Oct 16. - Nov. 12
Monday, October 30, 2006 - Sunday, November 12, 2006
Last week we spent a lot of money on the diving courses, now it's time to work to get some money back! Using the Harvest Hotline we found out that there was work in Bowen. We drove there and could start picking tomatoes the next day. According to the guy who offered the job, we had to stay in his hostel to work there. Luck was on our side: during the preparation of our room, it appeared that our bed was stolen. This doesn't sound so great, but because of this we could stay in another hostel, which was very luxurious! There was a very nice living room, a good kitchen, two amazing bathrooms, but most important: an extremely comfortable bed. Too bad the alarm rang at 4:30 AM in the morning to prepare us for work.
Work started at 6.00 AM. The hostel owner told us that it should be possible to earn around $200 per day, because the fields were very rich, which meant easy picking. Of course we thought that would be beyond our skills, so it would be more like $150, but probably around $130. Seeing the buckets, we wondered what the wage per bucket would be. That would be around $1.30 after tax... whoops! That's 100 buckets for $130 dollar and a lot more for the $200... better start picking then!
Hour after hour, tomato after tomato, in the burning sun, around 40 degrees, we worked for 10 hours, with a half an hour lunch-break. There weren't even any toilets, but we sweat so much we didn't need them anyway. At the end of the day, we filled around 70 buckets... together! That's not even $50 each! As you might understand we weren't really happy with this. The people there told us that the fields weren't that rich at all and besides, the work has nothing to do with the accommodation. It was time to have a word with the master of disaster himself, after abusing the facilities of the hostel once more of course.
After telling him we weren't really happy with the situation, he really turned into a mad man, his face went from white to red (almost tomato style). A chameleon could learn from this, trust us on this! He charged us $14 dollars extra and almost called the police. We really tried to keep a normal conversation going, but it was better to stop and leave.
As we were in Bowen anyway, we had to look for another job, otherwise the trip would be a waste. We found a job in a shed where they packed capsicums. The wage would be $15,30 per hour, much better than the tomato picking! We could start the next friday. We used the two days to relax a bit and to explore the environment. Yeah yeah, in other words, check out the beaches! There was an awful smell, because of the eggs of the coral, which die within three days and drift ashore. But there were good spots where the smell wasn't so bad.
Friday we finally could start working for real! Capsicums entered the shed and had to be sorted into a couple of boxes. This was what Yvonne had to do. The boxes were put on a 'lopende band', while Jasper had to pick up these boxes at the end of the 'lopende band' and put them on different pallets. For both it was pretty hard work still. Yvonne had to stand still for a whole day, which hurts in the feet and in the lower back, especially on longer terms. Jasper had to stack the boxes on pallets. The boxes were about 8 kg heavy and had to be stacked 11 boxes high. To give an idea of this, it was almost impossible to put a box on the 9th line, and then the 11th had to be done as well. Of course there was a stool, but it was as high as one box. Another line with the same conditions so to speak. Pretty hard work for both of us, but easier than the tomato picking and a better wage. We did this work for exactly 10 days, including sundays.
The last day of work, we were finished around 2 o'clock. Afterwards we went to a camping to relax and more important, wash our clothes again. In the evening, Jasper started to feel a bit ill, so he went to bed early. A few hours later he woke up and didn't feel so well... he had to clear his stomach so he ran to a tree. After he was finished and sat down, he saw there was something crawling through his vomit... SNAKE! Pretty disgusting but he almost vomited over a snake! It was probably a python, but because it was very dark and the batteries of our torches were empty, we couldn't confirm this.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Already our last day onboard, but there were still three dives left before our departure. So just after sunset we jumped with our group in a little motorboat to be transfered to a good spot to dive 30 meters deep. We were equiped with a much larger cylinder. The deeper you go, the more air you use per inhalation. At 30 meters you will use 4 times the amount of air as on the surface.
We were dropped off the boat and dived straight to 30 meters depth. There we settled down in a circle. Our instructor brought us a tomato. It was green, like everything at that depth, because most light frequencies are filtered by the water. He lighted it with a torch and it was bright red again! He also had two eggs which opened under water. Because of the pressure it stayed in its form. Not for long though, a very hungry empire king fish swallowed it at once. Then it was time to test the effect of the pressure on our bodies. At 30 meters depth, the amount of nitrogen in our blood had increased 4 times. This can cause some kind of narcoses. To test if we were 'narced' we had to make some easy calculations under water. Our instructor brought a tablet and we had to write our answers on it. None of us was really affected though.
