Still Cairns:/ Aww f*ck it!

Today is Wednesday the 20th November 2013, 4am and I'm at Cairns Domestic Airport and waiting for my flight to Sydney...but better start where I finished last time.
After my day in Kuranda I had a trial for a job as a travel consultant in Noosa. However I thought I did a really good job during my trial I could not get the position...but that is maybe even better because I had to commit the job for 6 months...
Anyways some days later at Thursday, 14th November Sam called me and told me he was gonna take me for a swim to the Tablelands where a famous waterhole called Boulders has been waiting for me.
So he picked me up in the morning and we made our way to the Boulders.
At first we came to a big creek with a tree hanging over the water that wanted to be jumped from.

Here you can see the famous platform diver,                                  Sam Schubert!

Later on we came to the real Boulders, named after the big rocks which are also called                                             boulders.

Here Sam showed me a jump spot from where it goes 12m down into the deep water so what                           are we waiting for?

Unfortunately Sam is a platform diver and no photograph so he had some difficulties with my camera and could not take a photo of me during the flight...looking like a kangaroo leaping forwards here...

Exploring the creek we found Squirtle(Schiggy) or better Sam just jumped into the creek and came back with the turtle before I could even get what he was doing there.
Another awesome day with Sam! Thanks for that!

Well...then I looked for a job for a couple of days but, damn it! , no job to get in Cairns... I called about a hundred fruit picking farms around Cairns and not one farm needed another back backer...then I called some partyhire companies like the one I worked for in Brisbane but also no luck for me. So I walked through the city looking for a job asking people and friends and got some numbers to call but nothing more than "We don't need anyone at the moment but send us your CV and we'll call you back." Well, I sent my CV but I'm not gonna have a job soon and I don't want to wait several weeks for a job in Cairns with the wet season coming now. With no expectation to get a job soon my mood was not really good until I thought...aww f*ck it! I'm just gonna leave Cainrs!
But where to go? I thought of Brisbane and Sydney and called my former employer in Brisbane but he told me I could not work before January and I needed a job so I decided to go to Sydney which is hopefully the right choice!

This weekend I was homeless because my hostel was fully booked but fortunately I got an Australian friend in town so I could sleep over at Sam's. Thanks for that again mate!

Here is now a picture of the lagoon in Cairns:
Unfortunately the water doesn't get deeper than 1.50m but still my favourite place in twn.

The next post will be written in Sydney see you there!

Cairns!!!

Cairns:
Cairns!!!!Damn too good here! Well....I arrived in Cairns on the 19th October and straight checked in the Koala's since I got free vouchers for 3 free nights there and it was the worst hostel so far in Australia but since it was free I'm not gonna complain about it.;) That evening Sam texted me where we were going to meet for some beers and we met in the Bavaria Beerhouse, a quite nice spot with too damn expensive German beer. Robert and Fanny and Yvette also made it there so we were in a good round!

        My first beer in Cairns! -with Sam

The first couple of days in Cairns I spent exploring the city, going out in the evenings and going to the lagoon and botanic gardens.

Botanic gardens:

Then on Tuesday(22.10.'13) my tour to Cape Tribulation started and we went up there in a small bus everyone with his luggage.

                       Poor cassowaries...

At first we went to the Daintree River to make a river cruise and we were even lucky and actually been able to spot some crocodiles!

                           Massive animals!

 But u're warned so own fault if u end up as a                          snack for a crocodile....

Daintree River contaminated with crocodiles!

After that we had a brief bush walk in the Rainforest and got dropped of in our accommodation next to the Cape Tribulation Beach.
I used that afternoon walking on the beach and going to Cape Tribulation with some other guys of my tour but it started to rain heavily quite early in the afternoon we didn't do too much.

        Cape Tribulation a gorgeous place....


The next morning I forced myself to get up at 4am because I wanted to see the Rainforest by night but didn't want to get lost so I decided to do it before dawn so that it would get bright soon. I walked in the Rainforest for a couple of hours and got back at my hostel at around 10am-perfect timing to have breakfast!

                        Rainforest at dawn...

                          Parasite tree or so...

             A garden in the top of the tree!

That afternoon we got picked up again and made some stops at good lookouts on our way back to Cairns and also had a meeting with an aborigine at Mossman Gorge where he told us about the relationship between the aborigines and he Rainforest.

                             The lookout...

