Cairns part 2

Well here it is Friday and still no internet where I am living... so I've made the trek to the library in Cairns to book some stuff and give an update. There is a daily data limit of 100mb here so I will post words first then see if I have enough data to add some pictures.

The bus system along the coast is quite good. I took a bus north to Palm Cove last week stopping at a couple of beaches along the way. There were lots of people swimming at the beaches in spite of the warnings about crocs and jelly fish.

Cairns has an amazing Botanic gardens that I have spent a couple of days exploring. Mount Whitfield Conservation park is adjacent to it - a long day hike yielded some nice views of the area surrounding Cairns.

One of the lakes at the botanic gardens:

Views from Mt Whitfield:

I have booked a flight to Darwin on the 21st of August. Prior to that however, I want to dive the reef and have reserved a car rental for the week of August 7-14 to go to Daintree north of here and to visit Cloudy (who I met at Fat Cats in Auckland) at the cattle ranch (they call it a cattle station here) she works at. It's in the outback about 5 hours south of Cairns. I'm really looking forward to seeing her and the place she so loves. I've been postponing the reef dive for a few reasons but will probably go ahead with it this upcoming week. The initial plan was to get certified but I think I'll just go for an introductory dive first, maybe get certified in SE Asia where it's cheap.

Much to my dismay, I have yet to see a kangaroo! Have seen more than my fair share of cockroaches however, a 2 inch long one crawled out of the couch onto me last night - creeps me out still to think about it. Andrew does what he can to control them but living in the tropics they pretty much are a fact of life.  There was also a massive spiders nest I found at the botanic gardens - dozens of spiders from tiny to 1-2 inches in length - yuck!

Cairns

I have rented a room in a house about 5 km outside of Cairns.  Andrew owns the place and lives in a guest house in the back yard,  Nina and Lisa have the other 2 bedrooms in the house.  Internet will be installed this week sometime - I promise I will post a better update once it is.

Australia!

Arrived in Cairns yesterday without a hitch. Safe but quite exhausted. Today will be a do nothing but rest up day. My big desire in the region is to get dive certified and dive the Great Barrier Reef. However, I'll need to finish recovering from what I'm almost positive was the flu in Auckland. Diving with a cough probably won't work...

My first impression of Australia is that it isn't nearly as lovely as NZ but then, I'm pretty sure most countries will not live up to my first on this grand adventure. Weather so far is warm and humid but not uncomfortable.

When inquiring about the walk from the airport to the hostel yesterday the woman at the cafe was horrified of the idea. "There are crocodiles!" After a round of 50 questions with her, I determined it was probably just fine and indeed never saw a single croc in the entire 3.5 mile walk, much to my dismay. Unlike New Zealand, there are many things in nature here that can do a person harm - spiders, snakes, crocs and who knows what else. I can't wait to see my first kangaroo however!

The fat cat is dead long live the Fat Cat!

The namesake for The Fat Cat Travelers Community died a month or so ago, but his legacy lives on. I've very much come to love the place and the people and will miss them immensely I'm sure. The hostel is actually a side business that pretty much shuts down in high season when the accommodation is given over to woofers working the primary business - vending of produce from roadside vans. Woofing is a growing movement that seems to be quite popular in New Zealand. It amounts to trading roughly 20 hours per week of work for food and lodging on a short term basis. I've yet to meet anyone who woofed for more than a month at a single location. NZ will give a 1 year working holiday visa to pretty much anyone under 30 so there are a lot of young people around looking for a cheap way to spend time here. I've been quite impressed with the woofers here at Fat Cat, I think the future will be quite okay left in their hands.

We have dinner together every night:

I've been quite sick for the past 3 days but am starting to get a handle on it at last and just have a cough and a bit of weakness left to work through. As such, the only day trip I've managed was a 25 minute ferry boat to Rangitoto island with Kim and Cloudy. Rangitoto is one of fifty something inactive volcanoes in the Auckland area and is the only one that has erupted repeatedly. It last erupted some 600 years ago but I didn't see any hint of activity while there. There's a nice hike to the summit yielding a beautiful panoramic view of Auckland and surrounding areas.  
 

You can see the crater of the volcano on the left side of this picture:

I went to the car fair the first Sunday after arriving here and sold my car cheap to someone I'm sure will make money off it in a couple of months when the hoards start arriving for the summer season. I wasn't real clear on the rules and process to be honest and am left praying it works out okay. I did my part and reported the sale but I'm not convinced he did his part and claimed it and am not sure what to do if he didn't. I was advised by the people running the fair that what we did was okay but then found something indicating different later. Hoping for the best.

Best news yet: Erik will be meeting me in Thailand for a day or two sometime around Christmas! I am so looking forward to seeing him already.

Just one more night

I'm just outside of Auckland at Muriwai beach campground. Tomorrow will start my stay at Fat Cat Travellers Community for my last 2 weeks in NZ. It's a small organic farm about 30 minutes from Auckland central. I'm looking forward to sleeping indoors and perhaps being of some use around the farm. I need to find a home for my car and I would be lying if I said I wasn't a bit anxious about it. I hate giving up transportation for one thing and the logistics of getting it sold could be a bit messy. I'm sure it will work out and I'll just find a charity to donate it to if no one comes along that is in need of it.

Muriwai beach is a BIG ocean beach compared to all of the others I've seen. The waves are big, vicious and highly varied. I walked for a good 20 minutes quite a bit above the wave mark yesterday and then all of a sudden, my feet were wet with big waves coming out of seeming nowhere - a couple of big ones then they went back to normal. People were out trying to surf it but they seemed to just endlessly paddle out never getting anywhere. The walk this morning to the nearby Gannet colony found surfers having more fun. It is apparently a very dangerous place with several people a year losing their lives to the ocean.

 
View above the campground. See my car?  ;)

This could very well be my last blog entry until Australia. I'll post if anything interesting happens but I'm expecting a quiet, peaceful couple of weeks.