We woke up at the crack of dawn again -- jet lag still there. Today was a beautiful day in Cairns (pronounced like cans -- beer cans, vegetable cans etc.). My travel partner went out earlier than I on a boat to Green Island. Since I am allergic to boats, especially those in the open water with people telling me how awful the trip is, I took a seaplane. Yes, I am spoiled but I work so therefore I will do it my way.
I cannot tell you how freaking COOL it was to do this. Got in a rubber dingy to go out to the plane. I must have lost my mind because I wasn’t even worried about it. There was a pontoon platform with a bunch of Chinese tourists waiting on us. There were three passengers for our flight, me and a nice German couple going to the island for a night.
Our British pilot let me sit in front. FYI this was a one engine plane, sweet cousin, I was throwing that in there for you. Additionally it was a 1950’s DeHavilland, they stopped making them in 1973. I felt like Amelia Earhart -- the window was open and I was just soaring through the air. The open water below us, the prop buzzing in front of me. Oh yeah and there was the Great Barrier Reef one of the most awesome sites in the world - I HIGHLY recommend seeing it by air at least once. I was disappointed I couldn’t get an hour air tour.
At Green Island we landed and stepped into a boat, my friend was waiting at the beach for us. Green Island is a money maker for sure. I took a semi sub to view the reef, again AWESOME. (I cannot say that word enough on this trip.) I wish I had more time here and had brought my suit so I could have snorkeled, but so is life.
Took a semi sub (ie it didn’t actually descend) with Nathan and his engineer dad (cute little boy who was SO excited about seeing the fish but not so excited about going back to snorkel in his body covering wetsuit). The reef was so alive, I do not know words to describe it -- it was like being in a reallife version of “the Little Mermaid” -- I was just waiting to see Ariel sitting on a reef somewhere with that talking clam ---the fish were everywhere and even saw a couple of seaturtles.
We had an awful hamburger at the cafe on the island and the one legged bird and his brother with the deformed foot made sneak attacks on our plates for some fries. Asian tourist were everywhere, one guy must have no fear as he just whipped off his khakis and ran around the island in his fruit of the loom boxer shorts. At least his shirt covered almost all of the briefs too. The ladies all walked around with umbrellas for shade.
Marineland Melanesia Crocodile Park was something from out of the 1950’s --- an ancient park that had live crocs in little bitty cages with a small thing of water - Cassius was 15 metres long. They looked plastic a little. In a way it was very sad. They also had massive croc skins and a wall of newspaper articles about croc attacks and photos of the victims’ eaten limbs, ugh gross.
Walked around island and on beach, I waded in the water. It was so warm it made me almost go buy a new swimsuit so I could snorkel. Had to wade out about 100 feet through seagrass to get to dingy for my seaplane (unbeknown to me it was jellyfish/ stinger season and we were both very fortunate not to get stung). The dingy even hit a reef rock on way out to plane -- lowest tide they have seen in years. The plane had to go out further to take off. I was the only one on that flight and it was wicked!!! Cairns Seaplanes I can recommend.
On the pontoon waiting on my ride, I saw a Tiger plane -- a 1930’s era acrobatic plane doing circles and dives. So in addition to me flying in an antique seaplane, I was treated to a free air show. How do I get a ride on one of those?
Once back I strolled through town and somehow ended up at my mothership -- I found the local MALL. Got extra camera battery (mine is going down too quickly), local cell phone and a mini traveling curling iron -- essentials. They even had a Target in there and the books were expensive.
Also went into luggage store and found Samsonite Backpack on super sale from these very nice ladies -- I told them I was so excited I could just about hug their necks. They had never heard that before and told me -- “Bless your socks” that is like our “Bless your heart”. They even ran after me when I left my water bottle. Nicer folks you couldn’t meet.
We ended up eating at a Greek Restaurant -- Adelfia. Was very good and had a few interesting other patrons in there -- bright florescent red hair?? At the local sports bar, we met some of the townie wild life -- Hank in particular and his buddies explained (or tried to) the difference between Aussie Rules Footie (“big hunks of meat” in their words) and Rugby (athletes) --- the explainers where Queenslanders so they admitted they are biased. Hank builds ecofriendly pools all over the world (I thought he was lying at first, but he wasn’t).
It is so refreshing to talk to someone who is so passionate about what they are into. Didn’t really get to sleep that early ---- Bless his socks, he was a funny guy.
Love it! However, I have to ask why did you buy a backpack?
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