Lamb's Head Walk

To start this one off we need to discuss the difference between a walk and a hike. When you spend 6 hours trudging through the rain forest to reach a 1300m mountain peak I would call it a hike. Australians would call it a walk.

Yesterday four of us went for a walk to reach the peak of the Lamb's Head range. This walk is said to be the best walk in the Cairns area, now we understand why. We went on this walk with two people from my work (Julian and Dave). The trail head starts at the end of a dirt road in the Dinden National Park. The first half an hour was reasonable mellow and the trail was a maintained path. After crossing over an old bridge made of tree trunks the trail got tough. The next long section was quite steep and had been worked into a set of steps to make it easier to climb. I don't think it helped. That section was exhausting and required a number of rest stops.

After the set of death steps the trail changed from the wider path to a single file track. We continued along this path for probably another hour through the trees and grass. Unfortunately, in Australia the leaches don't live in the water. They live in the grass. Every few minutes we'd have to stop for a second and flick off the leaches before they got really attached.

Then the track suddenly ends as you walk into a huge piece of granite. The next hour is spent climbing over rocks and through the trees and vines. Eventually you walk out onto a large rock clear of the trees. The view is breath taking. From the rock you can see Lake Morris which is our drinking water. You can also see Cairns in the background and Trinity Inlet. The walk was difficult, but the view was completely worth it. After having some snacks on this rock was climbed a little higher. At the highest peak in the range is a communications tower. We cruised up another little track to the top up there we refilled our water bottle from a rain barrel and grabbed another view. Julian has been on the walk several times before so he knew where to go. He took us through some tall grass and bush and we popped out into a clearing. The slope was harsh and the result of slipping was a long roll down the hill to your death. But again the view was amazing. Any of you that make it out here at some point should do this if you feel fit enough.

The guy in this picture is Dave, he's from England. In the back just under the clouds you can see Cairns. Such a good view. I want to go back already, except my legs are sore. See you later.

Nick

Babinda Kayak Trip

This weekend has started out pretty good so far! Nick and I took our jeep out to a place called Babinda. It's about 30-40 minutes outside Cairns. The countryside was full of little cattle ranches, horses, and rolling hills all mixed together with the humid rain forest. We drove to a kayak rental place called Kayak Hire. They have a cool website also.

Basically it's a married couple that runs a kayak rental out of their property. They have a very nice yard right above a river. You just leave your vehicle on their yard and hike down a small trail to the creek. From there they send you off downstream and pick you up at the end 4 hours later! You can rent single or double kayaks, we opted for single. It was such a blast! The river water is crystal clear so you can just look down and see every rock and fish underneath you. Supposedly there are turtles and platypus there as well but we didn't see those. There were a lot of fish and birds that we saw though. There were also a few fun rapids to navigate. Nothing to scary :)

About 2 km into our trip nick flipped his boat trying to show off ;) He was trying to turn to sharp and the current got him! It was pretty hilarious to watch except when his GPS sunk to the bottom (its waterproof). Lucky for him his GPS is bright yellow and the creek was clear. So he found it right away. I caught his paddle and held the kayak while he jumped back in. lol yikes. In the process he also dunked his t-shirt and our shoes which were strapped to the back of his kayak. Luckily I had the camera and car keys! The rest of the trip was really fun and we stopped half way through under a bridge so nick could dump all the water out of his boat.

The whole thing took us about 3 hours and the couple that runs the company was so nice and friendly! We had a great time and will definitely do it again soon. Then we went out for fish and chips for supper! (not the frozen Manitoba variety) Very delicious. Tomorrow Nick will be going paint balling with some people from his work! Good times.

Tara

Having a good time

Hello everyone. So our contact to back home has been limited as of late. We've been struggling with Telstra (equivalent to MTS). It was some weird glitch in their system that took several weeks to resolve where our phone number was still registered under somebody else. It took forever. Then, everything got sorted out and we got our phone and then several weeks later our internet. Two days into having internet, the modem craps out. So they're sending us a new modem, which takes another 3-5 business days. Yikes it been a headache. But there is still a week signal on our patio that we can grab some internet time with.

That being said, we do have a phone. If anybody ever feels the need to give us a call you can go right ahead. I'm not going to post the numbers up here because I don't know how public blogspot is and I don't really want to get any random phone calls. So if you want our phone numbers just fire me an email and I'll let you know.

Today we went for a drive up to Crystal Cascades to check it out. It's supposed to be a neat little stream flowing down the mountain in a bunch of little waterfalls and pools. It was nice. There was a bunch of people hanging out at one spot cliff jumping into the pools. It looked terrifying. Not for me. So we went to another little spot and relaxed beside the water. We didn't end up swimming because another tourist told us they saw snakes in the water. We didn't see any, but we didn't jump in the water either. Here's a pictures of Tara hanging out by the waters edge.

It was a pretty relaxing place to visit. But it's time to go inside and watch some rugby. For those of you who like sports, this is a good place to visit. Australians love their sport and they have some really great games. AFL is amazing, rugby is awesome, and surprising I even enjoy watching a little bit of cricket (but it's tons of fun to play, especially with a few beers). Later.

Nick

Finally

We've got internet. It's about time. For the last three weeks we've been going out on the patio trying to pick up other peoples wireless internet signals. It feels nice to be back on the net. Now we can make a few more posts.

Well this last weekend I made a trip down to Brisbane. I found a nice 99 Toyota Rav4 for a good price so it was worth the trip. Not to mention it gave me a reason to drive the coast and see a bit of what the country side is about. It's a long drive, but it's a bit more interesting than the flat and straight highway 75 that I've driving so many times. It's always fun to drive a new highway. It took 19 hours of driving time which I completed in a 24 hour period. One 4 hour sleep in the middle, a half hour for supper and a couple of gas breaks. Maybe next time I'll do it over a longer period of time to actually see some sights. By the way, Tara was working on the dive boat at the time, that's why she couldn't come with me.

Later.