On our way up we circled around a beautiful coral mountain and saw a moray eel. After breakfast it was time for another fun dive. We went together with another guy of group. We found ourselves a sea turtle and we spent some time petting it and following it. Around 10 AM we jumped into the water for the last time, to do our navigation dive. We all had a compass. Our instructor sat down at the bottom and was our starting point. We had to make a perfect square by counting fin kicks and making 90 degree turns. If we did it alright we would return to the instructor. Unfortunately it was far more difficult than we thought and messed it up a bit. Then we had to follow our instructor and he tried to get us lost. Every minute he asked us in what direction the boat was. This was a bit more easy so he didn't succeed.
On board again we had to log all our dives and pack our stuff. At 3.30 PM the transfer boat arrived again to bring us back to Cairns... These were the best 5 days of our Australian adventure so far! Can't wait to dive again!
Saturday, October 28, 2006
We woke up by a knock on our door: "Goodmorning guys, it's 5:30 AM, time for your morning dive!", so we all jumped in the water at 6 o'clock at sunrise. We were still at Milln Reef / Three Sisters and this time we decent at the first sister. Large schools of sleepy fish were floating above the reefs we cruised around and again we had to practise some skills to complete our open water course. After our dive, breakfast was served, but we didn't have much time. We had to prepare some funny stuff for our dive movie. We had to do one more dive to complete our open water and this one was filmed by the video guy, called Thomas. At 8 o'clock we decent again and did some funny stuff at 15 meter depth for the camera. We put sunglasses on, drank some beer and danced on the bottom of the ocean. Very enjoyable, and afterwards we watched the movie. It was very cool! Beside that, we received our open water diving certificate and... we had still five dives left for fun! Below is a group photo displayed.
While we were watching the movie, the boat moved to an other good diving spot called 'The Whale'. This spot is still on Milln Reef. At 1 o'clock we went for a snorkel to explore this beautiful part of the reef and at 4 o'clock it was time to go diving again. This time we were allowed to go in pairs, without an instructor. It was very cool, but we also noticed that it is very difficult to navigate underwater. After some time we didn't know anymore which way the boat was. Anyway, by the time we ran out of air, we found it back! It was very cool, but our instructor just brings us to the nicer places. Back on board we decided to exchange three of our remaining dives for an adventure course, including an 30 meter deep dive, a night dive and a navigation dive. This course is very useful for us, because we really want to see some shipwrecks. Since most of these are located at 30 meters depth, we really need this deep dive (with open water course we're just allowed to dive to a maximum of 18 meters). And as I said our navigation is crappy. So at 7 o'clock, just after sunset, we did our night dive. The water was an dark mass and even with the provided torch we couldn't see much. It was very exciting and we saw our first shark! It was a white tip reef shark, about two meters long.
Friday, October 27, 2006
It's time to go onboard of the 'Kangaroo Explorer' and dive the ocean! This cruise ship stays permanently on the reef, so we were brought to this ship with a little transfer boat. It took about 2 hours and we arrived at approximately 11 o' clock. Because of the perfect conditions we could visit the better reefs. We went to Milln Reef, which has some famous diving spots. We went to the spot called 'The Whale'. After a short introduction we could take a look in our cabin, which was very nice.
After lunch we prepared for our first open water dive and jumped in the beautiful clear water. We had a visibility of 25-30 meters and we saw beautiful coral gardens beneath us. Awesome colored fishes were circulating around us and we could almost touch them. We decent till 13,4 meters and cruised around for a bit to get used to diving in open water. We saw two giant turtles and a cuttlefish. Jasper was pretty excited and forgot to breath slowly. So all of a sudden he ran out of air and had to share air with the instructor during our accent.
At 4 o'clock we did our second training dive, and this time we had to do some exercises. The boat had moved to another diving spot called 'The Three Sisters' (still Milln reef.) We dived at the second sister this time. We explored the spot and settled down in a circle on the bottom. We were surrounded by beautiful coral walls. We saw a turtle swimming over us and a curious batfish circled around us, while we were sitting there. We had to remove our mask and regulator and practiced the 'out of air' procedure.
