No worries, too easy!

G’day!

We barely escaped Brisbane before the floods got REALLY bad, and made it to Far North Queensland.  We’ve been based out of the tourist town of Cairns all week, enjoying the sunshine, humidity, and diversity (for the first time in our Oz travels, there are indigenous people visible in local civil society – the few Aborigines we saw before were homeless or being used in tourist shows…  we’ve asked about them and received these responses: “The indigenous don’t know any better, so they drink petrol;” “it’s a national embarrassment, so we just don’t talk about it;” and “how is this different from what you Americans did to red Indians?”).

Anyway, we’ve enjoyed our time in Far North Queensland very much.  The highlight (and the main reason we came to Australia) was our snorkeling trip to the Great Barrier Reef.  The Reef is beautiful, packed with life, huge, and dying – just like we learned in 2^nd grade. 

Our other big adventure up here was our first organized tour of our trip: 3 hours up the coast to Cape Tribulation (named by a surly Captain Cook).  Of course we loved the nature walks, the river boat ride next to a 4.5 meter crocodile, the discovery of a python inches from our face, the gigantic spiders, the chance to play with a joey (and its momma roo), and the ice cream made from local exotic fruits… but the best part of the tour was our tour guide, Peter.  He looked like Carrot Top with a wispy moustache, wore the same outfit made famous by Steve Irwin, was barefoot throughout our rainforest walks, and finished every sentence with, “No worries, too easy!”  We were too awe-struck by Peter to even get one picture of him, but we did manage these beauties:

We also attended a Taipans game – Cairns’ beloved basketball team.  The hooping quality was astoundingly bad, but we were more than entertained by the Hiss-head mascots (doing inappropriate things that would not fly in the states) and audience (the sell-out crowd stayed till the last second, even though Cairns won by 30).

We also did a daytrip to Kurunda in the tablelands, where a short rainforest stroll turned into a grueling hike because of the intense humidity.  But the trip was worth it – and then some – after we collapsed back in the town for mango wine and mango gelato.

We’re spending our last day in Australia chilling by the pool, eating pineapple lollies (taffy), reading vociferously (the more books we finish, the less weight in our backpacks!), and recharging our electronics before we take off for Bali tomorrow.

Cheers, no worries, too easy!