Tropical North Queensland, Friday Feb. 1

Sooooooo...
I fulfilled what has been one of my life goals ever since I was little when I dove the great barrier reef on Wednesday. There were only five other certified divers, so it was a good small group. Everywhere I go, I make new friends who I will never see again. I dove with a terrific young German couple, a funny Italian, an American, and a dutch lady. The visibility on the three dives was only about 20 meters, so I've seen clearer water, but I've definitely never seen so many different kinds of fish and corals. The diversity was astounding. I saw some coral trout (grouper) and parrotfish being cleaned by cleaner wrasses, and many fish that don't live in the carribbean. Yeah I know I'm a nerd.
The snorkelling was better than the diving because the top 5 meters of water were crystal clear. The reef was shallow, the fish were everywhere. I saw anemones with clownfish, giant clams, a school of squid...
I didn't take any pictures except one of our dive group. I wasn't able to post pictures on the computer at parrotfish lodge, where I stayed in Port Douglas, but I'll try on this one. But the reef was pretty much just like the postcards. After diving, I snorkelled for about half an hour after everybody else was in the boat, and finally they called me in and got ready to go.

Once back, I decided to go for a little walk all the way to the end of 4-mile beach, where I went looking for crocodiles in a swamp and ended up only finding about a billion mozzies (mosquitos, for those of you who don't speak aussie). Ended up being about a 10-mile walk, the end of which found me in the dark and the rain. By the way, the rain in queensland is the warmest I've ever felt. It's almost not even refreshing.
I've been buying groceries a little at a time instead of eating in restaurants. I eat a lot of bananas because they're cheap.

Thursday I was a little tired from my diving and walking, so I decided to rent a mountain bike, ride for 40 minutes to a trail and hike an hour and a half up the steepest hill I've ever climbed. About 15 minutes into my hike I ditched my backpack and hiked up with just my camera. I didn't see any sign of human life during the whole hike. But I did find some wild cockatoos, cool butterflies, a waterfall, and some great views of the coast and the Mowbray River. I climbed to the top of the "bump track", an old gold mining track. It was so steep that on the way down, I was basically sliding or running most of the way.
I got back to Port Douglas and ate a Mocka's meat pie (recommended to me as the best in Oz). Then Barra Bill Clarke picked me up and we went fishing. We saw a little 2.5 meter croc on the way up the river, but the fish weren't really cooperating. There were four of us on the boat: Bill, a newlywed couple from Melbourne, and me. At the beginning of the trip Bill said the girl always catches the first or the biggest. She caught both. And the only barramundi, about a 15-pounder. Bill was a great guy though. He entertained us by feeding the fish eagles, which he has made friends with. He said each generation of eagle came a little closer when he held up a fish, and the year-old eagle who is there now came close enough to catch the mullet in midair.

Last night I arrived in Cairns. I really wanted to go see the tablelands up above Cairns, so I hopped on the scenic train to Kuranda at 8:30 this morning. Some of the views were great, and there were some beautiful waterfalls, but maybe because I was hadn't eaten yet I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the ooh-ing and ahh-ing Asian family in the next booth. But once we got to Kuranda it was another story. I got some food and water, packed a little lunch in my bag, and took off down the road for Barron Falls. The train had stopped there on the way to Kuranda, but only for a few minutes and I wanted a closer look.
Along the road, I ran into a crazy old metrosexual who told me (with ridiculous hand gestures and standing on tiptoe at times) that I should go down weird road if I wanted to find a swimming hole. So about 2.5 kms from town, I found Weir road (with a "d" graffitied on the end of weir), and decided to check it out. I found my first kookaburra on the way, making its chuckling call. At the end of the road I found the signs that said "No Entry" and "No Tresspassing, Queensland Rail Property" over a gate. So just like the crazy dude told me to, I went around the gate, made sure no one was looking, crossed the train track, and went down to the lake. Instead of going swimming in the lake like he told me, I went down past the (small) hydroelectric dam and facility, careful to keep out of sight, and discovered an awesome valley of rocks, lakes, and streams, at the end of which was the huge Barron falls that fell several hundred feet down into the gorge. So, naturally, I decided to go take a look at the waterfall, weaving my way through the bush and over huge rock outcroppings, climbing, jumping, slipping, and staying out of sight as best I could until I reached the edge of the chasm. Then I stood in full view of the tourists on either side of the gorge to take pictures from the rock outcropping I had reached in between the two waterfalls. I'm sure I got a closer view of the falls than 99.9% of people that come up that way, but it was a little dizzying looking over the edge of the waterfall into the pool a couple hundred feet below.
I climbed across the rock faces just above the falls until I reached some even ground. I'm not even gonna lie, I almost died (or at least almost broke something) because the rocks over a fast-flowing river were so far apart I had to just jump for it and hang on to whatever I could grip. No, it wasn't that serious. But at a few points on the climb up the steep rocks with the water flowing beneath me, I got scared and thought maybe I should have gone back the way I came. But at least on the way back I didn't come across any snakes like I had when I was finding my way down to the waterfall.
There was a little stream with rock walls on either side a little bit above the falls, so I took a swim and got something to eat and just chilled out, nobody else around except the lizards and dragonflies.
After tasting the forbidden fruit of the riverbed above the waterfall, I took a little hike. I think walking is the purest form of transportation because it's just you, no machine or animal carrying you. And I'm getting good at walking pretty long distances.
I rode the train back down with a nice elderly couple from Wales. They were pretty funny. Everything was "fantastic!" or "brilliant!!". Then I walked a few miles around Cairns and up to "the serpent" hostel, where I'm staying. The showers are like pressure washers. Just thought you might want to know.
So I've explored north Queensland by boat, by scuba, snorkel, bike, bus, train, walk, hike, and by running into a random neighborhood from ferocious mosquitos, in the rain and shine, the river and reef and rainforest and waterfalls, mountains, cities, and behind the "No Tresspassing" signs, and I have to say it's a great place.