The rest of the day we spent relaxing on board at the sun deck, eating fish and chips and logging our dives in our diving logbook.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
When we arrived at the school today again, we noticed that everyone was tired. Yeah, that was quite a lot of homework! The first thing we did this morning was to continue with our theory lessons. This worked the same way as the day before. After two hours or so, the practical lessons would be continued, in the pool. There were a couple of exercises which had to be done. One of them was to do an out of air procedure underwater. You had to signal your diving buddy that you are out of air, and that you want to share air. After doing so, both have to ascent to the surface. This had to be done a couple of times so that everything went fluent. In the afternoon it was time to continue with the theory lessons. After the theory was finished, everybody had to do a test with fifty multiple choice questions. This was pretty easy so everyone passed.
In the evening we went to a Reef Teach. As described in the Lonely Planet, Mr 'talksveryfast' explains how to identify specific types of coral and fish and also how to treat the Reef with respect. This wasn't just a lesson from just another teacher, no, this was an extremely energetic show! Much different from what we expected. There was lots of humor in it, but very well explained information. Sometimes it was a bit hard to understand though, because of his extremely fast talking.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Back to school!
Today we started our open water course at Cairns Diving Center. We received a theory book and spent the morning in the classroom watching instruction videos and reading the book. Before we were allowed to dive we had to pass a few tests. First of all we were checked by a doctor. We were a bit worried for this part, since we both have asthma. In general people with asthma are not allowed to dive. Besides that we had to show that we were able to swim for 200 meters and tread water for 10 minutes. Anyway we passed them all!
We spent the afternoon in the pool learning everything about our diving equipment and how to use it. We dived to the bottom of the pool (4m) and set down for a few minutes and practiced some skills. At 4 o' clock we finished and drove to Ellis beach were we cooked and spent the evening doing our homework. Tomorrow we have to pass our exam so we spent 3.5 hours learning.
We had a great day. We are doing this course with 5 other people of our age and they are all very nice. Can't wait to dive again!
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
As we mentioned before, we wanted to go diving. We decided to get our diving certificate at Cairns Diving Centre. We could start tomorrow already, which was good of course. Since we were unable to wash our clothes for a while, we went to a hostel so we could wash them, and chill out a bit. After hanging our cloth to dry, we went to the library to get some information about the Great Barrier Reef, and its fishes. In the evening there was a free meal from the hostel. We had to go to some sort of bar where we could get a plate of spaghetti. This was very little, so we were done quite quickly. After hanging out a bit in the city we went to bed quite early, because tomorrow the diving lessons would start!
Monday, October 23, 2006
This morning Jasper felt like swimming, so we headed to Lake Eacham again. It was raining and very early, but quite funny to see the reaction of the people clearing the toilets. The brave feeling we had passed away when a local jumped in for his daily swim, but we had our fun. For our feeling we had explored Atherton Tableland well enough now, so we headed back to Cairns to get some information about diving at the Great Barrier Reef. We also went shopping a bit in Cairns Central, to get Jasper new sunglasses and some other stuff.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Yesterday we drove to Kairi, where we found a place to sleep. Today we would go to Lake Eacham. We decided to take the tourist drive. This was a dirt road, so this was quite bumpy! We visited the Mobo Creek Crater, which was right on the road. Nothing too special, but nice to see none the less. A few kilometers further there was the "Cathedral Fig Tree". This tree is 46 meters high, and is a bit shaped like a cathedral, which explains its name.
The next place we visited was Lake Barinne. We did a short walk here, and saw a musky rat kangaroo. This animal is quite rare, but later on we saw a few more so we think they're a little bit better populated at that area. It was time for a swim, so we went to Lake Eacham, which was a few kilometers ahead. Lake Eacham and Lake Barinne are volcanic crater lakes, which belong to the Crater Lake National Park. The water of Lake Eacham was really crystal clear, beautiful! Although a bit cold, we both took a swim. There was a spot where you could see some saw shelled turtles, which we happen to have a couple of pictures from! The turtles, how strangely it may sound, can breath through their bottom and are pretty rare in Australia.
Our last visit was the Curtain Fig Tree in Yungaburra. This tree is an attraction similar to the Cathedral Fig Tree, but curtain shaped. It was already dark and getting late, so we slept here as well.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
We left Cairns for a while to explore the area west of it called 'Atherton Tableland'. Our first stop was at Granite Gorge. We went for a walk through the environment and had a nice swim halfway, There were lots of rock wallabies and they were very used to people. We had a great time feeding and petting them.
