Eclectic Brain Salad

So here it is folks, our last day in Australia. I think we'd got over the sadness of our imminent departure, and decided to get on and enjoy the day. We had a really leisurely morning, then headed over to Luna Park for some fun and games, first on the bus into town, and then on the Sydney ferries. For those of you who don't know, Luna Park is a cheesy old-style amusement park, with your typical fairground rides, and fun and games.

Since I'm a total wuss, and not much of a fan of rides, I stayed and looked after Elva while Gabriel and Kirsty went on all the rides, including the Ferris Wheel, the Dodgems and, well, mainly the dodgems. They had a great time, and we got about 2 or 3 hours in there before we had to head beck to pack our stuff up. We got back to Lisa and Lach's and made our final arrangements, then we had a damn fine chat with Lisa and LAch for an hour before we had to leave.

We said our fond farewells, then got the taxi to the airport, preparing ourselves for another 24 hours of travel.

...skip...

Home, bed. Bloody knackered.

Oh, the flight? Yeah, it was ok:

• I played a bunch of games on the in-flight entertainment systems, including an Arkanoid clone, which was cool
  
• I watched Up, GI Joe: Rise of Cobra and Transformers 2. The first two were brilliant, albeit it in different ways. Transformers 2 was shit. Painful plot, and really overly long and drawn out. I was begging for it to end by the last half an hour.
  
• (The GI Joe film was wicked, but it has given Gabriel nightmares for a week.)
  
• Like the incoming flights, I ended up walking Elva round the plane aisles for about and hour or two, to tire her out enough to to back to sleep. At one point I got her to go to sleep in my arms by singing Smiths and Wonder Stuff songs to her. Super dad! ;-)
  

What an amazing trip. Saw some amazing things, and made some great new friends! And thanks to Lach and Lisa for being wonderful (oh, and John, Maxine, and all the other great wds folk!) We might even share some pictures of those wonderful things soon, when we can be arsed (we have about 1000 pictures to sort through).

Today was the day we had our second trip booked, to go and see some islands and the great barrier reef. To get there, we had to be up REALLY early, and to get ourselves and two kids ready and out the door by 7.10am, it relly was like a military operation. We managed it though.

We got on the coach and were greeting by some of the staff, who seemed really nice, especially Yuki, who was the trip's Japanese translator (many of the party were Japanese). Her giving out the announcement in Japanese had many benefits, but the main one for us was that Elva was absolutely captivated by this unfamiliar language coming out of her mouth. Elva was being really restless and crying on the coach ride, but Every time Yuki talked Japanese, she shut up immediately and turned to watch her until she had finished... ;-)

We got the the marina and boarded the boat that would take us out to the Islands - it was a kind of passenger Yacht, and was ok. they were serving coffee and biscuits, so we were happy enough. But it soon developed some kind of engine trouble, so we had to wait for another boat to come out and pick us up. This was a blessing in disguise however, as the replacement boat was a 1400hp speedboat, which took us to the Islands at about 30-40 knots. It was a real rollercoaster of a ride, and Gabriel and I loved it, although Kirsty was a bit shook up by it. Elva fell asleep!

We got to the island quicker than the other boat would have got us there, even with the 20 minute or so delay. It was an absolutely beautiful island - coral and other sealife not too far out, lovely beaches and trees. It was amazing to see the diverse range of coral and shells washed up on the beach (some parts were like coral graveyards!), although we were warned that taking any of it away as souvenirs could incur a $25,000 fine, as part of an effort to preserve the islands and reefs. So we, erm, didn't!

At the start of the island stay I was on baby watch (with Elva still being slaeep) while Kirsty and Gabriel did some snorkelling. Kirsty saw a turtle, so was very happy! Turtles are her totem creature. Elva then woke up, and we all went on the glass bottomed boat trip. This was one of the most amazing things I hve ever seen - the water was really clear, and only a few metres deep on the areas we went around, so we could see the coral perfectly. So many amazing shapes and colours! We also saw some beautiful fish and some giant clams. I could've done that all day.

