Our road trip to Cape Tribulation has been, well, a complete disaster! I think both Tina and I knew it was off to a bad start from the moment we left the hostel to pick up our rental car.
We woke up on this warm Saturday morning in Cairns full of the hope that the looming grey clouds that had been stationed above us for days would have cleared to reveal crystal clear blue skies and sunshine. Unfortunately, the thick blanket was still above us and there remained no sign of a break in the depressing weather.
Onwards and upwards though right?! We'd booked and paid for 48 hours with a car and pre-paid for 2 nights up in Cape Tribulation so the show must go on...
Or not.
The twats at 'All Car Rentals' obviously deemed us not worthy of the standard economy model so presented us with the biggest piece of s**t blue Nissan Micra i've ever seen. As Tina turned the key in the ignition it coughed and spluttered but then immediately died on us and this didn't fill us with hope for the onward journey. Even the dodgy owner couldn't get it started with all his tweaking under the bonnet so much to their disatisfaction we were given the keys to a better set of wheels. Not an upgrade I may add, just the car we should've had in the first place and not the crappy micra.
By this time the rain had become torrential and with wipers on full speed we trundled north out of Cairns in the direction of supposed paradise. I'd been looking forward to this trip to Cape Trib for about 10 months now so I have to
say my mood was particulary sour at this point. Infact I knew we'd hit a new low when we found ourselves in a McDonalds 15 minutes out of Cairns using their free wi-fi internet to 'pass the time'...oh dear.
You have to remember that where we were going is known for it's pristine white beaches, warm turquoise blue waters, spotless skies and vivid green jungle.... not the grey misty fog which is all we coud see. Livid is the word, livid.
Anyway, early afternoon we stopped at a little cafe for lunch (well a late breakfast actually and the BEST ((and only))eggs benedict we've ever had) and were warned that the creeks might be over flowing and to watch out for that, so dripping wet and with this new advice we hot footed it up to the Daintree ferry to make the crossing over the river to get to our accommodation as soon as possible.
Arriving at the ferry booth and being greeted by the spotty youth serving us remains seared in my mind as the ultimate nail on the coffin when he so helpfully informed us that Cow Bay Creek (the road north) was closed and there had been a massive mud slide so no-one could use the roads for at least a day. Bollocks.
I think it was at this moment that Tina and I just had to laugh because it couldn't have gone more wrong and things really were that bad. We'd paid for a car and accommodation we didn't even need and tears were close to being shed!
In desperation (and with the rain pelting harder and harder as darkness decended) we realised we were in a pretty bad situation with not only no mobile phones but no-where to sleep either. It was at this point we randomly ended up at a tiny cafe in the middle of no-where eating a homemade banana muffin and using their phone to call hostels for an unplanned bed that night.
Every cloud has a silver lining I guess so instead of dining on lobster in the 'garden of Cape Tribulation eden' we ended up in a tiny stop over called Port Douglas spending the evening drinking cheap wine and listening to a reggae band (who were actually so good we bought their CD).
I'm already working out how much it'll cost me to fly baCK here from Melbourne, hire a car again and have the experience we should've had this weekend....hmmmm alot. Damn!
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It's now the evening of April 7th, and indeed the night before my first ever suicide attempt because tomorrow I will be throwing myself out of a plane 14,000ft in the sky and hurtling towards to ground and certain death at a mininum of 200km an hour.
Thankfully I'm limiting my chances of succeeding by having an ozzy dude strapped to my back and pulling the parachute chord. This paragraph will be highly distasteful if anything actually did happen so sorry about that.
We are currently staying at a really nice hostel in Mission Beach called Absolute Backpackers, it's fairly new on the circuit and has a great layout and vibe. Infact Mission Beach has a great vibe too, laid back and tropical, just like how I thought the whole East coast would be.
We escaped from the grimness that was Cairns yesterday by booking a coach back down south, the
reason for this is to hopefully have better weather than we did on the way up and finally do our skydive and Whitsunday Cruise. Luckily the sky is predicted to be blue tomorrow, hence the booked plunge.
In 2 days Tina and I are planning on taking a water taxi over to Dunk Island* to feel like we've actually had some contact with the barrier reef because we sure as hell don't yet! The taxi is $30 return and this morning when walking past the hostel noticeboard I read an invitation to win a trip for 2 to Dunk Island...perfect!!
*This never happened, we wanted coffee and cake instead ;)
The only thing between me and my prize was a paper aeroplane competition, the furthest flight winning. Not taking the challenge lightly Tina and I logged onto You Tube to find a video on how to make a good paper plane, this was followed by some eager practice throws (from me) and Tina looking sheepish and worrying that I was looking "too keen".
