Hides Hotel Cairns

... temperatures and unsettled weather creates hectare raging fires, ever increasing tropical storms pound, and destroy ocean communities, and on and on, ad nauseum.
The human species seems obsessed by the thoughtless and relentless pursuit of destroying paradise, of destroying home. This home; our only home and the home of many others whom we are helping to eliminate also.

Spent a leisurely day yesterday, swim before breakfast then into the city for a dander. Stumbled across a great market on the esplanade and the Rotary were having a fun day so Maureen if you get a call to say your Dad has won the first prize in the Duck Race (not literally) then they may stay a while longer (the prize was a cruise and he put your phone ...

... amongst the fishermen some of whom were unsuccessfully trying to persuade the resident osprey to come down and take some fish, we returned to Cairns where the drive conveniently dropped me off at the camp site, all in all very good tour.

There is so much to see here so next day I arranged a trip to Kurunda which is a village just 25kms north west of Cairns, it originated as a centre for those who wanted an away from it all alternative lifestyle in the ’60 but has ...

Monday we went on a tour of the sugar cane mill. There are hundreds of acres of sugar cane along the coast. The fact that they get so much rain throughout the year makes this an ideal environment to grow the cane. As a matter of fact, we were told that the Daintree rain forest gets 4000 mm (160 inches) of rain per year. The surrounding area gets 1600 mm. You will see the cane being dumped into the hopper where it begins it's journey through the mill process. They crush cane ...

... As our instructor says: "the greener, the cleaner"!!
6. Don't touch corals or colorful fish (the more color and the brighter the more dangerous)
7. Sharks and barracudas are not dangerous. Humans are!
8. Deepest dive first then dive in more shallowed waters
9. Deep under air reserves are compressed, not water. Body is 80% water - equalize
10. Always team up with a buddy
- Enough for now-

Time on the boat was amazing ...

As you can guess I've been a bit slack updating the blog this month and so have the task of catching up. Basically from Airlie Beach, we headed northwards to the city of Cairns in North Queensland. The weather here was alot better (mid-20s) and is quite a cool surfer town with restaurants, cafes and lots of tour operators to go out to see the Great Barrier Reef. Similarly to most of the beaches in Queensland, they're not safe to swim in due to stingers and crocks and so we ...

... was the evening's night dive, which was amazing and intense. The spot light off the back of the boat attracted dozens of fish of all sizes in the pitch black water. It was about 7:30 pm, which was not only human dinner time, but apparently shark dinner time, too. We knew the circling, feeding sharks we saw below us were reef sharks and not interested in human snacks, but it was still a mental hurdle to dive in! It was fantastic and an experience I won't forget. Jury is out if ...

... isnt too much ocean swimming to be had here but there is a man made lagoon that is alright. On the way up we stopped at an amazing waterfall that had a bunch or rock ponds I guess you would call them. We spent a couple hours climbing on the rocks, swimming, and floating down the rapids. It was great cause we were there early and as we were leaving there were alot of people on there way in. The ...

... I also bought a hair shaver to take with me on the rest of my trip as it was only $14 from target so if I only use it for one hair cut its paid for itself. Didn't do much all day except for laze around the hostel and relax as it was too hot to do anything. A girl came into the room who was on the bunk below me, she was from Rochdale lol small world. She had a really infectious personality and we talked none stop for about 30 minutes. Flo ...

... of things to do! Along with cheap call and SIM cards of course. That afternoon her and her ex-Park Ranger hubby Jason took us away from the city to Stoney Creek where we were able to swim and snorkel in a beautiful freshwater creek under an amazing waterfall. That night I checked out local bar The Woolshed where my free hostel meal would be dished up. A bit of an impromptu night of drinking followed when i teamed up with ...