25th January 1992 Day 189

The Diary

Synchronised Snorkelling

Out to sea again. This time on a pearl lugger called The Falla. Our intrepid crew of Dave, Perry, and Pete and Perry's mate from Manchester - and 27 others and us - ventured forth. More snorkelling but this time we were given a tour of the reef and were shown jellyfish, sea cucumbers etc.

Sea thingys

More sea thingys

Behind you

 

I encountered a small shark about 3 feet long but fortunately it's parents weren't around. After Perry's talk about diving we all decided to take the plunge (bad pun intended) and fork out $45 to do 30mins scuba diving. Pretty good fun it was too and I even had the dubious pleasure of my face mask filling up with water.

Relaxing

Oz and I snorkelled out to a sand island in the reef where we bumped into Roswitha and Markus. Small world. On the way back to Cairns the crew kept us amused with tales of pearl diving and a game of water melon world championships. We sailed into Cairns to the sounds of the Beach Boys. Great day.

Catching watermelons

Beth

We went straight to Magnums for another meal for $3.50 and several jugs of beer and the sounds of the 70s. Quite a few of the people from the boat wandered past during the course of the evening including the Swiss miss with the gorgeous legs.


2012
I remember this as a fabulous day out. I remember Beth saying that it was so good she was going to change her views ob Club 18-30 holidays - maybe they were worth going on after all. 


The 4 days we spent out on yachts were by far the best parts of the trip round Australia. Maybe we should do something similar with the kids this year.


See here, here and here for a modern, eventful history of the Falla.

24th January 1992 Day 188

The Diary
Nightmare journey. The seats didn't recline very far and I ended up in a window seat next to a big fat aboriginal woman who squeezed two kids on her lap. She was dressed as if she was going to the Antarctic and at various stages I ended up being draped with kids and blankets. Hooray for Townsville. People got off and I moved to a new seat and eventually got some sleep.


Arrived in Cairns. Thank heavens for courtesy buses. No lugging the rucksack around after 2 hours sleep. Once safe in our 'cell' in Tracks Hos-tell we booked on a day trip to the Great Barrier Reef and a return journey to Kuranda on the scenic railway.

Wandered around town, nothing at Poste Restante, Oz got a haircut (or so he says) and I phoned Christy. She's moving out of her flat in order to save some money and (small world) her parents (Jeff and Sharon) are in Cairns this week.


We all crashed out for about 3 hours sleep and we were still experiencing bobbing up and down despite being back on dry land. The evening meal cost $3.50 plus free beer. Bargain.

2012
Tracks is apparently now called Asylum and is a big party hostel. I remember it for it's breeze block cells. 


The first mention of Jeff and Sharon. The don't feature too heavily in this story of my trip round the world but they do feature heavily in my subsequent life with Christy. Jeff was brought up in Cairns. Which explains why he lives in Sydney !


Airlie Beach to Cairns - 623km
Total distance since Sydney - 2,913km (1,820miles)