When we came back at the car we couldn' t start it because we forgot to shut the lights off so the battery was empty. Luckily people are very friendly and helpful here. We had the car parked near a camping. The boss called one of her neighbors who could help us start the car. While we were waiting we got a free drink and a old woman from Melbourne gave us her address. If we will be around somewhere later this year we have to call her and she will look after us.
Friday, October 20, 2006
The boat to the Green Island departed around 9.00 PM and the transfer took about one and a half hour. When we arrived we were directly free to do what we wanted to do, so we decided to go snorkeling right ahead. The reef wasn't very big there, but it was certainly very nice to see! There were about two spots where there was some reef. The first spot was right nearby the island, and the other spot was a bit further from the island, so a bit more swimming was required. We saw some beautiful things! There were a lot of fishes, but the coral wasn't very good. Fishes we saw include:
- Great Barrier Reef Anemone Fish (a clownfish, like "Nemo")
- Lionfish
- Sea-stars
- Stingray
Of course we also saw a lot of other beautiful fish we couldn't identify. We spent a lot of time in the water, exploring the reef. That's one of the reasons we missed the boat back to Cairns! Luckily for us there was a second boat which departed later, but arrived at the same time as 'our' boat. It wasn't a problem to return with this boat. You could say we explored the reef quite optimal! We had an incredible good time today!
Thursday, October 19, 2006
The lock would finally be fixed today. Around 12 o'clock it was fixed and we were ready to go. After we payed the bill of $149 dollar of course. We didn't want to spoil the day so we went to the Barron Gorge and to Wrights Lookout, where we followed a walking track. Nothing too special.
It was time to see something of the Great Barrier Reef, but we didn't know where to start! Unfortunately it isn't accesible from the shore so a transfer is needed. The reef is 2000 kilometers long, so there are a lot of organizations offering a trip to it. Because of this, we decided to take one of the cheapest transfers to take a look, so we could do a more expensive trip later. Our eyes fell on a transfer of $63 dollars to the Green Island, where we could snorkel for a full day. We booked this for tomorrow.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
After waking up at the Mossman Gorge we took the swim we skipped yesterday. It was bloody cold! We stayed there and relaxed a bit for a couple of hours and drove to Cairns. On our way Jasper spotted some strange looking fins in the sea. We took a closer look and saw that it was a group of dolphins! This was very nice to see, unfortunately we couldn't get them on camera. A few kilometers ahead we took a swim and hoped we would see the dolphins again. We didn't see them but we enjoyed our swim very much.
We still had to visit the locksmith, so we continued our way to Cairns to visit him. He told us that he couldn't get the right part of the lock, because the lock wasn't genuine. There were two options, either get a lock from a second hand Ford Falcon of the same type or get a lock from a Ford Dealer. A new lock would cost $61 dollars, which would be there the next day.
Because we still wanted to do something today we visited an opal mine. This was the fakest crap we had ever seen. No mine at all! They just showed an 8-minute movie about mining, and there was a wall which faked a mine, with a bit of opal in it. After that, they expected us to buy something. We showed our interest but didn't buy anything.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Today we didn't do very much. Because the days pass by so quickly, we decided to make some sort of travel-plan so we could see more in less time. The Lonely Planet was really useful for this! After we finished to plan "Far North Queensland" we left Daintree by ferry and went to the Mossman Gorge. Here are a couple of walking tracks and some waterfalls. It was allowed to take a swim there, but... we didn't. We spent the night there as well.
Monday, October 16, 2006
We really needed some good exercise so we took a 7 hour return walk to the top of mount Sorrow. It was a very tough walk because of the warm and wet climate, besides, it wasn't a really flat track you know! During our climb Yvonne saw her first snake, while she almost stepped on it. She really panicked (waaaaaaaahh snake!!!!) and jumped backwards and fell some meters downwards.
We settled down for an hour on the top to have a rest and to enjoy the great view. We could see the canopy of the rainforest, the beach and the sea. On our way back we were very tired and we were paying more attention to where to put our feet than to the environment. Unfortunately we almost ran into a 1,5 meter Southern Cassowarry. These animals have the reputation of being shy, but if they attack they can really hurt you. Unfortunately this one wasn't shy at all and he wasn't very happy with us either. So he started to chase us and we ran away, which, we know now, is not possible in the rainforest. Jasper fell and scrammed his knees and Yvonne ran into a very stinging plant and scrammed her face. For the Cassowarry we were no longer a threat so he started eating again. Luckily we were almost back so we could head back to the camping.