Lunch was beautiful - a nice buffet with pasta, salad, prawns, bread and chicken, plus beer available. Just after lunch we played in the sea, and a huge turtle came really close to the shore! Then gabriel had a sleep while Kirsty, Elva and me walked round the island. This was really cool, but the beaches got really stony after a while and really started to hurt my feet, so Kirsty had to go back and get my shoes for me! I also got sunburnt... but never mind - it was so beautiful.

After getting home we chilled in the pool, then went to a great pizza place for tea, followed by Gabriel playing on the park for a while. Then home, into bed, watching some American Dad episodes before sleep....knackered, but very happy!

Today was our first day of Queensland action! We had a rainforest trip booked with tour operator On The Wallaby, and it proved to be one of the best days of our holiday. The whole setup was really great - the other guests were very friendly, the schedule was chilled, and the tour rep was simply hilarious. He was called Cousin Rohan and he had dark dreads, beard, friendly demeanour and a wicked sense of humour.

I thought he was cool when the first thing he explained was why he was called "Cousin..." (it is a strange-but-fun naming convention they use in his company, to make the experience seem a bit more personal) and that we should call him "Rohan" or "Cuz", but not "Bus Driver", as that makes him no better than the grumpy bus drivers in the city. We also explained that the bus is called "Wally", and should be addressed as such.

We first headed out to the Tablelands, a beautiful flat area of Queensland. We first saw an amazing, huge colony of fruit bats nested in some trees, then went up a huge windy road into the mountains, which has something like 230 bends to navigate in the 20-odd minute drive. Rohan kept us entertained with some witty and informative banter, and some cheesy old-school tunes from Radio Gus. Near the top of this drive, we stopped at a lookout point and checked out the beautiful view.

The next thing we checked out was a beautiful tree called the Cathedral Fig Tree. This is basically a huge great tree absolutely covered in a parasitic fig vine, which starts to grow in the crown on the tree, then sends tap vines down to the ground to find more water and start to grow. When it finds a good water source it grows massively, and sends down more and more vines to take up more and more water. It also starts to take nutrients from the host tree, and eventually kills it.

We also saw cool mountain cows, which were a cross between the local beef cows, and a hardy African desert brahmin, to create a cow that is hardy enough to survive in the mountainous areas while still yielding meat.

The next stop saw us going on an awesome jungle walk, where we saw some cool dragon lizards, amazing views, and the deadly "gimpy gimpy" (or "bad bad" or "stinging") tree, so-called because it is like a giant stinging nettle on crack, with loads of tiny needles on its surface that can inject you with thirteen different toxins that make it feel like you are on fire (but which you can't put under cold water, because it just makes it feel worse). Rohan told a horrible story about how five US soldiers died during the second world war because they went to the toilet in the jungle and mistakenly used this plant as toilet paper!

Lunchtime was great too - we went swimming in a lovely natural lake that contained archer fish (they can spit water jets up to 2 metres or something, with deadly accuracy) and turtles, then had some gorgeous fresh bread rolls containing chicken, cheese and salad, plus BBQ sauce.

The afternoon consisted of going to two more swimming places, a nice lookout spot and the On The Wallaby lodge. The first swimming place was at the bottom of a huge beautiful waterfall. Kirsty and I didn't go in as the water here was very cold, but a number of our group did, as did Gabriel. It was so nice to see him next to the waterfall! The lookout point was pretty cool and gave us a good view of the Tablelands. The third swimming place was at the end of a nice jungle walk. We first went to a lookout over the top of a huge crevasse, caused by volcanic gasses exploding out sideways and taking a large part of the mountain with it. The drop from the lookout was about 70 metres, and it gave up a huge echo when some of the kids threw branches down to the bottom of it. The swimming place itself was at the bottom of a small waterfall, and was also very cold, although the area was beautiful.

