Cairns Plans
Yesterday, in Cairns, our plan was to figure out what diving trip Jim would take and what snorkeling trip we would take together. It was a sticky situation. Jim didn’t need to come snorkeling except for the fact that I can’t do it myself since I can’t swim and I am scared of the water and I basically clutch on to him the whole time and he holds me up when I get water in my mask so I can empty it. And I HAVE to go snorkeling because this is the stinkin’ Great Barrier Reef! It is really unfortunate that I am such a retard because it means we have to pay for him to go.
So we were going to snorkel and then he would do a dive trip for a few days and I would go ahead to New Zealand, like we did before from Thailand to Oz.
Then we wandered into a dive shop for Jim, which happened to be the best one, and because they wanted to fill the boat for the trip the next day, their package was $150 cheaper! And the boat was brand new and he’d get a room with only one other person in it! So of course he had to take it since it was a great opportunity. He will be doing something like 10 dives in 3 days on the outer reef.
He left 6am this morning and I moved from our hostel which was outside of town (we got 2 nights free there w/a package) and into a hostel called Gilligans, which is so freaking nice it’s like a hip luxury resort. It’s amazing.
The only problem now is that I am stuck here for 2 1/2 days before he gets back. The only good thing is that he can’t fly for 24 hours after diving, so the snorkeling will fit in well.
So my job was to find some little day trips I could do on my own. There were many options, like going horseriding, canoeing, fishing, on a scenic railway, to near-by islands, waterfalls, the zoo and more. It’s a shame since they are all so expensive!!!
Then I finally thought, we are going to NZ, so we will get our fill of beautiful landscapes, waterfalls, mountains, etc. So I thought I should do something “Australia”.
We also decided that if we didn’t see a Kangaroo in the wild, we should go to a zoo in Cairns. So I think I will go to the zoo and see all the Aussie critters we didn’t see. (We only saw a koala).
Then the tour guy pulled out a brochure that made me cringe. It was called “Tjapukai” and it is basically an Aboriginal Theme Park. Can you say, EWW?!? When he showed me the brochure, I said, “That seems a little weird to me.. isn’t it kind of…exploitative?”
I mean, that’s like having a Native American Indian theme park in the US. Then again, there probably is one of those somewhere.
But the guy said it isn’t like that and the brochure made it sound more like the people were happy to share their culture. And when I thought about it, it fit my qualification of being “Australia” and something I couldn’t see somewhere else. And you get to see and try throwing a boomerang and see didgeridus and dances and stuff, things I will never get to see again. So I actually might go.
The good news about the zoo and other thing is that I can take the train to them and not pay some huge fee for a package deal.
Tags: Australia
Kelly
The Wings knocked off those fast little devils from Nashville…. Stevie looks like a young guy playing. Whatever you do, don’t bring back any kind of bug with you. We are infested again with the Japanese beetle (ladybug lookalike) that bite and are everywhere. Perhaps you had them in New York? Anyway, we need no new species back here.
Dad
There was some Canuck here that gave us the lowdown on all the scores. I read an article about Stevie online, too. You have beetles and they bite?? I don’t remember those. Sounds like they came from Japan though!!! It’s not my fault!