Easter Break

Okkkay.  Now that its time to study for finals, finishing this post about Easter Break seems like a good option instead of writing a 10 page paper about Australia.  I was marveling yesterday at how I balk so much at writing a simple outline for a paper, yet instead I created an incredibly detailed outline of the dance I want to choreograph next semester.  Why doesn't creative energy focus itself in the way most convenient at the time?  But I digress...

We had our mid-semester break a little over a month ago.  Half of the US exchange kids at the University of Melbourne packed up and headed to New Zealand.  The other half packed up and headed to Cairns.  I went with them.  No joke I ran into 2 people unexpectedly and 6 people expectedly.  Australia is a big place.  I don't know that many people here.

But it was a great time anyway.  I went with one other girl who lives in my college.  Tuesday night we had our first adventure: flying Tiger Airways.  Tiger is the cheap version of Qantas.  Cheap because they only operate between 8:00pm and 5:00am, charge extra to check in with an actual person, charge extra if you want a blanket, charge extra if you want to pick your own seat instead of getting whatever the computer spits out, charge extra if you want any drink (including water-$3) on your flight.  I didn't check, but I think it was at least free to use the lavatory.  In short, its the airline of choice for university students.  Having arrived in plenty of time for our 10:00 pm departure, we had a fair amount of time to sit around.  And then our plane was delayed for a few hours and we had a bit more time to sit around.  That was when I took my first nap in the airport.  Ever.  Something magical has happened to me such that now, like never before, I can fall asleep even under daunting circumstances.  So I woke up around midnight, boarded the plane, fell asleep again, woke up when we landed around 2:00am, fell asleep again in the airport, got woken up by the security lady kicking us out, moved to the arrivals hall, fell asleep on the benches there, woke up again at 6:30 to call our hostel to get a ride from the airport.  Our first night in the airport was how we began what we like to term our somewhat hobo-esk Cairns trip.  In other words, college students traveling at their finest.

The hostel was pretty grungy, hot water in 2 of the showers and marginally clean sheets, but we weren't there to spend time in the hostel anyway.  That Wednesday we spent walking around Cairns to discover what the city had to offer.  The answer was: not much.  Cairns is comprised of some very large hotels, souvenir shops, and tourist agencies selling packages to visit the Great Barrier Reef.  There were somethings of interest though, such as the mudflats which were absolutely crawling with crabs.  At least 20 per square meter.  Also, the two banyan trees which were each hosting at least 300 flying foxes.  The noise those bats made was quite impressive.  After a free dinner of spaghetti with various sauces provided by our hostel, we wandered a little longer, ate some gelato, wandered around a few open shops and headed back to the hostel to plan out the rest of our week.

Thursday was our day to see the rainforest.  Waking up early again to stop by the grocery store on our way to the car rental, we bought all the necessary ingredients for pb&j.  I didn't realize it had been so long since I had eaten peanut butter.  It must have been at least 5 months.  For the rest of the trip we ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for all meals not provided for free by our hostel.  4 days for 2 people on a total of $10.  Not bad.  Renting the car proved to be an extremely frustrating process, and I would like to never ever ever do that again.  Especially since they took over three weeks to get my security deposit back to me.  I'd like to put a  critical review of the place up in a location where it will prove useful, however I haven't found such a place yet, so please, if you ever go to Cairns, DO NOT rent from Cairn's Older Car Hire.  You will regret it and end up paying 4 times the original quoted price in small print and lost deposits.  Needless to say, I'm still a bit angry about that.

But we did end up with a car, so up into the mountains we drove.  Our main stop was Barron Gorge Falls which was absolutely gorgeous!  (Pun only somewhat intended.)  Fortunately we were there after the peak of the wet season, so the volume of water was somewhat diminished, letting us see the shapes that the water had carved into the rocks.  I don't know why I find it so fascinating, but it was just architecturally very pleasing.  Next we were going to go on a hike along the gorge to some really nice lookout points 2 hours down.  We didn't get that far though before deciding that it would be a while before we got to the nice look outs, and our time could be better spent elsewhere.  We looked into the nearby town which was yet another sleepy little tourist town with seemingly nothing but a few houses and some souvenir shops.  On the way back we stopped in on some really lovely beaches...with real palm trees along them!  It was such a novelty for me.  Beaches with palm trees only exist in pictures.  Real beaches for me have always had cold water even in the peak of summer and beautiful dunes surrounded by marshes.  None of this tropical coconuty palm stuff.

On Friday we hopped on a boat that took us out to the Great Barrier Reef!!!  It felt a little bit like I was stepping into a National Geographic article, or one of those science PBS kids shows I watched when I was young.  Unfortunately it was really obvious where damage had been done to the reef.  Its predicted that the whole reef could be dead in as little as 30 years, and already there were large portions that were colorless and white.  For the most part though, we were able to see some very colorful things, and a large part of my brain had to actively suppress the knowledge that snorkelers like me were the main reason why this part of the reef had so much dead coral.  There are a very limited amount of areas where tours are allowed to bring snorkelers, and the largest portions of the reef are completely off limits except for scientists with good reasons for being there.  Unfortunately we were not able to dive (though we had paid for it already, another frustration about the trip along with the car), but there was still so much to see snorkeling.  The water was also very warm which, again, was a real novelty for me.  I was really hoping to see some sea turtles, however that day I was not lucky.  I did, however, see many pretty parrot fish, clown fish (yes, I did find Nemo, and no, I'm not above making that joke), anemones, sea cucumbers, giant clams, and even a shark.  Not one of those man-eating great whites (although I did resist the urge to just upload a picture of one of those from a google search provided by my brother into the middle of my facebook album without explaination just to see my Aunt's reaction), but rather a very nice looking reef shark.  I can't say for certain which species it was.  All three of the major types are found in the Great Barrier Reef.  It was about 3 or 4 meters below me just swimming along happily.  It was a little bit longer than I am tall, and was gone before I could get the camera focused on it.

Our last day in Cairns we drove ourselves out to a small town (read, population 300) called Chillagoe about 4 hours west of Cairns.  While it was not quite in the Outback, it was near the edge, and is about as much Outback experience as I am going to get here.  We drove on dirt roads, saw our first wild kangaroos up close and had to avoid tall grass for fear of poisonous snakes.  How much more Outback-y do you need?  We went to take some tours of the really interesting caves they have out there.  While I'm not a huge fan of spiders and the Huntsman Spiders were very common in those caves (our tour of the Cairns area can also be named 'The Tour of Different Species of Gigantic Spiders') the caves were still very interesting.  I preferred the second one we went into (called Royal Arch Cave) which was huge, and we had to bring our own lights in with us.  It had lots of areas to explore, although we did have to keep to the path, but it was the kind of place that I would love to be able to just crawl around in for hours.  As we drove to Cairns, we stopped just before dusk at a supermarket in a tiny town to buy a bucket, sponge, and dish soap.  Borrowing the store's spigot, we spent the last hour of daylight meticulously cleaning our rental car to remove all evidence of red dust (yes, even behind the tires), thus decreasing the chance of getting a $200 fine for driving on dirt roads.  Satisfied, we drove the car back and spent the last 4 hours before our flight in the airport writing postcards.

We landed at 5:30 am, with enough time to get 3 hours of sleep before starting tech week...a topic of another post.  A post which will likely be written very soon as I still have no intentions of thinking about my paper.