              Aborigine in Massmann Gorge

             Swimming in Mossmann Gorge!

Back in Cairns I changed my hostel and went to The Jack a damn good hostel which is not only cheap it also has really good rooms with even own fridges in the rooms!
The next day(24.10.'13) my dive course with ProDive started and I was quite exited how it would be! So I got picked up quite early and at the training centre I got to know my "class" that consisted of 8 people, 5 of the Germans of course!
The two training days there consisted of watching videos about diving and talking about it and practising the use of dive gear and skills in the pool. The training days finished with an exam that you had to pass to go diving on the boat but no worries about that!;)
So the following morning we got picked up even earlier because the boat was departing early in the morning and we got welcomed at the boat with a nice tropical breakfast.

                           The ScubaPro II

 We needed almost 3 hours to get to the outer Great Barrier Reef but once we got there our first dive in the Ocean started immediately! And it was awesome! We didn't practise a lot of skills since it was our first dive and we should get used to the ocean first and just saw around to see the reef.

 The reef how it looked like from the boat

        Big fishes swimming around our boat

           Amazing sunset from the ocean...!

And the reef is so beautiful I was really glad I decided to do that diving trip and go to the reef even already after the first dive.
That day we had one more training dive and practised some skills. Whenever you got out of the water there was food waiting for you and the cook even did a really good job!
The next day we finished our open water course with two more training dives and got our certification then. My first dive as a certified diver I dived with Brandon my american course mate. You only dive with a dive buddy and never alone because it is safer.
On my first dive as a certified diver I have seen my first shark(!),a whitetip reef shark along heaps of blue-spotted stingrays and a massive Humphead Maori Wrasse!Massive!
That evening I decided to make a second course too the adventure diver because as an adventure diver you are allowed to dive deeper and in ship wrecks.
At the evening we had a night dive....after dinner some of the stuff that was left was thrown into the ocean next to the boat and attracted heaps of fishes that attracted also a lot of sharks so at some stage the evening I just heard the call "There are so many sharks in the water" and I was not the onlyone who heard it because a minute later everyone was outside to see the sharks.
Unfortunately they were gone by the time we went into the water for our night dive but it didn't take a lot of time for the first shark to get in sight. Our dive instructor knew that part of the reef very well and could show us all the special places and how to find different kind of freaky fishes. At night you can see the freaks of the ocean. Back under the boat we turned of the torches and just waited a couple of minutes and then the sharks came. We were surrounded by grey reef sharks which didn't come close to us because they were very shy and scared of humans. When we turned on the torches the sharks disappeared immediately and we climbed out of the water.
On our last day of our diving trip we started with a deep dive and got down to 28 metres and there I got bitten by a big white fish who didn't want to disappear out of my area.
To finish our adventure diver course I had to do a underwater naturalist or and underwater phographist dive and decided for the second one. Me and my new dive buddy Sarah hired a good underwater camera and went out for our certification dive and to make some good pictures. Unfortunately the people on the boat didn't fully recharged the camera battery so that it turned off after only half of the dive but the crew gave us another underwater camera for a.second dive for free and Sarah and I took around 500 pictures within one hour of diving so that a few would turn out as good ones then.

                     
                                Me diving...

Three of probably a hundret Anemone Clownfish pictures...but at least I found Nemo!

             A parrotfish...very common in the                                      Great Barrier Reef

A small clam shell...there were giant ones over                               a meter tall!

           Me with a blue-spotted Stingray

That dive was already the last dive of the trip and after everyone got out of the water we set sail back to Cairns.

Back in Cairns the next day Sam came around and we went for a walk with his dog, Digs and after that he introduced me to his friend Will who lives on a boat in Cairns.
On Thursday(31.10'13) Sam took me out to the Pacific for spearfishing. His brother, Aron, is a professional fisher and therefore got a ship. At first we went to the outer Great Barrier Reef for a snorkel session and catching some smaller fishes. Later on we left the reef behind us and drove to the open ocean.
At start I did not dive with an own harpune but with the baits for the bigger fish. It was just when I asked Sam whether we were going to see sharks as well that a big fish came to my bait (which Sam missed:P) and a couple of seconds the first shark, a grey reef shark. A couple of dives we did it like that with me the bait and Sam and Aron with the harpune. That didn't prove so successfully so I got my own gun and short after Sam shot the first big fish, a Spanish Macrone about 1.20m long.
We have seen a lot of sharks every the we went into the water and when we shot the second massive fish we were surrounded by sharks swimming in circles under us but they didn't attack.
All in all we got two big Spanish Macrones and some smaller fishes so Sam and I decided to go into the water a last time to see if we can get another Macrone but this time there were not only reef sharks in the water. Now I could swim next to a massive bullshark about 3m, maybe longer, and so thick you could swim into his mouth without touching him! I was very glad that he didn't turn aggressive because I don't think that the harpune would have helped me that much then. After that encounter we went back to the coast and an amazing day was about to finish.

