Jungle, Bungee jumping and Scuba Diving!

G'day G'day!
(To quote a famous Australian song by Slim Dusty (1970), see the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT331BRkkP0 )

Today it is exactly 6 weeks since I left the Netherlands. I have already broken my record of being away from home (which was 5 weeks in Thailand in 2007). Yet i can say I am not at all homesick (excluding a few rare moments), and I am looking forward to the rest of my trip! In total, my trip will last 98 days, meaning I am not even halfway! For the people who started counting the second you read that or the ones that are too lazy to calculate: I will return in the Netherlands the 13th of november.

So, where were we? The last time I posted a story, I had just arrived in Mission Beach. Despite the fact that most people go there to either do a skydive or go rafting, Anko and I decided to keep the money in our pockets. Or rather, that we had already spent it on our way up teh coast. 'Cause for everyone who is planning to go to Australia in the near future: I need to warn you. Here, Down Under, a little creature wanders around that may be tiny but he is to be feared. Few people have ever laid eyes on it, but it must be around in abundance, cause you will find few tourists who havent been victimised by one of these little guys. I call it the Pawky Glutton. And though Australians dont seem to be bothered by it too much, it sneeks into tourists pockets like a hungry child would go for the cooky jar.
Seriously, beware! The Pawky Glutton makes money disappear from your wallet faster than you can draw it from ATM's. It will attack you in supermarkets, restaurants, bars, shops, and it's absolute favorite habitat is near touristic sites. I'm not even halfway my trip, but I am more than halfway through my budget. (Ehm, Dad?) And NO, it did not all evaporate into alcohol, it was the Pawky glutton. And crazy living expenses. And maybe a scuba dive or two. And a bungy. And...
Well, you get the point of my story: AUSTRALIA IS EXPENSIIIVE!

Ok, now i got that out, we can go back to my story. For us, Mission Beach was a place to relax. We had a hostel with a big pool in the middle, we rented some mountainbikes, met up with three Dutch guys with whom we started our trip at the airport and the first days in Sydney. They hadn't done a lot so far, and were now working at a hostel in Mission beach. Compared to them, we have experienced a heg of a lot of things. But then again, they are planning to stay a whole year, whereas we are only staying a few months. I guess the fact that you got a whole year makes you feel not as much in a rush to start seeing and doing things.
Mission Beach was a place where we could unwind for a bit, and really relax. At night a played the guitar again and we had fun without going very drunk. (Although one irish guy did manage to be enough drunk to take off all his cloths, grab a bmx bike and drive it into the pool. Don't think I have ever laughed that much! It should be on youtube within the next few weeks:p)

On tuesday the 13th we went to Cairns and booked a room in the most well known hostel there called Gilligans. Gilligans is a huge hostel, uncomparable to any place we had been before. When it is full booked, it can fit in about 1500 people. The is a night club downstairs, a big pool, even a gym to workout, and live music and later on a big party every night.
Sounds like a fun place for young people, right? Well, to be honest, I didnt really like it. Perhaps because I have been partying almost every night for the last couple of weeks? Perhaps because if you just once want a quiet evening it is hardly possible? Perhaps because the second night there were 4 couples doing it in our room at the same time? (I heard this from Anko, myself I slept through all of it luckily). It was a bit too much if you ask me.

One of the good things about the hostel was that we met a lot of people we already knew again. Two dutch girls from Byron Bay, 4 Irish guys, a swiss guy we knew from the whitsundays, etc. The fun thing is that everyone stays a couple of days in Cairns, so even if you are travelling up the coast with a day or two difference in your schedule, you will meet again in Cairns.

The day after we arrived in Cairns we went to a travel agency and spent most of our day planning things. Our flights to Darwin, New zealand and from Auckland back to Australia. We also booked a 2-day jungle tour from cairns, a bungee jump and I booked a scuba diving trip.

