Sydney and Cairns

Ok this is feeling a bit like a distant memory to me right now. It’s been about 3-4 weeks since we were in these cities…

Sydney

• 

From Melbourne we flew to Sydney. Sydney is the largest city in Australia and with quite a different vibe to it when compared to Melbourne. Lots of men in suits and women in high heels sort of place with a lot of posh bars. Again, accommodation was expensive in Sydney as with everywhere else we stayed in this country, so we decided to book a hostel which was actually the cheapest option. We were able to get a private room right in downtown Sydney, however. This place was called the Maze, and it truly was a maze. Large building with a lot of hallways that seem to just keep turning into another long hallway lined with more turns to more hallways. The street was pretty cool too, there are about 5 Thai restaurants within a block and a couple Thai markets.  My favorite. We couldn’t help but eat at a few of them, not exactly Australian cuisine we know, but what is Australian food anyway? Meat and potatoes? Kangaroo? Anyways, the hostel was fine and in a good location. Definitely a party hostel with a lot of young Germans and other Europeans on gap year. You know you’re at a party hostel when a young pretty woman with a lot of makeup and all dressed up knocks on every door at 7pm every night to convince people to come out and party with her. We actually went to to grab drinks on our own and passed the herd of about 50 18 year olds, mostly dudes, lined up waiting to party. Sadly, we didn’t join them…

Once we arrived in Sydney we did a few things. Walked out to the Opera House, of course. Duh. But then, we mostly just wandered around town the first day. Took in the sights and ate plenty of food. Went to Australia’s oldest pub brewery and Sydney’s oldest Hotel called The Lord Nelson Brewery. Great beers and was a nice reprieve from the hot hot sun. From here we made our way over to the oldest library in Australia, State Library of New South Wales. This is actually a fantastic library. Giant walls lined with books and free wifi! We stopped in to steal the wifi for a bit to attempt make some plans, but we were impressed while here. And in case you haven’t noticed by now, Sydney or New South Wales Port Jackson where Sydney now stands, is the oldest city in Australian since the British began convict transportation to Australia and colonization began.  Although, this area is actually very rich in aboriginal history as well and they have inhabited the area for much, much longer. Fun fact that I did not know until recent, the Indigenous Australians are the oldest living civilization on earth. Pretty cool right? Sadly, today they only make up about 4% of Australia’s population.

Not going to lie, I don’t remember everything we did in Sydney at this point. I do know that we went to the Australian Museum which is also the oldest museum in Australia and it taught us much about the history and culture of the Aboriginal Australians. I would highly recommend coming here if you stop in Australia. I wish we actually wish we saw more things to do with the oldest living culture on earth, but we weren’t super organized before coming to Sydney and didn’t do our homework there. There is supposed to be plenty of nearby Aboriginal rock art. I think that would have been worth the trip. The museum also had a exhibit on mammoths which was cool and a hefty gemstone collection as well that was worth checking out. Besides the museum, the only thing that really sticks out to me is the free walking tour we did around town. By free I mean you pay them a suggested tip at the end, but it was well worth it for a 4 hour tour where we learned the significance of many of the buildings we kept passing plus some fun facts and odd little stories we wouldn’t have heard otherwise.

Cairns

We spent about 4 full days in Sydney then moved on to Cairns for some diving. I’m sad to say I really didn’t take very many photos in Cairns. Besides walking about the small town the only thing we did here of note was our dive and snorkel trips. There is an island about an hour boat trip out from Cairns (pronounced cans) called Fitzroy Island. Its nearly all a national park except the one resort on it. We paid to go out for the day and do some snorkeling and beaching. When we first arrived we chose to snorkel around a small portion of the reef that was just off the beach of the island. It was stinger season so we had to wear these pretty awesome lycra suits. We looked over prepared for snorkeling but at least we didn’t have to worry about getting sunburnt or more importantly we were protected from the box the jellyfish that get washed in with the tide this time of the year. We were talking with someone and they told us it isn’t actually the jellyfish sting that kills most people but the shock of the pain. Eeks! So thankfully you can still get in the water with a little extra protection.

