The Villas Palm Cove

I arrived in Cairns last week and stayed at a really small hostel where there was a Oz BBQ with Emu, Crocodile, and Kangaroo with salad all for 12 dollers. Then learned how to play the didgeridoo which was very strange. I then met up with a couple of friends that I met on the Whitsunday Island boat trip. They are really fun and whilst Rory spent his time at work, Katie and I chilled out by the lagoon for days drinking goon (cheap white wine in a ...

... see a wild croc again! Then we headed upto the rainforest at cape tribulation which captin cook discovered where the reef meets the rainforest and had some time on the beach and in the rainforest there. Took quite a while to get home, went for food and now pretty tired. looking forward to a nice relaxing day by the huge lagoon pool they built on cairns front to stop people going in the water on the beach and being eaten by crocs....
photos hopefully coming soon! xxxx

... sanctuary. We spent quite a while at the butterfly place ...Eventually giving up on getting the 'perfect shot' and heading off to grab a pie and a drink at the market...It was getting hot .......


















Kuranda, Queensland, Australia dinziez

... reef. I had started the day with a growing blister on my feet from the fins, sunburnt arms and legs from falling asleep on the sundeck, and the beginning of some bathing suit chafe in the groinal region. A good day of diving trying to find more sharks and turtles while going through caves and swim through at one of the sights. It all was topped by that night's dive, our second night dive. The previous night's dive was our first, and we dove with a guide to help us ...

... positions around the world at that time. I was quite disheartened. Having Africa taken away from me was all that came to mind. I, temporarily, ignored the fact that I had requested deferment in order to spend more time with Mary back in the US to both grow our relationship and to consider whether I was still willing to make a service commitment in a far-off developing country. More than disheartened, I was crushed. Mary could see it in my expression. She felt terrible, which ...

... tried to pull us up to dance with her.  Mom party pooped, so the dancer tried to pull me up.  I stood there and embarrassed myself for a while until she let me sit back down.  And then, we waited.  And waited.  It was over an hour before our food came.  It was good, but not worth an hour's wait.  Moral: don't go to El Greko in Palm Cove. We got in much later than we expected, and so went straight to sleep as we had to get up early the next day for.... ...The Great Barrier Reef!!!!!

... to 2nd place after the tennis - partly because India won stopping Oz getting a record breaking 17th successive win - and keeping Mick happy). That night we were staying on Hamilton Island, one of the biggest of the Whitsunday Islands. We arrived at the Island on the ferry and were taken to Palm Bungalows which had everything we wanted after coming off the boat. I went for a snooze and Mick set off on a run up to Peak Passage, which looked like it could have been quite a ...

... var det lidt skraemmende lige da man kom under vandet og skulle til at traekke vejret, det skulle man godt nok lige vaende sig til. Efter nogen minutter lige under baaden tog en instukoer os under armen og svommede afsted. Det var rigtig flot og vi saa mange fisk - bla. Nemo og Gil Total cool.
Efter en fed tur var der den laekreste buffet med frukt, broed, paalaeg, kylling, ris, pasta, kartofler, rejer og meget andet... mmmmm siger vi ...

... the reef, lots of people were being sick. They have specific crew to look after puking customers (Great job huh!) Fortunately neither Chris or I was effected at all. It was a bit like a rollercoaster ride! I did enjoy it. Well it took about an hour and half to get to Agincourt reef. This reef is right on the edge of the continental shelf. We had our dive briefing on the boat before we docked with the pontoon. We were told that we were the only 2 divers ...

... prognostication by said organisers.



Next day I went whale watching in a boat in Hervey Bay where humpback whales tend to rest a couple of days on their journey into colder waters in the southern Spring. We were lucky and saw a number of humpback whales, some of them lurching their heavy bodies out of the water and performing some other eye-candy tricks. Most impressive was them surfacing right next to the boat and then diving back down underneath it. And I didn't vom!