Last week we spent a lot of money on the diving courses, now it's time to work to get some money back! Using the Harvest Hotline we found out that there was work in Bowen. We drove there and could start picking tomatoes the next day. According to the guy who offered the job, we had to stay in his hostel to work there. Luck was on our side: during the preparation of our room, it appeared that our bed was stolen. This doesn't sound so great, but because of this we could stay in another hostel, which was very luxurious! There was a very nice living room, a good kitchen, two amazing bathrooms, but most important: an extremely comfortable bed. Too bad the alarm rang at 4:30 AM in the morning to prepare us for work.
Work started at 6.00 AM. The hostel owner told us that it should be possible to earn around $200 per day, because the fields were very rich, which meant easy picking. Of course we thought that would be beyond our skills, so it would be more like $150, but probably around $130. Seeing the buckets, we wondered what the wage per bucket would be. That would be around $1.30 after tax... whoops! That's 100 buckets for $130 dollar and a lot more for the $200... better start picking then!
Hour after hour, tomato after tomato, in the burning sun, around 40 degrees, we worked for 10 hours, with a half an hour lunch-break. There weren't even any toilets, but we sweat so much we didn't need them anyway. At the end of the day, we filled around 70 buckets... together! That's not even $50 each! As you might understand we weren't really happy with this. The people there told us that the fields weren't that rich at all and besides, the work has nothing to do with the accommodation. It was time to have a word with the master of disaster himself, after abusing the facilities of the hostel once more of course.
After telling him we weren't really happy with the situation, he really turned into a mad man, his face went from white to red (almost tomato style). A chameleon could learn from this, trust us on this! He charged us $14 dollars extra and almost called the police. We really tried to keep a normal conversation going, but it was better to stop and leave.
As we were in Bowen anyway, we had to look for another job, otherwise the trip would be a waste. We found a job in a shed where they packed capsicums. The wage would be $15,30 per hour, much better than the tomato picking! We could start the next friday. We used the two days to relax a bit and to explore the environment. Yeah yeah, in other words, check out the beaches! There was an awful smell, because of the eggs of the coral, which die within three days and drift ashore. But there were good spots where the smell wasn't so bad.
Friday we finally could start working for real! Capsicums entered the shed and had to be sorted into a couple of boxes. This was what Yvonne had to do. The boxes were put on a 'lopende band', while Jasper had to pick up these boxes at the end of the 'lopende band' and put them on different pallets. For both it was pretty hard work still. Yvonne had to stand still for a whole day, which hurts in the feet and in the lower back, especially on longer terms. Jasper had to stack the boxes on pallets. The boxes were about 8 kg heavy and had to be stacked 11 boxes high. To give an idea of this, it was almost impossible to put a box on the 9th line, and then the 11th had to be done as well. Of course there was a stool, but it was as high as one box. Another line with the same conditions so to speak. Pretty hard work for both of us, but easier than the tomato picking and a better wage. We did this work for exactly 10 days, including sundays.
The last day of work, we were finished around 2 o'clock. Afterwards we went to a camping to relax and more important, wash our clothes again. In the evening, Jasper started to feel a bit ill, so he went to bed early. A few hours later he woke up and didn't feel so well... he had to clear his stomach so he ran to a tree. After he was finished and sat down, he saw there was something crawling through his vomit... SNAKE! Pretty disgusting but he almost vomited over a snake! It was probably a python, but because it was very dark and the batteries of our torches were empty, we couldn't confirm this.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Already our last day onboard, but there were still three dives left before our departure. So just after sunset we jumped with our group in a little motorboat to be transfered to a good spot to dive 30 meters deep. We were equiped with a much larger cylinder. The deeper you go, the more air you use per inhalation. At 30 meters you will use 4 times the amount of air as on the surface.
We were dropped off the boat and dived straight to 30 meters depth. There we settled down in a circle. Our instructor brought us a tomato. It was green, like everything at that depth, because most light frequencies are filtered by the water. He lighted it with a torch and it was bright red again! He also had two eggs which opened under water. Because of the pressure it stayed in its form. Not for long though, a very hungry empire king fish swallowed it at once. Then it was time to test the effect of the pressure on our bodies. At 30 meters depth, the amount of nitrogen in our blood had increased 4 times. This can cause some kind of narcoses. To test if we were 'narced' we had to make some easy calculations under water. Our instructor brought a tablet and we had to write our answers on it. None of us was really affected though.