The coral off Fitzroy Island was actually more that I thought would be right off the beach. The beach down to the water was a coral beach which was absolutely beautiful and once you’re in the water you only swim for about a minute before you’re deep in coral. Yea, a lot of it is dead like they say, but it was still really stunning. Not as colorful as you can imagine it was maybe 20 years ago, or hell maybe even 5 years ago, but there was still life worth seeing. Just good reminder of how much work we have in turning this planet around. Under the sea, as they say, there were giant clams which I adore. They come in so many colors and some are so large they can’t even close. There were also more kinds of coral here than I’d ever seen before. I realized I haven’t actually ever seen soft coral before either so that was pretty awesome. We snorkeled for about an hour before we finally decided to take a break for lunch. There was a little cafe with a beach front view with cold drinks. Yum. Next we went on a hike through the tropical forest over to another beach a bit more sandy called Nudey Beach. Despite its name, it is actually illegal to be nude on this beach. Just named for someone with a pretty cool name I guess. We had this beach entirely to ourselves which was awesome! Well, there was a bit of a tropical rain on our way over there so that might be why, but nonetheless, it was gorgeous. So many different types of shells here! I was obviously being a big dummy and didn’t bring my camera. But its in the mind and I might have a few pics from Robin’s phone I can steal for you to get an idea, and for us not to forget! After perusing the beach for washed up coral and shells for a while it was sadly time to head back to the mainland.

• 

Of note, once back at Cairns downtown, we found out they have Speckled Flying Foxes!  These are a species of giant fruit bat. Thousands just soaring around! It was pretty amazing especially because we weren’t expecting it. Apparently they were in the trees in downtown the whole time and we didn’t take notice. At night they wake and all fly back to the tropical forests to feed. After dinner and the bat show, it was time to hit the sack because we had to get up early for our scuba trip in the bright and early AM.

We booked a small overnight sail boat that accommodated about 15 other guests. This was an older boat with bunks, no rooms, and only 2 toilets. It wasn’t pretty, but it was cheap and got us out to the Great Barrier Reef and that is what was important. We booked 1 night and 6 dives. That was about 3 dives the first day + 1 night dive and 2 dives the next day. We were supposed to hit about 4 different locations, but the waves were pretty choppy from a tropical cyclone that had passed through the area a few days before we arrived unfortunately. This made for quite a few sea sick mates along the way and out at sea (including myself), as well as strong currents. Instead, we ended up staying in only 1 location. Fortunately for us it did have several different dives sites.

Robin and I both felt we’ve seen better living coral in the past. I think the reef was definitely massive and still impressed, but didn’t leave us with the awe that we had hoped. I guess a lot of that was to be expected with more recent decline in coral health around the world, especially in the Great Barrier Reef. If you haven’t seen the documentary Chasing Coral, you should watch it. On a more pleasant note though, we saw more giant clams and Robin saw a sea turtle! And of course, we still saw plenty of amazing and different coral species. Our night dive was cool too and I saw a bioluminescent something, although I’m not sure what it was exactly as it came and went so quickly. It was admittedly a shit show on the night dive though. We think we had too large of a group and there were a few too many inexperienced divers and dive masters in training that people were all over the place. Thankfully, these were pretty shallow dives around 10-18 meters mostly hovering around 10 meters so safety was less of an issue as far as changing depths and surfacing goes.

I will also say swimming back in the current and waves was a bitch too! I actually needed a tow from one of the instructors half way back! haha… I was seriously huffing and not covering a lot of ground. Supposedly the future sites were supposed to get better with each dive as far as coral and fish go, although I don’t think I could have handled much worse waves if I’m being honest. The particular site we were moored at had several bombora that broke the waves coming over the main continuous stretch of reef giving us more protection and relief. The other sites were much less protected, which would have given worse water conditions for those on board, and worse waters for those swimming back to the ship. We were thankful we didn’t move and I think so were the others. Overall, it was still a great ship with a lot of really great people on board. It wasn’t a lavish trip, but was really raw and to the point. Lots of diving at a good price point. I think we were pretty happy!

Now off to Japan! Tokyo, here we come!