As 7pm rolled round I limbered up and made sure my launching arm was warmed up nicely, my competitive
hat was firmly on, the prize was ours for the taking. At first only 3 people were there to enter, Me, Tina and a random Swede so things were looking very much in our favour. But then, out of the blue, 2 boys and 5 other girls shuffled over to compete. Suddenly our chances of winning were somewhat diminished but I remained undetered as my 'Padi Concorde' (a streamlined jet made from a PADI diving brochure) had flown strong and far during my pre-testing.
Eventually the contest began and a number of different designs were put forward. When it came to me I raised the arm, tilted the plane's nose slightly down and with a deep winning breath launched my creation high into the air.......
"WHAT WAS THAT?!?!" I yelled. Unfortunately, my fickle aerodynamic jet decided to be highly UN-aerodynamic
for the main event and did a stunt twirl and crash virtually next to my feet. It goes to say, I, nor Tina, won and who did?
The bloody Germans, grrrrrrrrr.
Aside from the fun and games we've had our house hunting hats on and have been knee deep in Gumtree applications for somewhere to live in Melbourne. Our flight is booked out from Hamilton Island to Melbourne on the 13th and Ant's mates Dylan and Lynn have very kindly offered to put us up again while we find a cool, chic, trendy, city pad....we hope!
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....WOW. wow. wooooooooow.
What an amazing past 5 days we've just had, although to be honest it seems alot longer. The clouds must have felt
bad for their behaviour over the last few weeks so finally decided to bugger off and allow us to re-kindle our romance with the sun and have (to be completely honest) the best five and final days of our East Coast travels we could have asked for.
The skydive in Mission Beach went perfectly to plan and will stand out as an unbeatable moment for ever. How can
you possibly beat the rush and excitement of launching yourself out of a little plane door into the sky?!?! That adrenaline buzz was something i've never had before and if you could bottle it and sell it on the streets i'd be a very rich girl.
Tina and I ended up being the last jumpers of the day and not only were we the only two paying customers in the plane, we got to go up and jump with all the instructors who were doing their 'fun' solo jumps of the day. Although I was initially worried about the sun's light being a bit weak for our DVD's it turned out perfectly and we ended up falling
through the sky as that dusky evening light began to take over from the blinding blue brightness of the day. The
poor cameraman doing my shots must've been feeling some pressure as he found out about my job and photography hobbie as well as me grilling him a little bit on his technique, styling and equipment!
With smiles still plastered on our faces the next day we took our last greyhound journey of the trip to Arlie Beach and had fingers, toes, legs, arms and ears crossed that the weather would hold up for our Whitsunday cruise. We knew it would make or break the tour and really felt it was time luck played along with us...
...and it couldn't have been more perfect. I'm not exageratting when I say there was not one single cloud in the whole
sky from the moment we left the marina on our boat Avatar to the moment we moored back into port.
Our skipper, a Kiwi called Neil, said that it was the best weather he'd had for the past 3 months and he wasn't wrong.
We got the stunning sunrise, sunset and stars that we bitterly missed out on in the desert and sucked in every single second of it. Shooting stars whizzed over our heads every few minutes and we could see the Milky Way VERY clearly, it was incredible!
The boat was great too, a huge 26 person trimaran with big nets to lounge about on and a host who provided a tasty
selection of treats to his passangers (Melbourne gyms here I bloody come!!!).
In between topping up the tan Neil took Avatar to some reefs so we could have a bit of a snorkel, unfortunately the
cyclone had left it's mark in the water and the visability was pretty poor but to be honest I was just happy to be out
amoungst the Whitsunday islands in the sun and water. Between November and May it is compulsory for anyone entering the water to wear a stinger suit, this prevents a nasty sting from the dreaded box jellyfish and certain death. The suits in question are pretty funny, tight blue stretchy all-in-one's and gave us some funny photo opportunities too :)
On day 2 we went to paradise. Definetely unquestionably paradise. Whitehaven beach must been the Whitsunday's most famous and photographed beach. The ice white sand is 98% silica, so pure that NASA paid the Australian government millions of dollars for 5 tonnes of the stuff to build the Hubble Telescope.
At low tide you can climb up to a lookout point which gives the picture postcard view you see on all the brochures and the combination of vivid greenery, white sand and turquiose sea is enough to take your breath away. Shallow white sandbars snake in and out of turquiose channels of pristine water to give this swirly painting effect on the beach and all you can hear is people exclaiming "Oh my god, look at that...".
Ok ok, enough of that basically if you're ever thinking of going...do :D
