I have been here nearly 3 weeks now, nearly every cent I have has been spent, and I have had such an amazing time here! Truly jaw dropping, leg twitching super dooper fun. Even the days where I have been hungover or feeling lazy, spending them beside the lagoon sunbathing with some awesome mates I met here, just enjoying the sun and all that Australia has to offer. Can life be better than this? If yes, I don't believe it. The problem with this, is that if I was to write about everything I have done and enjoyed here, this blog would be so long even I would get bored writing it. So I will try and be brief.
I can not stress enough, its not what you do, its who you do it with. That saying was something I had heard 100's of times before I came over to Australia, but it never really made sense to me, until I became a backpacker. Remember Andre and Martin?? They were in Cairns with me for 5-6 days, great guys, even just lazing about in the sun or walking around the night markets was a laugh. While they were here, we did a couple of small hikes around the mountains around Cairns, and lots of poker, so much poker. Every night they were here, we played poker drinking beer n goon until 3 in the morning then going out to spend the winnings.
The night life in Cairns, is well, amazing fun, so much fun! It's perfect for backpackers too, if you keep moving each hour to which ever pub or bar has the specials on, you can have a fairly cheap night. Example, PJ's does $7 jugs (2pints a jug) 9-10 and Woolshed does 2for1 11-12. All the bars are normally packed, which can be so much better, as everyone is just there to have a good time and dance, its hard to explain.
So bungy jumping is not as scary as I first though, less scary than skydiving. OK, I will admit, the first jump was probably one of the scarist things I ever did, but what a rush! I enjoyed it so much, I may have ended up doing it 5 times, 5 amazing adrenaline pumping times. As you can split you jumps over 2 days, I ended up taking Meike the first day and on the second day Ams and Rae, but more on them later. First jump was the normal swan dive, but then I went backwards and after that I ran off the roof. My last 2 dives though were swan dives, but with a watery ending. After asking them to "dunk me", they did just that, but maybe just a little too much. Don't think that because you can do all these crazy ways of bungy jumping that they will be more fun, I enjoy the swan dive more because its all about the feeling, but running off the roof was fun :p (Video below is same on my facebook). Imagine a pendulum, with you on the end of a 45m piece of wire going at 120kph and when your at the bottom of the swing just only a few feet away from the floor. I will upload a pic when I have them.
If you can, White Water Rafting is so much FUN!!! Its not scarey or dangerous, it is just such a fun thing to do. Meike was with me in the boat along with 5 others, on the great Tully River with grade 4 rapids (out of a range of 1-6). We spent about 5 hours on the actual water, or in the water as we did fall in quite a few times, but the instructors are great and a good laugh. A good thing was that after a rough patch of rapids, we would all wait at the end and watch the others going through to see who would fall in. The lunch site was a small cove half way along the river, next to some amazing waterfalls. Its difficult to explain how much fun rafting is, its something you just have to do, it's a team activity, as long as your with a load of people that is friendly and fun, you'll be laughing!
Scuba Diving, first thing I want to say is THANK YOU to Steve @ Donkey Divers. How it worked was I did all the theory and first 5 dives with him, and I did my remaining 4 dives over here on the reef. Don't bet me wrong, the guys and instructors on the boat I went on were freeking awesome, but not as good of a teacher as Steve. I knew so much more and had developed such better skills and habits in comparison to others on my trip here, that I was surprised I was still doing the same course. So once again, big shout out to Steve @ Donkey Divers, your doing a great job!!
I spent 3 days with the guys at Deep Sea Divers Den, spending 2 nights on the Ocean Quest, and it has to have been 3 of the best days of my life so far. 5 dives a day, starting at 5:30 am and last one finishing at 9:30 pm, I even did my deep dive to 29.5m. Ok, I have to admit, my first day wasn't great, as I was doing my last dives to get my Ocean Water Certificate, I had to join in with a group of 7 USA kids, who were a little annoying and clumbsy underwater. When they left, Leonard became my new dive buddy, an Australian dude, quite a good diver. I wont go in to each dive, but the Great Barrier Reef is truely a beautiful playground, whether it is day or night. My 2 favourite dives was my last morning dive and my night dive.
Imagine diving down to 10m in pitch black with a torch, not knowing which way to go, but then you see the first rays of the morning sun shine over this colourful reef. As those beams of light land on the coral, all the fish awaken and appear out of the rocks, the giant clams open up and a huge sea turtle climbs out of its cave and pokes it's head out of it's shell. My camera wouldn't work with such low levels of light, but this truly was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen! I had so much fun, I will be coming back to Cairns to work for DSDD in 8 weeks time, live on Ocean Quest and work towards my divemaster qualification.
OK I really need to wrap this up, as I did what I hoped to not do, make my blog waaaaaay too long. I leave Cairns on Friday, as I move to my next job on a cattle station which is over 600kms inland from Townsville, back to the outback I go. Its mostly yard work, 6 weeks, $220 a day 6 days a week, time to make/save some money so I can come back to Cairns and then go to work for DDSD. I will miss this place and all the awesome people I have met! FYI apparently I won't have mobile signal except for when I drive in to town every now and then, so this may be the last time you hear from me for a while.
Today, I had my 3000th visitor to my blog, yes 3000. No idea how, but awesome!
Anyhoo, I have made this long enough! Missing you all like mad, but having an amazing time here.
Ryan xx
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