Start of my Prodive Open Water Diver Course

We spent half the day in the classroom and then jumped into the pool for our first taste of breathing underwater! It was just as I expected, AWESOME!!! We learnt the basics like taking our regulators and masks off underwater and what to do if we ran out of air and all that fun stuff! 

Cape Trib Day 3

The rain kinda just kept on fallen and I had seen everything in the area except wild Crocs and was really excited to see them on the tour back to Cairns. I was not disappointed! We saw quite a few of them on the Daintree River cruise, even a monster 15 footer!!! It was pretty awesome! Now I’ve seen every wild animal in OZ that I wanted too see! I sat with a girl from Slovakia “Hana” and chatted for the bus ride back and afterwards we met up and went out for dinner to “The Woolshed”, this bar with really good food for a good price! After dinner they had “Goldfish Races” and I put my hand up for the Canadian goldfish and ended up winning all four races against opposing countries, there were eight in total. Expecting my prize would be a pitcher of beer or a t-shirt I was give a bungy jump voucher worth $130!!! OH YEAH! 

Cape Tribulation Day 2

I went for a hike by myself today down the beach the other way and went into the rainforest a bit but not to far as the sign said never go into the rainforest by your self. I also visited this little freshwater swimming hole with a rope swing and tried out my new camera underwater! I ended up getting my shoes totally soaked so I walked back barefoot like a true Aussie! Back at the hostel just relaxed a bit as the rain just never really stopped.

Cape Tribulation

I was picked up this morning by Peter, our tour guide. It was definitely the strangest start to any tour I have ever done. We drove about two block where this guy just randomly had a table set up on the sidewalk where we all had to check in and produce our vouchers and some were paying cash! It was weird! Most of the 18 people were on the day tour, but there were 5 of us staying up there all for different lengths of time. On the way up we stopped at the river, at a wildlife sanctuary, did a little daintree rainforest walk and stopped at a great lookout. After that we dropped off the day tour people and then were dropped off at our accommodations. I was staying at Ferntree, which the travel lady said was the nicest of the four to pick from. It was a very beautiful resort with great rooms. The three of us who were dropped off there all decided to go for a walk together and just down the road we ran into the other two who were dropped of at PK’s hostel. Pria from England, Steph from Melbourne and Milisa and Stephan from France. We did a nice walk down the beach to the area were the river meets the ocean and where a crocodile is supposed to live to see if we could spot him! We never did and walked back to the resort and all went out for a couple drinks that night.

Cairns

I bought my new camera, which is the new model of camera I previously had, the Olympus Tough 810. I did shop around a bit and managed to knock the price down a little so it wasn’t so painful on the wallet! It still really hurt though! But I couldn’t go to Cape Trib tomorrow without a camera right? Afterwards I went to ProDive Cairns and picked up my Dive Manual and was directed to the health clinic where I could get a dive medical expecting I would be in there for the rest of the day. I bet you I was in and out of there in about a half hour, I couldn’t believe it! So I was able to walk around Cairns for a couple hours and take some pictures with my new camera!

Cairns

My last leg on my hop-on/hop-off greyhound bus ticket to Cairns and I managed to make it all the way up the coast without having to sit next to anybody!!! I made it into the city and went right to the travel place to get some stuff sorted out. When I left I had my Cape Tribulation and scuba certification booked for the next 8 days or so. I ended up getting a super deal on my 5 day PADI course where I do 2 days theory and pool and then 3 days/2 nights on a liveaboard dive boat out on the Great Barrier Reef!!! After I went to go see how much a new camera would cost me and on top of already getting a bad exchange, the camera was about $100 more in Australia than North America!!! So I decided to try to fix my camera before I bought a new one. I managed to take it apart, but I could not fix it! Of course when I put it back together there was an extra screw from somewhere!!!

Tully River Extreme Rafting

I was the first to be picked up in the morning by Mauricio, who said there may be a possibility to be upgraded to the “Extreme” river rafting! I ended up getting upgraded and Mauricio was our guide for the day! It was really worth the extra all the others had to pay, about $40 for the upgrade! We left first, just 2 boats instead of like 8 in the normal group. We traveled much faster and went down the crazier parts of the rapids, stopped a couple places to cliff jump, float down the river in our life jackets and we flipped the raft right over at the end!!! I really thanked him for upgrading me! It was a blast! The only really downside to the day is my camera stopped working so I will have to get a new one when I get to Cairns!

Skydive Mission Beach from 14,000ft!!!

I watched the sunrise and then was of to do one of the most AMAZING things I have ever done in my life!!! Enough said!!! Before I did it I said I would probably only do it once, but I can totally see myself doing that again someday! In the afternoon I went for a jog down the road along the coast and then up the “Bicton Hill” lookout trail. Talk about an amazing view! WOW! Back to the hostel and in the beautiful pool for a refreshing dip!

Magnetic Island to Mission Beach

I would have loved to spend some more time on the island but it was a very expensive place! So back on the ferry at 10am and back on the bus at noon to Mission Beach. “The Treehouse” is the YHA in Mission and it was probably one of the most secluded, relaxed places I’ve been in the OZ. I cooked me up some lamb chops for supper and met two Irish woman and played a good game of Monopoly! In bed early though because I skydive tomorrow and then were off rafting!

Magnetic Island

This morning I booked my “2 day Mission Possible”, a beach landing skydive and a white water river rafting adventure! After I had that all settled I went for a hike and didn’t get back until sunset! I was very sore after that one was over! That night there was some trivia and out team “The Cunning Canucks”, another Canadian couple, myself and a Swiss woman. We came in third!

Airlie Beach to Townsville/Magnetic Island

On the bus for about 9am and about a 5 hour journey north into Townsville where the ferry to Magnetic Island is. My plan to get right off the bus and get a dive medical didn’t go as planned as getting one is not as easy as I figured it would be. Then the dive company wouldn’t answer there phone so I figured they didn’t want my business, so I will do a live aboard dive course like I had planned on doing in Cairns.

Meanwhile on Magnetic, a very beautiful island with these giant boulders all over the place, got settled into my hostel which happened to be a brand new villa!!! I went to the beach, climbed up some rocks and watched the sunset. 

Whitsun-day 3

On our way back we had great wind to set the sails and have an awesome sail back into Airlie Beach. Later that night we had a little after party and got some free food! 

Whitsun-day 2

It was a very early start to get us fed and over to Whitsunday Island and the amazing Whitehaven beach. There was a loop walk that took you up the hill to magnificent views of the Whitsundays and back on the beach we just relaxed and by 11am we were all back on the boat!!! Just not enough time at a place like that! But we had places to go and snorkeling to do! After two really nice snorkeling sites we headed for our last nights mooring spot.