This was pretty much the end of the trail - all tht was left to do was to take the members of our party staying overnight to their lodge (in Yundaburra), and then drive the rest of us home. On the way to the lodge Rohan put on some cheesy songs (such as James Brown's "I feel good") and got the whole bus to perform silly song actions to them all. Even Wally had a dance. At the lodge we all had coffee together, then it was time for us to leave. Rohan drove us back to our hotel in Cairns, picking up his girlfriend and two cute dogs on the way (Elva was blown away by them, and kept squealing), and then we had some food and went to bed - we were absolutely exhausted!

What an awesome day this was...

So, today was sorting shit out day (tm). We got up, went for breakfast, then got some groceries in for future breakfasts, dinners, etc. Next up was the task of working out what the hell to do for the next few days. We wanted to see some great barrier reef, some rain forests, and some of the cool town, mines, waterfalls, and other awesome stuff that surrounded the area. But there were so many options that we found it hard to work out.

So we again called on the advice of the excellent receptionist to help us out. She gave us good advice, and we ended up booking a day in the rain forests and a day visiting the Franklin Islands part of the reef, with aims to hire a car on another day to go and see some other cool stuff.

We then set off to walk down to the main Cairns centre and see the waterfront. I was surprised at this point - a few people had remarked that Cairns town itself is a bit crap, and it was mainly worth going there for the obvious surrounding tourist attractions. But what I saw on this day was absolutely beautiful. The walk down the waterfront was really pretty, and featured one of the biggest and best kids parks I have ever seen! Gabriel and Elva were in heaven. To top it off, there is a place called The Lagoon right in the centre - a man-made beach/swimming area (there is no real beach as such right in Cairns). It was amazing to see Gabriel swimming by the beach with loads of families having open air picnics and BBQs ... at about 7.30pm!

We also got a chance to check out some cool comedy acts leading up to the opening of the Cairns 15/15 film festival (15 minute films made in 15 hours...)

By this point we started to feel hungry, so we walked back in the direction of home, stopping only to have dinner at the Cock and Bull tavern, an English/American crossover style pub that does good beer on tap, and the most impressive mixed grill meat coma meal I have ever seen! For $23, I got a steak, lamb chops, pork sausages, bacon, grilled tomato, bread and tons of potato wedges. This rounded off the day perfectly!

Today I wanted to do something different in Byron than just splash and build things on the beach! I love playing on the beach with the kids and building things out of sand, but really I am more of an explorer at heart, preferring walks around hillsides, coves and jungles. So today I put my foot down an insisted that the family follow me on one such jaunt.

I checked out the map and saw that the Byron Bay lighthouse was only a few kilometres away - this was to be our destination for today! The lighthouse was a good point to aim for, and there were a few nice small beaches and lookout points on the way to check out.

We went down to the town and chilled for a bit (the family had some beach time while I did some geeking in the Wifi cafe), then we set off on the walk. After the first kilometre or so we had a break at a gorgeous little cafe at Clarke's beach (first beer of the day), then we pressed on, reaching The Pass an hour or so later - there was a lovely beach here, and a nice little set of steps up to the lookout point, which we abandoned the pram to go and check out.

This was a perfect moment, spoilt only slightly by the wild bush Turkeys assaulting our pram and stealing our chocolate while we were distracted ;-)

As we were leaving we had a nice chat with an English lass who had been living and working out here for two years, but had to go back soon due to her visa running out. I can see why she was so down about having to go back...

Onwards we pressed, stepping into the Watego beach area after another kilometre or two. This was an awesome part of the journey, as on the way we saw not one but two really huge lizards (I think they were Geckos). We had another break at Watego, as the travel was starting to get to the kids at this point.

Next up was the final ascent towards the lighthouse. This was the hardest part, as even though the lighthouse was now less than a kilometre away, it was up a huge hill, and we had to carry Elva's pram up loads of steps.....phew! When we...fiiiiiiinally...reached the top, we had a well-deserved ice cream, then walked down the much-quicker route straight down the hill.

At this point we needed some dinner, so we found a nice place just near the beach and ate, then returned home, only stopping to pick up stout and filthy donuts to amuse us at night time.

On to Cairns tomorrow. I kinda wish we'd stayed a bit longer in Byron, as it is such a beautiful place!