On our way up we circled around a beautiful coral mountain and saw a moray eel. After breakfast it was time for another fun dive. We went together with another guy of group. We found ourselves a sea turtle and we spent some time petting it and following it. Around 10 AM we jumped into the water for the last time, to do our navigation dive. We all had a compass. Our instructor sat down at the bottom and was our starting point. We had to make a perfect square by counting fin kicks and making 90 degree turns. If we did it alright we would return to the instructor. Unfortunately it was far more difficult than we thought and messed it up a bit. Then we had to follow our instructor and he tried to get us lost. Every minute he asked us in what direction the boat was. This was a bit more easy so he didn't succeed.
On board again we had to log all our dives and pack our stuff. At 3.30 PM the transfer boat arrived again to bring us back to Cairns... These were the best 5 days of our Australian adventure so far! Can't wait to dive again!
Saturday, October 28, 2006
We woke up by a knock on our door: "Goodmorning guys, it's 5:30 AM, time for your morning dive!", so we all jumped in the water at 6 o'clock at sunrise. We were still at Milln Reef / Three Sisters and this time we decent at the first sister. Large schools of sleepy fish were floating above the reefs we cruised around and again we had to practise some skills to complete our open water course. After our dive, breakfast was served, but we didn't have much time. We had to prepare some funny stuff for our dive movie. We had to do one more dive to complete our open water and this one was filmed by the video guy, called Thomas. At 8 o'clock we decent again and did some funny stuff at 15 meter depth for the camera. We put sunglasses on, drank some beer and danced on the bottom of the ocean. Very enjoyable, and afterwards we watched the movie. It was very cool! Beside that, we received our open water diving certificate and... we had still five dives left for fun! Below is a group photo displayed.
While we were watching the movie, the boat moved to an other good diving spot called 'The Whale'. This spot is still on Milln Reef. At 1 o'clock we went for a snorkel to explore this beautiful part of the reef and at 4 o'clock it was time to go diving again. This time we were allowed to go in pairs, without an instructor. It was very cool, but we also noticed that it is very difficult to navigate underwater. After some time we didn't know anymore which way the boat was. Anyway, by the time we ran out of air, we found it back! It was very cool, but our instructor just brings us to the nicer places. Back on board we decided to exchange three of our remaining dives for an adventure course, including an 30 meter deep dive, a night dive and a navigation dive. This course is very useful for us, because we really want to see some shipwrecks. Since most of these are located at 30 meters depth, we really need this deep dive (with open water course we're just allowed to dive to a maximum of 18 meters). And as I said our navigation is crappy. So at 7 o'clock, just after sunset, we did our night dive. The water was an dark mass and even with the provided torch we couldn't see much. It was very exciting and we saw our first shark! It was a white tip reef shark, about two meters long.
Friday, October 27, 2006
It's time to go onboard of the 'Kangaroo Explorer' and dive the ocean! This cruise ship stays permanently on the reef, so we were brought to this ship with a little transfer boat. It took about 2 hours and we arrived at approximately 11 o' clock. Because of the perfect conditions we could visit the better reefs. We went to Milln Reef, which has some famous diving spots. We went to the spot called 'The Whale'. After a short introduction we could take a look in our cabin, which was very nice.
After lunch we prepared for our first open water dive and jumped in the beautiful clear water. We had a visibility of 25-30 meters and we saw beautiful coral gardens beneath us. Awesome colored fishes were circulating around us and we could almost touch them. We decent till 13,4 meters and cruised around for a bit to get used to diving in open water. We saw two giant turtles and a cuttlefish. Jasper was pretty excited and forgot to breath slowly. So all of a sudden he ran out of air and had to share air with the instructor during our accent.
At 4 o'clock we did our second training dive, and this time we had to do some exercises. The boat had moved to another diving spot called 'The Three Sisters' (still Milln reef.) We dived at the second sister this time. We explored the spot and settled down in a circle on the bottom. We were surrounded by beautiful coral walls. We saw a turtle swimming over us and a curious batfish circled around us, while we were sitting there. We had to remove our mask and regulator and practiced the 'out of air' procedure.