The jungle tour was called On the Wallaby. It was a complete change of scenery from the party/alcohol and sex atmosphere in Gilligans and I loved it. The first day we had an Aboriginal guy as tour guide, who taught us a lot about the vegetation and wildlife in the rainforest. We learned about a strangular fig tree, a tree that starts growing on a branch of another tree (host tree) and eventually shoots down its own roots and strangles the host tree. It was quite a cool tree to climb. There was a big lake where we went and could jump from branches into the water. Our group was also fun, with some girls from germany (can't avoid em here), a norwegian and an english girl, and two older couples from south africa.
In the afternoon we went to a little creek where we spotted 2 platypus animals! (Vogelbekdier)
Not everyone booked an overnight trip, so in the evening there were just 4 people staying in the hostel. The norwegian and english girl sat by the fireplace, Anko and I played a game of chess. Not every night should be that quiet, but for once it was great.
The next day we had a different tour guide, guy named Anthony. That day was a little more active than the previous one, with a mountain bike ride and a canoe trip. We again went to see a fig tree, which was shaped rather different thatn the previous one. Not as good for climbing, but this tree was just shooting out branches to establish itself on another host tree (the 4th one). If I come back here in 30 or 40 years, it might be twice as big!
The canoe trip was also fun, we fell over twice. The first was on purpose to tease the english girl in our boat, the second one was because Anko tried to climb in in a pretty stupid way.
We all got an Aboriginal face paint, and went to some waterfalls. The girls did a sort of water sling shot with their hair, which created some really nice pictures!
It were two really nice days :)

On Saturday we planned our bungee jump. Whose thick-headed idea was that?? Oh wait, it was mine.. We didnt do much in the morning, being a little bit nervous. At 1pm the bus came to pick us up and took us to the jump tower site. We got a short introduction, I was weighed on a scale to determine the rope length (didnt change 1kg since I left the NL) and then we were sent up the tower. You had to climb the stairs yourself all the way to the top. When you are halfway and you look down you think: Damn, this is pretty high already. When you get up there you think: no way anyone is going to jump down this deep!
But when you are up there for a while watching other people go, and getting used to the height, your nerve cools down. Until you are being strapped in and are led onto the edge yourself. Your feet are tied together by the rope construction, so you kind of have to hop over there. It looks pretty stupid, but you don't really think about that anymore when you look down. The guy behind you starts to count down, your heartrate starts to go up, and I remember that when I was up there i was hoping deeply the water wouldnt hurt to much. Because for some reason I had said to the guy that i did want to hit the water. Guess that when you do this you have to do it all the way.
5,4,3,2,1,go! I jumped off and that 1,5 second that you are freefalling are worth every penny. What a kick! I even forgot to scream or yell. When I felt the rope catching on i started preparing for impact with the water. I put my chin on my chest en held my hands up so they would hit the water first. I went in till my waist, and when i got out again, my nose was full of water, but it didnt hurt at all. I kept dangling up and down a few times till i was let down on a small boat and released from the harnass. Awesome experience!
I didnt buy the video or photo's though, so you will all have to believe me on my word that I actually did jump;)

I hardly had time to relax from this experience because I had to get ready for another highlight of my trip the next day: Scuba diving on the great barrier reef! This was one of the main reasons I wanted to go to Australia, and even though I had already done some diving during the Whitsundays trip, I expected this one would be even better. I had heard the water was a lot clearer here and the reef was also more brightly coloured. None of that turned out to be a lie! What an amazing place!
Anko didnt join me because he isnt a certified diver and believes diving is not really his thing. (Stupid!) So I was by myself that day, on a boat called the Silverswift. There were 14 different certified divers, and we went in two groups each with our own dive master/guide.
I did three different dives that day on different dive sites, and each one was amazing. On the first dive we saw a big turtle, which i could actually touch! We also saw an abundance of little nemo's (clownfish):) On the third dive we came upon a reef shark, about 2m in length, that was just a few meters away from us. Other than that we saw loads of fish, and amazing reef structures that were amazingly bright and diverse in form and color!
What I like most about diving is that you are in your own little bubble, feeling like you are in a world where you are not supposed to be. The underwaterworld is one hardly affected by humans, and its cool to see fish in their natural habitat instead of on your plate for a change.
I can definitely say this diving trip was the highlight of my Australia adventure so far!
(Sorry Anko, not because you werent there)

I am going to have to stop now, my pc time is over. I guess I told everything now. Yesterday we arrived in Darwin, and I guess the second chapter of our trip now commences. Outback, here we come!

Cheers, Jelle