October 19-21

Wind.
For my last day in Wellington, I decided to go on a “easy” 3 hour Red Rock Volcano walk. It is about 2Ks from the city centre, so I thought I’d add that on instead of taking a bus. I set out on the walk along the coastal highway to see these volcano rocks and a seal colony. Oh my goodness, the wind. Melbourne was nothing compared to this. I think I know what it’s like to be in a hurricane or tornado. I later found out that I walked along the windiest part of the area and that it was warning level winds. The whole way out I kept thinking, oh it will have to get better for my walk back. What? No! What I didn’t think about was the fact that walking out I had the wind to my back, so on the way into town it was blowing at me. If wind could knock over Al Roker, it certainly could take me out. I was seriously worried I would be blown away. Until you experience it, you may think I am exaggerating. I was seriously clinging to street signs until I felt I could make it to the next one. Most of the walk I didn’t see anyone else out walking which would worry me, but towards the end, I saw several runners out. I don’t know how they were running. I really wanted to stop one of them and ask them if this was normal and if it was safe to be outside in such wind.

Annoyance.
I woke up at 4:30 am New Zealand time to get to the airport for my 7 am flight. I was so out of it I went to the New Zealand Air line and it wasn’t until I got to check-in I realized I was flying Quantas. When I got all checked through Quantas on my flight to Cairns (via Sydney), I went and waited to board the flight. As I was boarding, they called me over the loud speaker and told me I would actually be flying to Cairns via Melbourne but that my Melbourne-Cairns flight would be business class. I was totally excited about a chance to experience business class, but I was also feeling very inflexible about them changing my flight since I know the Sydney airport and your have to get your bag and go through customs before you can get on a domestic flight and I was worried about having time to do that on the Melbourne flight which ended up being delayed (because they were transferring my bag over). Well, getting into Melbourne was a little stressful, because I thought I had about 30 minutes to go through customs and all that business before the flight to Cairns left. I made it because that flight ended up being delayed, but business class was fun, even though the stewardess guy was a little snooty, I thought. Then when I got to Cairns, my hostel was supposed to pick me up (they advertised free airport pick up), but they weren’t there and I took a shuttle instead (which wasn’t free). Then when I got to the hostel the check-in office wasn’t open and wouldn’t be open until 4:30 pm (it was 1:30 pm at this point). This was frustrating because I just wanted to put my bag down, change into hot weather clothes, etc. This hostel is definitely not my favourite, the set-up is awful, you have to walk through the main area (kitchen, TV area, laundry) to get to the bathrooms and showers. I managed to freshen up a little (mom- thanks to my Crabtree and Evelyn citrus wipes and B-freshJ) and change and decided to make the most of my time and walk into the city. Cairns is small and very easy to get around. It is just a grid of streets, with the coast on one side. I walked down to the esplanade, which is the street closest to the beach and booked a snorkel trip for the next day to go see the Great Barrier Reef. I didn’t shop around at all, I just went with the first one I found, which isn’t really like me, but I’m sure they are all pretty similar. I walked around town and then came back and checked into my hostel. I went to bed super early, because I was so tired.

Sunburn.
I woke up early to walk to the wharf to find the boat I would be joining for the day. It was a huge catamaran and there were about 40 people on board. I met a nice Irish couple and two surprisingly enjoyable German guys and alternated hanging out with them through out the day. The three hours out to the reef I went out on the front deck to lay out and got some fresh air (I was even feeling slightly sea-sick with all the rocking). Even though it was deceptively cloudy I put my 20 SPF on my face nearly every 15 minutes and on the rest of my body when I started feeling burned. I also got to live out my dream of wearing a white tunic on a sailboat like SJP on "Failure to Launch" although I don't have any pictures of it because I didn't feel like asking some one to take my picture while I posed in the breeze with the tunic on, but I totally should have.
We went to two locations on the reef. Most people on the boat chose to dive, but I was not interested at all in diving. I have this irrational fear (and have had since I was on some river in Florida tubing over dark grass and possibly alligators) of the water above anything other than sand (or rocks I guess). So even when I was snorkelling I was squealing the whole time about being so close to all the coral and marine life (the squealing did nothing to help keep water out of my mask or snorkel). But I must say, the Great Barrier Reef is AMAZING! There is more marine life than I’ve ever seen. It’s like Finding Nemo or Little Mermaid (minus the mermaid) but real. You know those huge clams? Huge, like the size of a small refrigerator. They actually exist, and I saw several of them. I also saw so many different amazing looking fish. Also, the coral is all amazing and different looking. After seeing a sting ray, I kicked as fast as I could back to the boat, though. At our second location there was a tiny sand island we could swim to. There we saw a huge sea turtle and bright blue star fish. It was really cool. It was when I got back to the boat after the second location (around 3pm) that I realized I was looking burned (with my trademark raccoon face, of course). The sun is so strong here, I usually deserve to get burned because I am not good about putting sunscreen on, but this time I did and I still got roasted (possibly because I bought the sunscreen in Croatia and it is their generic brand). It is probably one of the worst burns I’ve ever had. I hope that when I have skin cancer one day I will be able to look back on my few hours of snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef with fond memories. I went to see the chemist today (Sunday) and I got some Panadol (Tylenol), some cooling/anaesthetic spray, and aloe. It is seriously painful, so I am avoiding the sun today like the plague, which is sad, because what else is there to do in Cairns other than be in the sun? Oh well, I got to see the Great Barrier Reef and it was wonderful!