The rest of the day we spent relaxing on board at the sun deck, eating fish and chips and logging our dives in our diving logbook.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
When we arrived at the school today again, we noticed that everyone was tired. Yeah, that was quite a lot of homework! The first thing we did this morning was to continue with our theory lessons. This worked the same way as the day before. After two hours or so, the practical lessons would be continued, in the pool. There were a couple of exercises which had to be done. One of them was to do an out of air procedure underwater. You had to signal your diving buddy that you are out of air, and that you want to share air. After doing so, both have to ascent to the surface. This had to be done a couple of times so that everything went fluent. In the afternoon it was time to continue with the theory lessons. After the theory was finished, everybody had to do a test with fifty multiple choice questions. This was pretty easy so everyone passed.
In the evening we went to a Reef Teach. As described in the Lonely Planet, Mr 'talksveryfast' explains how to identify specific types of coral and fish and also how to treat the Reef with respect. This wasn't just a lesson from just another teacher, no, this was an extremely energetic show! Much different from what we expected. There was lots of humor in it, but very well explained information. Sometimes it was a bit hard to understand though, because of his extremely fast talking.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Back to school!
Today we started our open water course at Cairns Diving Center. We received a theory book and spent the morning in the classroom watching instruction videos and reading the book. Before we were allowed to dive we had to pass a few tests. First of all we were checked by a doctor. We were a bit worried for this part, since we both have asthma. In general people with asthma are not allowed to dive. Besides that we had to show that we were able to swim for 200 meters and tread water for 10 minutes. Anyway we passed them all!
We spent the afternoon in the pool learning everything about our diving equipment and how to use it. We dived to the bottom of the pool (4m) and set down for a few minutes and practiced some skills. At 4 o' clock we finished and drove to Ellis beach were we cooked and spent the evening doing our homework. Tomorrow we have to pass our exam so we spent 3.5 hours learning.
We had a great day. We are doing this course with 5 other people of our age and they are all very nice. Can't wait to dive again!
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
As we mentioned before, we wanted to go diving. We decided to get our diving certificate at Cairns Diving Centre. We could start tomorrow already, which was good of course. Since we were unable to wash our clothes for a while, we went to a hostel so we could wash them, and chill out a bit. After hanging our cloth to dry, we went to the library to get some information about the Great Barrier Reef, and its fishes. In the evening there was a free meal from the hostel. We had to go to some sort of bar where we could get a plate of spaghetti. This was very little, so we were done quite quickly. After hanging out a bit in the city we went to bed quite early, because tomorrow the diving lessons would start!
Monday, October 23, 2006
This morning Jasper felt like swimming, so we headed to Lake Eacham again. It was raining and very early, but quite funny to see the reaction of the people clearing the toilets. The brave feeling we had passed away when a local jumped in for his daily swim, but we had our fun. For our feeling we had explored Atherton Tableland well enough now, so we headed back to Cairns to get some information about diving at the Great Barrier Reef. We also went shopping a bit in Cairns Central, to get Jasper new sunglasses and some other stuff.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Yesterday we drove to Kairi, where we found a place to sleep. Today we would go to Lake Eacham. We decided to take the tourist drive. This was a dirt road, so this was quite bumpy! We visited the Mobo Creek Crater, which was right on the road. Nothing too special, but nice to see none the less. A few kilometers further there was the "Cathedral Fig Tree". This tree is 46 meters high, and is a bit shaped like a cathedral, which explains its name.
The next place we visited was Lake Barinne. We did a short walk here, and saw a musky rat kangaroo. This animal is quite rare, but later on we saw a few more so we think they're a little bit better populated at that area. It was time for a swim, so we went to Lake Eacham, which was a few kilometers ahead. Lake Eacham and Lake Barinne are volcanic crater lakes, which belong to the Crater Lake National Park. The water of Lake Eacham was really crystal clear, beautiful! Although a bit cold, we both took a swim. There was a spot where you could see some saw shelled turtles, which we happen to have a couple of pictures from! The turtles, how strangely it may sound, can breath through their bottom and are pretty rare in Australia.
Our last visit was the Curtain Fig Tree in Yungaburra. This tree is an attraction similar to the Cathedral Fig Tree, but curtain shaped. It was already dark and getting late, so we slept here as well.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
We left Cairns for a while to explore the area west of it called 'Atherton Tableland'. Our first stop was at Granite Gorge. We went for a walk through the environment and had a nice swim halfway, There were lots of rock wallabies and they were very used to people. We had a great time feeding and petting them.
