Groovin'

Some of our room mates!

June and I with the spirits we won
from the SES (state emergency
service)
 

"Verte", resident gecko we would
watch from the living room patio door

Yes we are in tropical North Queensland, but we’re not talking about the Bob Marley type of grooving’.  The groove we got into was the “work” groove.  Amanda jumped right into the dental assistant pattern, and Nick was in the right place at the right time and was invited to join the maintenance team at Flightech for three months.  To soften the morning routine we decided to move out of the caravan park and into a share house.  This allowed us a few creature comforts and gave us some extra room to stretch our legs.  Every day in the house made the van seem smaller and smaller.  Along with the shower and much needed A/C came a complete kitchen to help mix up the backpacker diet.

1300Smiles team

Flightech team

While we were working hard we did take time out on the weekends to see Cairns and the area. Here are only a few of the things that makes Cairns and area such a great place to live:

The lagoon off the Esplanade
at night

Just a short distance from the apartment was the main street, The Esplanade.  Lining the quaint town were more gelato than one city could support, souvenir shops, as well as the spectacular night markets open till 11pm were you could find everything from kangaroo skin rugs to faux pearls. Along the shore line is the famous lagoon, where you can swim all year round, sans jelly fish.

The Pyramid 

Walshes Pyramid: 20 mins south of Cairns in Gordonvale is the highest freestanding natural pyramid in the world at 922 m tall.  For us it was a very steep 5hr round trip. Reaching the top you are rewarded with a 360 degrees panorama view of Cairns and the Coral Sea. But you wont see us in the august annual race for shortest time to run up and down the famous mountain.

Barron Falls

Just 25k northwest of Cairns is the mountain retreat village of Kuranda surrounded by the World Heritage wet tropics rainforest. It includes about twelve hundred species of flowering plants, eight hundred of which are rain forest trees. Not far from the village is the Barron Falls boardwalk and lookout. Beautiful!


Again high in the Tablelands, surrounded by the lush rainforest is Babinda Boulders, a popular attraction, the creek is lined with huge boulders and clear fresh water weaves between the obstacles to fill large pools where you can swim. Signs lined the boardwalks warning to enjoy the view but in certain places not to swim. So craving a swim we headed to Josephine Falls in Wooroonooran National Park. The waters of Josephine Creek plunge over granite boulders forming a turbulent waterfall at the base of Queensland’s highest mountain, Bartle Frere (1,622m). Surrounding the falls is mesophyll vine forest, the most complex rainforest type in Australia. We enjoyed sliding down the perfect natural made water slide.
Just recently we spent the night out a Lake Tineroo, one of the three man made lakes in the Tablelands. We have been lucky to see many sunsets in Australia so far and this one was a another great to add to the list. Nothing less spectacular was the sunrise, with fog a blanket over the lake and even frost on the van! That morning we met a man and his wife from Perth traveling Australia just like us. He was excited to show us the giant Barramudi (considered the premier fresh water fish to catch in Australia). The lake, being only stalked and quite a young lake, he was sure this fish was one of the originals put there for fishing!

Birdwing butterfly

So, almost 3 months have passed in Cairns. Great people from all over the world we have met. We have been so fortunate to both have great jobs at the same time, and that we were needed for such a short time. Each day we have taken something for what we have learned, living the good life here in Tropical North Queensland. No worries.

But before we say our sad good bye, there was one thing we had to do: get our Padi Open Water Dive certificates. Hearing Pro Dive had a great reputation, great value and good instructors, we needed to hear no more. As a treat, we saved it until we both had finished working. This was a good idea because we could totally focus on the 2 day in class, 3 day on the reef course. Our first day we met Jack, our dive instructor who would be with us throughout the whole course.  We started with basic skills in the pool like breathing and equalizing our ears.  Later we would put them into practice out at the reef like letting water into your mask which for everyone was uncomfortable. Taking off your mask fully was apart of that skill as well, and at 14 meters its no ones favourite.  Amanda got the Nick name ‘weight belt’ because she during a exercise were we had to take our belts off in the pool, she dropped hers, after that the nick name stuck.

curious nemo

Giant clam

  Practicing a emergency situation we exchanged regulators, we were taught buoyancy, putting your BCD (buoyancy control device) and air tank/valves together. Also extras like towing your buddy and cramp removal etc. Among these things were extensive in class knowledge. That was great but we couldn’t wait to get out on the reef and see the incredible underwater world. Sailing 3 hours north of Cairns to Milnn and Flynn Reefs, we were totally immersed in diving for the next 3 days.  The rough schedule would look something like:  Wake up 5:45am. Dive. Breakfast. Dive. Lunch. Dive. Nap.  Snorkel. Snack. Supper, and on the 2nd day a night Dive. The night dive was a wonderful calm atmosphere, not like any of us had imagined. With our torches we explored in our group of 9 what life was like after dark. By now we had become very comfortable in our gear and our surroundings. All our dives lasted around 35-45 minutes. As we were coming to the end of dive we still hadn’t seen a shark, but just as we were doing our safety stop a peaceful white tip reef shark slowly swam by. Amazing!
 It was almost unbelievable, even on our down time snorkelling we couldn’t believe what we could see just floating. Giant ‘bomies‘ of coral created different passageways on our first dive as certified divers. Always diving in pairs, we were briefed on the ’Tennis Courts’, a lining of huge coral formations (the bomies). Different tunnels allowed for neat explorations. We waved at our friends, you can smile with a regulator in your mouth!   It felt as though we were swimming in a fish tank you might find in your local dentist waiting room.

Already certified divers doing up
grade courses-navigation

So on completing our open water, we decided to take advantage of the deep dive course (certifying you to 30m)  which for a small cost was extra and we thought we should because we were already on the boat! Going down to a total of 25 m, colors change- Jacks bracelet went from bright red to dark purple. We even opened a pop can to see the effects of pressure. What do you think happened?Sights include but were not limited to: Clown fish complete with anemones, barracuda, 3 different green turtles, Christmas tree worms, parrot fish, a giant Maori wrasse named “Wally”, sea cucumbers and so much more.

Coming back into Cairns harbor the view was amazing, the mounatins and quaint shoreline you cant take your eyes away. We really were sad to be back on land and soon have to leave Cairns. Not to mention the 24 hr which really turned out to be 3 days, of dizziness you experience from being on the boat. That night off the boat we had dinner and drinks at a hot spot on the Esplanade with all our diving buddies. We shared our stories and had some great laughs.  Now we can dive with any other certified diver up to 30m anywhere in the world and it never expires! It will no doubt be a highlight of our trip.

Sully (the van) has expressed his enthusiasm to get back to the open road.  With a renovated “kitchen” and an overhauled carburetor he is sure to be a loyal companion.  He’s pointing his nose towards Darwin.  We will tag along for the ride.  We’ll leave you with our new motto: “divers are great under pressure”