Craziness in Cairns!!!

Hello people of the UK!!!

It's been a while since my last update (I've been so busy), so I thought it was about time I told you all what I've been up too!!

So on Saturday, I ventured into the city centre and decided to have a cultured day, where I visited the Cairns regional art gallery, which has some intersting work, such as 'Pisatols and Pavola', where an artist had grown up in a gun cultured family, so her artwork was about mixing the harshness of guns, with the more sweet things in life. With the aim of trying to give out the the message that even with the sweet, guns are a dangerous thing, so it was putting out a positive message. I also visited an Aborginal Arts centre, where aborginals from the local area had displayed their work and it was for sale. There were awesome pieces of artwork such as handmade boomerangs, didgeridoos (hard to spell). The aborginals paint about dreamworlds (which are stories about their tribe history, how they live or animals in their area); the work was totally stunning and I could have bought alot of the paintings (But the joys of being on a backpacker budget stoped me)!

So do you guys feel like a history lesson?! I thought I would explain a little about the aborginals, and how they have had a difficult life in Australia, and what has happened to them. Basically.......

The aborginals have been living in Australia with nature in harmony, for roughly 30,000 years, long before Captian Cook found the country. Since the 'white folk' entered Australia, aborginals were persecuted, and were killed for many centries, which people got anyway with, as there was no law to protect the aborginals and it shows how the aborgianls were viewed more as cattle then people. In the ealry 1900s, they were excluded from voting, pension rights, all these basic privalges citizens should have, so they were treated as second class citizens in their own country. It wasn't until 1949 they had the right to vote; now aborgianls are treated better by the country, but are still seen as being at the bottom of society and they have had very difficult lives; and now many now have become alcholics, which I see regulary in Cairns. This is only a very basic history of the aborginals, but it is intersting (I think) to find out about the lives of the first people to inhabit Oz and how they become persecuted by the whites.

On Sunday I went to the Great Barrier Reef, starting with an early start of 5.30, oh the joys, I'm such a morning person, with my cheery persona and great bed hair; but it was totally worth it!!! I went to Port Douglas, which is North of Cairns and snorkeled at the Agincort Ribbon Reef, visiting three barrier reef sites in the area. This reef, was an outer reef, which means it's less polluted and less harmed by humans, it's more untouched, so it's a more beautiful site. The company I went with, Silver Sonic, where the only company who had exclusive rights to visit it, so there weren't too many people, which was great! At first I found snorkling quite difficult, as whenever I went underwater, I instinctively held my breath, whereas the snorkel allows you be able to breathe  underwater easily, so after quite so time, (lol), I finally manged to relax and do it properly! This allowed me to stay in the water for long amounts of time and look around the reef, without having to come up for air; and the snorkel allowed me to see the reef with perfect clarity. It was just such a magical sight; there was a whole diferent world down there, which you definalty wouldn't expect from looking at the surface. I saw soo many amazing fish, of all varities, colours and sizes; unfortuanlty I didn't manage to spot any turtles, but on the last site I managed to see a reef shark!!! These fellows aren't particulary big, or too dangerous, so I manged to keep my distance and watch it as it swam around, it was just awesome. So after a full day of snorkeling/swimming, meeting some cool people, I was exhausted but so happy to have been there. It was also (I think...) the first time I've swam so far out in the ocean, and it's just amazing how powerful the current is, I would be snorkeling underwater for a while, and then when I lifted my head up, I would be somewhere, totally different, which made me aware of how powerful the tide/ocean is! Being at the Great Barrier reef was just such a different experience, as you see a whole different world, and it's great to say I've been to one of the seven natural wonders of the world one down, six more to go!!! Going snorkling really opened my eyes up to nature, and how important it is we perserve it, as well as giving me to the bug to try suba diving at some point for sure!! 

