Cairns - Blogabond

Cairns, Australia

One of the lines they like to tell you when visiting the Great Barrier Reef is that it is the only living organism that can be seen from space. Actually, you hear this often about a lot of things. Turns out it isn’t quite true—lots of things can be seen from space (http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/crew/exp7/luletters/lu_letter5.html).

But anyway, the Reef was amazing in so many ways. The fish life, coral life, colors, etc. It was also a lot of fun to do an introductory dive in the Great Barrier Reef. The day was even more enjoyable because we successfully were able to dive with no accidents and neither of us became sea sick! Woo hoo! I think we would have liked to do it again, but the weather turned nasty with high winds and it would not have been nearly as enjoyable.

Instead, we spent our last few days indulging in other outside activities and enjoying the great weather. We golfed at the Cairns Country Club and climbed/bouldered on some really interesting, sharp volcanic-like rock on Trinity Beach near Cairns. We contemplated driving 250km south to Townsville for a few days of climbing, but opted out of it. In doing research for this though, it looks like there are literally thousands of climbing route options in Queensland that haven’t been fully explored or developed yet. Any climbers out there looking to put your mark on Australian climbing? Queensland may be your place . . .

So, an enjoyable, low-pace last few days in Cairns wrapped up our time not only in Australia, but also abroad. I think almost three months traveling was just what the doctor ordered to recover from school, as I am feeling ready to dig into some work! Crazy, but true.

Joc on Rip It Up, V1+

Bouldering in Trinity Beach

Outer Reef--Turtle Reef

Cairns, Australia

Today we travelled to Cairns and then on to Mission Beach - Just a note or two to you all
#1) There is no such thing as a short hop around Australia
#2) Brisbane and Cairns have 2 airports (International and Domestic) and your ticket may not tell you which one you have to go to. (International also does Domestic flights and I wouldn't be surprised if the opposite was also true).

Guess what we did? Yup, wrong airport and panicked for 5 minutes as the one flight on the departures board to Cairns was already boarding passengers! Thankfully a nice lady explained about the other airport and after a short taxi ride we were back on track.

The flight with Virgin Blue was fun, beginning with the announcement of "This is a no smoking, no whingeing and no complaining flight - which includes the toilets which are fitted with smoke alarms and microphones!"

written by

The Wilde Family on December 20, 2007 from Cairns, Australia

from the travel blog: Australia

tagged Cairns and Brisbane

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Cairns, Australia

Well today was spent packing and travelling from Cairns to Sydney in preparation for the New Year celebrations. The flights ran smoothly and we checked in to our hotel in Darling Harbour in time for some dinner.

We ventured out to Chinatown and surprise surprise ate some chinese! Not a lot to report as we were all shattered and went to bed early.

written by

The Wilde Family on December 29, 2007 from Cairns, Australia

from the travel blog: Australia

tagged Cairns and Sydney

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Cairns, Australia

Hi there...

At this moment I'm In Palm Cove,
Just got my hire car... It's Crap! A medium size Nissan Tailda.. Black..

Had a wonderfull time with Nina and her Collegues..