When we came back at the car we couldn' t start it because we forgot to shut the lights off so the battery was empty. Luckily people are very friendly and helpful here. We had the car parked near a camping. The boss called one of her neighbors who could help us start the car. While we were waiting we got a free drink and a old woman from Melbourne gave us her address. If we will be around somewhere later this year we have to call her and she will look after us.
Friday, October 20, 2006
The boat to the Green Island departed around 9.00 PM and the transfer took about one and a half hour. When we arrived we were directly free to do what we wanted to do, so we decided to go snorkeling right ahead. The reef wasn't very big there, but it was certainly very nice to see! There were about two spots where there was some reef. The first spot was right nearby the island, and the other spot was a bit further from the island, so a bit more swimming was required. We saw some beautiful things! There were a lot of fishes, but the coral wasn't very good. Fishes we saw include:
- Great Barrier Reef Anemone Fish (a clownfish, like "Nemo")
- Lionfish
- Sea-stars
- Stingray
Of course we also saw a lot of other beautiful fish we couldn't identify. We spent a lot of time in the water, exploring the reef. That's one of the reasons we missed the boat back to Cairns! Luckily for us there was a second boat which departed later, but arrived at the same time as 'our' boat. It wasn't a problem to return with this boat. You could say we explored the reef quite optimal! We had an incredible good time today!
Thursday, October 19, 2006
The lock would finally be fixed today. Around 12 o'clock it was fixed and we were ready to go. After we payed the bill of $149 dollar of course. We didn't want to spoil the day so we went to the Barron Gorge and to Wrights Lookout, where we followed a walking track. Nothing too special.
It was time to see something of the Great Barrier Reef, but we didn't know where to start! Unfortunately it isn't accesible from the shore so a transfer is needed. The reef is 2000 kilometers long, so there are a lot of organizations offering a trip to it. Because of this, we decided to take one of the cheapest transfers to take a look, so we could do a more expensive trip later. Our eyes fell on a transfer of $63 dollars to the Green Island, where we could snorkel for a full day. We booked this for tomorrow.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
After waking up at the Mossman Gorge we took the swim we skipped yesterday. It was bloody cold! We stayed there and relaxed a bit for a couple of hours and drove to Cairns. On our way Jasper spotted some strange looking fins in the sea. We took a closer look and saw that it was a group of dolphins! This was very nice to see, unfortunately we couldn't get them on camera. A few kilometers ahead we took a swim and hoped we would see the dolphins again. We didn't see them but we enjoyed our swim very much.
We still had to visit the locksmith, so we continued our way to Cairns to visit him. He told us that he couldn't get the right part of the lock, because the lock wasn't genuine. There were two options, either get a lock from a second hand Ford Falcon of the same type or get a lock from a Ford Dealer. A new lock would cost $61 dollars, which would be there the next day.
Because we still wanted to do something today we visited an opal mine. This was the fakest crap we had ever seen. No mine at all! They just showed an 8-minute movie about mining, and there was a wall which faked a mine, with a bit of opal in it. After that, they expected us to buy something. We showed our interest but didn't buy anything.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Today we didn't do very much. Because the days pass by so quickly, we decided to make some sort of travel-plan so we could see more in less time. The Lonely Planet was really useful for this! After we finished to plan "Far North Queensland" we left Daintree by ferry and went to the Mossman Gorge. Here are a couple of walking tracks and some waterfalls. It was allowed to take a swim there, but... we didn't. We spent the night there as well.
Monday, October 16, 2006
We really needed some good exercise so we took a 7 hour return walk to the top of mount Sorrow. It was a very tough walk because of the warm and wet climate, besides, it wasn't a really flat track you know! During our climb Yvonne saw her first snake, while she almost stepped on it. She really panicked (waaaaaaaahh snake!!!!) and jumped backwards and fell some meters downwards.
We settled down for an hour on the top to have a rest and to enjoy the great view. We could see the canopy of the rainforest, the beach and the sea. On our way back we were very tired and we were paying more attention to where to put our feet than to the environment. Unfortunately we almost ran into a 1,5 meter Southern Cassowarry. These animals have the reputation of being shy, but if they attack they can really hurt you. Unfortunately this one wasn't shy at all and he wasn't very happy with us either. So he started to chase us and we ran away, which, we know now, is not possible in the rainforest. Jasper fell and scrammed his knees and Yvonne ran into a very stinging plant and scrammed her face. For the Cassowarry we were no longer a threat so he started eating again. Luckily we were almost back so we could head back to the camping.
posted by Yvonne en Jasper at
8:46 PM
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