked quite silly our sexy onesies.
I decided to give scuba a try, whereas Jessica was all about the snorkeling so we split up for most of the day. Jess jumped in and was off in an instant. I had just a few minutes until my scuba run so i joined her for just a few minutes while we sorted out snorkeling masks (hers was leaking). My group was called so I went in to get suited up.
This was my first time ever doing scuba so it was a bit exciting to be doing it at the GBR. In groups of 4 we get in the water and do a few tests to make sure we don’t freak out underwater. One guy ended up having issues so it ended up justing being 3 students and 1 guide for the first dive. We all swam around arm in arm as Marcus (our guide who looked quite a bit like Steve Irwin) took us around to check things out. It was pretty awesome to get down lower in the water and even better to have him pointing out things to touch or not to touch. (that’s me above – yep just my nose and regulator)
We found some aneomes and little Nemos! I touched the anemones (per Marcus’s instruction) and they were kind of sticky… We wander over to another area where there were huge clam shells. Marcus points to it and gestures to the guy next to me to put his hand inside it. The guy was like ughhh ok, but then had 2nd thoughts a few times… it was funny to watch. Marcus ends up showing us, the clam closed up but then we could feel its shell near the edges. very smooth on the inside! (Jessica saw these too as well as the nemos but she didn’t touch since we were all lectured about not touching things and of course followed the rules!)
With my dive over, i join back up with Jessica and we snorkel some more and have lunch. We’ve decided that we’re not insane fans of Aussie BBQ lunches – so far they are just ok but luckily they are usually included so at least we’re not paying big bucks for them.
We travel on to our next location of North Hastings Reef. Here i decided to do another dive. Things went a bit smoother on this one and folks had the option of swimming on their own. I brought the good camera on this one and i think it made me want to float which was an issue sometimes. So Marcus woudl grab me, pull me down and I ended up just hanging on to him half the time (ok most of the time). I’m not sure i liked the out of control feeling but i’m sure if i were more into it i’d figure it out. On the brightside since i was always next to him i got to see some cool stuff since he was leading and would point out cool things again. we even saw a little shark. (and I petted wally the resident huge fish)
White I was diving Jess was off enjoying the new reef. It was a much better reef for snorkeling and she saw a lot of really cool stuff. Parrot fishing eating the coral (and even hearing them doing it), the great clams, and just lots of cool pretty fishes. As I was coming out from the dive, she opted to hop on the semi-sub ride with Elvis our resident marine biologist (and supposed entertainer), so i went out on my own for some snorkeling as well. Just as she’d explained to me it was really awesome – almost better than the scuba in that location.
We both filled our memory cards and took way too many pics, so the last part of our day was just spent enjoying the fishes and the great barrier reef.
We opted for a helicopter ride back to Cairns so we could see the reef from the air, and what a great plan that was! It’s hard to get a good perspective just from a boat and getting up was the perfect way to end the day. We shared our Heli with some other gals from the states (who also happened to be singing “i’m on a boat!”).
The weather had been cloudy and occasionally rainy throughout the day, but had cleared up while we were at North Hastings. Our ride back to town started out clear but as we got closer to town it got cloudier and then it started to rain. Was kind of cool actually to see all the rain clouds over the mountains and then break free of them to land in sunny condidtions.
We were so very tired that we opted to take an afternoon nap which ended up being 4 hours… we were still very tired and ended up just getting pizza from the hotel since we had a 4am wake up call for the next day. Another great day down under 
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