Let The Adventures Begin…
- Sep 14, 2016
- 6 min read
Location:
Cairns, QLD, Australia
When you have a through the night flight and arrive at your destination at six in the morning to then unexpectedly have to wait till eight for a shuttle bus to your hostel, it certainly takes its toll on you. After arriving at our hostel, ‘Gilligan’s Backpackers Hotel and Resort Cairns,’ we were abruptly informed that check in was not until 2PM. With much needed sleep a simple no-no, the question is, how do we keep ourselves entertained from now until then? The first thing we are going to need is a nice cup of coffee to actually help us stay awake. I found a fancy coffee shop just up from the hostel where you select from an array of coffee beans to suit all taste buds!
Cairns is the first stop on our exciting, four-week ‘East Coast Adventure’ and we have nothing planned for it, apart from having a ‘Whitsundays Cruise’ booked and having a rough idea of where we want to go. The problem is, nothing is set in stone. With things to sort out and a few hours to kill, we took a walk over to ‘Peterpans Adventure Travel’ for a bit of advice and guidance. Our travel expert Gemma, from England quickly pointed us in the right direction. She drew up an itinerary for us, of which we were very happy with. It’s certainly jammed packed with lots of exciting things to look forward to. Even though we have only four weeks, an extra week or two to use if you want to stay somewhere a bit longer would have been nice. While we are trying to fit a lot in, it is doable! How exciting! At least this time around in Queensland, we don’t have any farm work to face. What an experience that was. Let’s keep that door well and truly closed!
The day has finally arrived. That day we have longed for so long. You have seen photos of it, heard stories about it, been mystified over its beauty, horrified with man’s destruction of it and dreamt that someday you could see it with your own eyes. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the world’s largest coral reef system, welcome to ‘The Great Barrier Reef.’ One of the reasons I wanted to get my PADI licence is so I could dive here. Yes, I could find a really good snorkelling spot, but it just isn’t the same as diving. Our day out consists of two dives, which we upgraded to three for only an extra AU$20, which will help us to explore part of the reef and marvel at all its beauty. It just makes you think of how even more beautiful it was when man originally discovered it many years ago. The boat we were on was only a few months old which made the hour and a half trip a little bit more comfortable shall we say! By the end of the third dive, we were exhausted. Way too much nitrogen! Another major thing ticked off the bucket list. How lucky are we! Let’s just hope our children and their children get to enjoy it.
After an incredible day out at The Great Barrier Reef, we enjoyed some games at Peterpans before we all headed over to ‘The Woolshed’ for a free drink and bite to eat. Surprisingly, the food was really good and there was plenty of it. When the platter of chicken wings was put in front of me, I was a very happy boy! Myself and Jason chatted to a few people enjoying a couple of cheap drinks. Not a single glass of ‘Goon’ insight. What horrible stuff. Towards the end of the night, Rupheo from Peterpans insisted on buying both of us a shot and as we left the bar, we bumped into him again and he gave us a kebab. He got each of us to take an end of it and pull it. I wouldn’t be into them myself, but this one was actually really tasty!
After a nice sleep, we were woken up to a man handing out letters to each of us in the dorm. I couldn’t figure out what the guys could have done to get all of us thrown out, but it wasn’t that. I never realised until now that the words ‘Don’t let the bed bugs bite’ are said for a reason. During the night, one of the girls woke up to a bed bug biting her at the eye. She quickly grabbed and trapped the bug and brought it downstairs to reception. As a result of this, all our things had to be put in a freezer for twenty-four hours and all of us had to change dorms while room 206 was heated to a whopping 70 degrees as the only way to kill the pests is to heat them or freeze them. They are not something you want to carry around with you. As the hostel was fully booked the following night, we found the ‘Jazz Hostel Cairns’ to stay in for a few nights.
Staying on the whole active theme, myself and Jason found ourselves on a lake, ‘Wakeboarding.’ Ok, maybe more kneeling on a board rather than standing. It was great fun. The objective of the game is to remain on a board while holding a rope which is attached to a zipline that pulls you all around the lake. Sounds easy? Jason thought so! In his first attempt, he managed to do around five laps before throwing himself off due to simply being bored. Me on the other hand had problems staying on it. When the rope attaches itself to the line, it pulls you with great force. And nearly every time I came flying off my board until I eventually got the hang of it and I managed to do a whole two laps without falling off. After that, I did a further two more. On each of those, I fell off just before I reached the finished line, but I was happy. What an amazing few hours. We wrapped up the day with food and drinks with Alex and Ash who came up for the weekend from their farm work in Cardwell to see us.
With four wheels, four of the five Bounce members and an itch inside all of us to get out and do something different, so, we went for a drive through the ‘Tablelands’ to ‘Josephine Falls.’ So far, we have seen some really cool things even though we have only just begun our East Coast adventure, and this was no exception. It really was like something you would see on a postcard. While taking some photos of the waterfall, some shouted that they had seen a snake. You would imagine that this kind of occurrence would be normal here, the truth is, it’s not as the slithery creatures tend to shy away from most human contact. Before I could get a photo of him, he simply disappeared! After that, I decided to join the guys in the pool and attempt to slide down some slippery rocks with them, which was extremely good fun. After a couple of hours enjoying the water, we left and went somewhere else. We were intrigued by the name of a place nearby called ‘Golden Hole.’ Not knowing anything about it, we all agreed that we should drive up to it. There wasn’t really much to see apart from a really nice river. But you have to be careful while in ‘Croc Land’ as you don’t want to be attacked by any crocs that could be nearby that could drag you from the banks of the river, and feed off of you!
As we got back from our Cape Tribulation tour in the evening time I made sure we headed over to ‘P.J. O’Brien’s’ Irish bar for a nice steak and Guinness pie which I have been looking forward to since the first time I tried one here with our friend Katharina over two years ago. It’s still as amazing as what I remember it to be. The following day we got some things sorted out, before enjoying a stroll along the esplanade with one of the girls from the dorm.
Cairns is such a cool place to visit. There is so much to do. You could keep on coming back every year and never get bored. Having the opportunity to dive at the world renowned ‘Great Barrier Reef’ was certainly something that I will never forget. It was certainly a once in a life time experience. With no farm work on the cards, this time around, we get to enjoy another few weeks of all that the East Coast of Australia has to offer! Something tells me that it is going to be one of our best adventures to date!
By Andrew
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