A week full of revelations...

The adventure has begun...we have officially joined the league of world travellers and are exploring the other side of the world. We arrived in Cairns, Australia on Monday morning (late sunday in Montreal time) and despite the 23hours of travel, we felt surprisingly good. Thankfully our apartment was ready and we could drop off our backpacks before exploring the city. Our goal was to avoid all beds and soft surfaces to avoid falling asleep, all this in aim of getting on southern hemisphere time. I think we lasted until 3:30pm, and slept right through till 4:30am (at least it was a start).

From what we can gather, Cairns is a combination of back-packers destination and private plastic surgery clinic destination. There are many around where it seems that australians come to hide away in this coastal city and get work done. But, generally it is a mid-sized city that is flanked by rainforest on one side, and the ocean (also the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef) on the other. Its spring time now and the weather is a balmy 25-30degrees.

Our apartment in Cairns.

Since this is vacation, I am always expecting to discover something new, however as the week went on, I quickly realized that this was a week of revelations.

Revelation #1- When on holiday, Mark and I switch personalities. Ex; our first days here I was the one doing all the navigating while Mark stood on street corners confused about which direction to turn. This caused many hilarious discussions, and I am proud to that in the first few days, I was alway right.

Revelation #2- Beer is expenisve in Australia ($16.99 for a 6 pack) , unless you buy it at happy hour in a pub. While wine is very cheap ($6.99 for a bottle of Wolfblass) when bought a the bottlers (aussie term or beer and wine store). We actually found a drive-thru bottler....strange.

After 2 days of geting to know the city and adjusting to the time change, we felt brave enough to do some more extensive sight-seeing. Mark and I tend to shy away from large group toiurs, so we found a bike rental shop with the purpose of having a self-directed tour o the mountain trails outside of Cairns. However, after the Bike Shop guy told us we were crazy to attempt our itinerary on bikes, he suggested we rent scooters.

Revelation #3- I am no longer scared of scooters. After a horrible scooter experience in Cuba, I had sworn that I would never again drive a scooter, and avoid being a passenger on one at a costs. However, once David (rental shop owner) took the time to explain to me how to use it, I actually enjoyed the day scootering around (minus a small panic attack on the highway, and MArk's repeated pleading that I go faster than 30km/h). We explored Crystal Cascades, Lake Placid and Copperlode Dam. All of which requires ascending winding mountain roads and we were frequently pleted by rain. So in the end, I was much happier on the scooter than the bike.

Thrusday was our biggest day yet. As previously mentioned, Cairns is locsted on the coast with access to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Multiple books have praised the GBR as a "must see before you die" destination, so we knew that we had to head that direction. We had lofty goals of going on a three day live-a-bord ship to complete our scuba certification, but we decided to try an intro-dive to see if we like it.

Revelation #4- I do not have "sea legs". In order to reach the reef, a 90 minute speedboat ride is requires. As we had picked an overcast day for our trip, we had very choppy sea conditions. Mark had no difficulties, and had to help me through multiple brown-bag incidents. When we finally arrived at the the reef, I was grumpy, weak and pale. Our dive instructor, Mike, took pity on me, excluding me from the first dive and suggested I spend some time snorkeling. Mark went off with Mike, and 40 minutes later was back with a huge smile on his face, and exclaimed " I am definately getting certfied, that was amazing".

Now it was my turn....Mike helped me into the heavy equipment and begun the safety teaching.

Right after thi photo was taken, I totally chickened out. My nausea and anxiety overtook me asI hit the water, and immediately I asked to return to the boat where I spent another 40 minutes with my brown-bag. Mark went off again, and I was extremely dissapointed to have missed the octopus and nemo encounters.

After lunch (well...watching Mark eat lunch since my stomach still felt off), and a short ride to  another dive site, Mike came around to tell me that my last chance to dive was in 10 minutes. Mark was anxious to dive again, and was extremely helpful cheering me on as I was again strapped into the heavy equipment. "You're shaking, are you cold?", actually I was terrified. The idea of being underneath meters of water with only an air tank and man-amde equipment did not make me feel very brave. But again I was ready to plunge into the water.

Revalation #5- The mind is a powerful thing, but distraction is pretty good too. As I was waiting for my cue to get into the water, I was eated next to Steve. He was also recently married, and currently on an extended honeymoon with his wife; Vicky. Just like us, they has chosen to take months off work and leave the UK to explore the world. Since I was deep in conversation with Steve, I had no time to freak myself out about the dive, and soon I was underwater holding onto a pole while Mike coached me through essentials like clearing my mask and regulator of water, and ensuring that I knew the hand signals. I quickly learned that a hand up means "stop", not "high-five", which is what I gave to Mike when he asked me to stop. :) Apparently, "high-five" is not an acepted scuba signal.

The follwing 30 minutes were amazing and we drifted through the coral reef. Not once did I feel anxious or nauseous. Immediately I could see why Mark had loved it so much....and we are hoping to dive again soon.

That pretty much completes our first week. Tommorow, we are off to Cape Tribulation for more beaches, rainforests, and hopefully see our first kangaroo.

Love and miss you all,

P.S. No scuba photos of me...as I missed the dives with the photographer, :(.