                 
                     Sam steering the boat

 
      Me with one of the big Spanish Macrones

                   
                  Here also with the gun!

However the next day promised to be a good one too since I was going to have my skydive that day.
I got picked up from my hostel 7am in the morning and we went to the small airport in Cairns. Here our small air kraft departed at around 9:30am with 8 skydiver and their tandem instructors. We went up to 14,000 feet and on the way up we had an amazing view on Cairns and the surroundings. When we reached our high for the skydive my instructor told me just to go slowly to the hatch and move to my position and take as much time as I need. I hardly arrived at the hatch when he threw me with himself out of the plane, a small shock at first but awesome!
We fell more than 60 seconds but it felt like 20 seconds only and the free fall was amazing! When we got closer to the ground the parachute opened and I could direct the directions. Good fun!
All in all the skydive was an amazing experience and I can highly recommend to do it!

I didn't take the pictures so it's only me in front of a small aircraft with the certification...

On Saturday(2.11.'13) I had my Bungy Jump! This time I got picked up later around 11 am and we went into the Rainforest where the Bungy tower was.

The Bungy Tower was just 50m high but when I walked it up I just thought "What the f*ck am I doing here?" and continued going up till I reached the top. There I could wait for like 15m and enjoy the view because the guy that should have jumped before me didn't want and the workers tried to convince him to jump but when he was standing at the edge he refused to jump so it came to me to jump.
The instructor but a blancket around my feet and the cable on it and then I walked to the edge and looked down on the little lake and it seemed so much higher than 50m. However when the instructor counted the countdown from 5 tat1 I jumped immediately at 1.

On Sunday Paul asked me to join his trip to Palm Cove and so we went with around 10 people from the hostel to Palm Cove, a little village in the north of Cairns with beautiful beaches.

On Tuesday(5.11.'13) Harry (also from the hostel) ask me if wanted to join his waterfall trip to the Atherton Tablelands and since I wanted to see it anyways I joined him. We were again a group of 10 splitted in two cars.
The Atherton Tablelands are a gorgeous landscape of hills vegetated with rainforest or just farmer's meadows with cows or cattle on it.

Our first destination were the Josephine Falls a magnificent place and we also could swim there though the water was pretty cold there...

                                B-E-A-utiful!

After that we drove to the Millaa Millaa Falls also a very beautiful and stunning waterfall and there the water was even colder!

                 A stunningly beautiful place!

A group picture in front of the waterfall f.l.:
Osian, Simone, Harry, me, Alieka, Sophie, Gevan, Crag, James&Shan

After a long long swim there we got to our last waterfall of the day the Dinner Falls which was also nice to see but since it was already colder and cloudy I did not swim in the ice cold water there and just enjoyed the view of the waterfall.

Thereafter we took our group picture with the cars and everyone of the trip.

In time for the sunset we arrived at Lake Eachen, a beautiful lake with amazingly hot water.

Here everyone could show their jump skill from jumping normally to making a backflip and enjoyed the warm water.

We finished that amazing day with a delicious Domino's pizza and later Sam came around and we went out since it was cup day! The Melbourne Cup was that day and all the Australians went out and so did we!

Today on Thursday(7.11.'13) me and Paul went to Kuranda. He had a day off and asked me what I was going to do. So when I told him that I would go to Kuranda he joined me.
At Kuranda we visited the old aboriginal market and later on made a long walk along the river and through the Rainforest to the Barron Falls, again a beautiful wonder of nature. Unfortunately we could not swim there but still a nice sight.
In time for the last bus back to Cairns we came back to Kuranda.

                 Hardly survived the crash...

Everything in Australia is gonna eat you...unfortunately an Allosaurus found me:/


Some little expressions of the aboriginal                                           market:

                         

                         The Barron Falls

                  Old Rainforest train station

More pictures and a video of my Bungy Jump will follow soon...