On Monday I had a two day trip to Cape Tribulation/Daintree world heriatage rainforest, and this has to be my favorite place I visited yet by a long shot. First we went on a river cruise on the Daintree river and went croc spotting!!! The crocs that lived in the Daintree river were salwater crocs, we manged to see two, first was Nelson a fully grown mature male and an 18 month croc, which was rather small, especially it's body, but it had a large tail, (unfortunalty it wasn't the best time/season to see crocs, mating season is soon, so we just missed out). New born crocs have a very low survival rate, as they are very vulnerable when they are young to many birds of prey, so their first two years of growth is very tough; and the majority don't surivive. Many people think that alot of people are killed by crocs, but there is only one death a year. One funny fact is that at alot of the beaches and places near water where crocs inhabit, they have signs, written in English saying 'warning crocadiles are in this area', so bascially don't go for a swim or you may have a surprise and loose a toe or something, but it is also written in German, as 80% of croc attacks are on Germans (so either crocs have an appetite for them, or the Germans are just silly and a bit too curious!!!)  After this we headed onwards to a boardwalk of the rainforest, which was just WOW, it felt so sureal to be in a rainforest, it was a very magical place, I'm telling ya! I saw a huge number of plants, and trees, which were just beautiful, and so differenrent to what we have back in the UK. Most of the trees are very talll, as they are fighting upwards to get sunlight, and then you have plants which gow all along and up the trees, and basically live off the tree, very clever things! I also saw my very first spider, a hunter spider, which was small, but had long thin (creepy) legs and packs a powerful bite! On the tour we also managed to see a dragon lizard, which was very well camflouged on the tree and so still; which allows it to avoid attacks from predators such as snakes. Our guide, Deb, also told us about green rainforest ants, which you can eat; and their bums taste of an acidic lime zingy taste, which some people tried, I was going to, but wigged out at the last second! After this, the tour group went their seperate ways depending on where we were staying for the night. I stayed at the Ferntree hostel, which was so awesome, very secluded and quiet. What made it awesome was that I only shared the dorm room with one other person; Meredith, (an amercian girl, who was studying a semester in townsville), but visiting Cape Trib as she was on holiday, she was really cool and we went for dinner together later that night at a funky restaurant and had a good cooked meal! So basically it was a luxury as a packpacker to be sharing a room with just one other person and having an en suite, happy days!! But before that, I ventured to the Myall beach, which was so beautiful, white soft sand, a blue sea, which was around 26 degrees. But I didnt go in for a swim, as there are jelllyfish in the sea at the moment, and the box jellyfish season is approaching, these jellyfish have very poisonous tenclaes, and they can cause excruciating pain, one of the worst pains imaginable I have been told, so I deffo wasn't rsiking that! I then went to a more secluded beach, were there were very few people, it was so peaceful, and I was just in Heaven!! I also went to the look out point, where you could see the whole beach and the surrounding rainforest, I could have stayed there forever, ha!

The next day I decided to really push myself into uncertainty, as I decided to go horse riding for the first time, crazy I KNOW!!! Our tour guide, told me about it and really recommened it, and I thought you only live once, and just had to have a go! I was slightly nervous and apprehensive, being a total novice, but the guys paired me up with Billy, an old timer, who was an easy ride for a beginner! So on the ride, we went through parts of the rainforest which were privatly owned, so I wouldn't have been able to see them otherwise and, seriously words cannot describe how amazing it was!!! Later on we headed onto the beach and I cantered for the first time along the beach and then again in the rainforest! It was such an amazing feeling, riding a horse fast along the beach, it was such a rush! So I was so glad that I pushed myself to do something, very out of my comfort zone and, it was probably my favorite experience so far!

The next day we left Cape tribulation (to my sadness, it was such a beautiful, secluded place in the world, were I could happily live forever), and headed onto Mossman Gorge. This is a part of the rainforest and is protected, and looked after by a local aborginal tribe and has many laws protecting this special area. The Mossman river flows through here and there are huge boulders in the river, it's a perfect place to swim and cool down (which I did, the water was a bit chilly at first!!). In the summer when it gets very hot, many aussie's come to places like these (waterholes) which are safer as the sea becomes full of dangerous stingers (jellyfish).

We then headed to Port Douglas, which is a beautiful port town, north of Cairns and has a 4 mile beach, happy days!!! Unfortunalty I only had half an hour to explore it, but it had a great vibe to it, and I will definalty try and go back some time for longer. After that we headed home, back to my hostel, which I really love, the staff are awesome, and really friendly, there's a pool, and hammocks to chill under, it's going to be difficult to leave as I've really settled in, but I feel I've done everything I want to, so it's time to move on. Tonight is pizza and beer night at the hostel, woo, so it should be a fun last evening at Tropic Days with everyone!

So that sums up what I've been doing for the past few days! Yesterday and today, I'm just having lazy days, reading in the hammock (The Girl with the Drago Tattoo), which I'm enjoying much more than I expected, and going into town, which I have now become much more familar with and don't get lost as most, I really have no sense of direction (but it's getting better.....) I've also resisted the urge to go to the casino and gamble!!! I've basically been waiting till Friday morning, where I'm getting on the Oz Experience Bus. For those of you who don't what it is, bascially it's a bus catered for backpackers with a tour guide, which takes you to different places all over Aus, and they help you to arrange things to do on your trip; the great thing about the bus pass is, that it allows you to jump on and off at different stops, for however long you want! I've got the Cobbler pass which takes me all along the east coast, from Cairns all the way down to Adelaide. So tomorrow morning, I'm getting up at dawn (half five, YUK), catching the bus, and heading to my first stop Mission Beach. Misson Beach is a few hours drive south of Cairns, and I'm staying there for just one night, as it's quite a small place, so there isn't a huge amount to do. Then the next day I jump back on the bus and onwards to Townsville and Magnectic Island, where I planning to stay a wee while, and who knows maybe stay longer if I like the place, and possibly get a job?! Just going with the flow, is one of the many joys of being a backpacker! So I'm really looking forward to the next stage of my adventure and seeing yet more sights!

Until next time, Angus x

PS, sorry I haven't put up any more photos, many places don't allow it, like the hostel (because of virus etc), so it's very difficult to upload them, which is so frustrating as I've nearly maxed out my space (300/400 pics) and I really want to show you guys all the amazing sights I have seen, as it's so difficult to put them into words! So please bear with me!