On the 28 th of July I went down to Cairns to visit my family. I took Debbie down with me too, and although she only got to stay four of the seven days I was down, we were really lucky to see lots of wildlife. It was really good to see home again (I still seem to call it home) and it was also good that Paul and Shauntelle where visiting, because we were all able to go the Atherton tablelands together. Before leaving Debbie said she wanted to see Mareeba - something to do with mango wine I believe - but I was able to convince her that it wasn't worth visiting..... Mareeba is basically Cairn's equivalent of Ipswitch - hot, boring, and full of inbreeds :-P. Instead we went and had a picnic at Lake Eacham, before visiting a volcanic crater where we saw a small juvenile cassowary and a lovely little spot called "possum valley" where we saw two platypus. Score!
Possum valley was an amazing little spot, with a beautiful cottage and a silly white goose that followed us around.
When it got dark we went spotlighting, which is something Debbie had never done before, and although she only succeeded in finding a jumper on the road, we saw quite a few possums and I heroically rescued Paul from stepping in a puddle.
Cairns had changed quite a bit since I visited last.... there were new developments, bulldozers and cranes everywhere.... most of the with the Hedley's logo on them. Apparently the papers are making him out to be an "all round nice guy", but the rest of us know better.... he already own's half of cairns, and wants to bulldoze the rest. Very sad, but there is less and less bush land every time I visit. The day after the tablelands I
took Debbie to some of the local beaches, which was nice... although too cold to swim unfortunately. The new rock wall at clifton beach is pretty monstrous, but luckily it was low tide, so there was enough beach to walk on.
Debbie hadn't seen the reef so we booked with Great Adventures to visit green island and then the outer reef. On the way over I pointed into the sea and told Debbie "I think I just saw a whale".... and sure enough, five minutes later I saw it properly. There were two beautiful humpbacks about 100 meters away, and the boat slowed down (which they have to by law I believe) and 10 minutes later one of them surface only 10 meters on the opposite side of the catamaran ! It was pretty amazing, but we actually saw about five small pods of humpbacks during the trip - some of them tail-slapping and jumping out of the water off green island. Debbie and I talked to what we *think* may have been the captain (on account of his shirt was white) - who happened to be from Brisbane - and he told us that for some reason the humpback population was up 40% this year, and they had seen many that month on trips to the reef.
Unfortunately we didn't have much time on Green island, so we walked around it and went to the funny little crocodile park they have there. While walking around we actually saw a pretty nasty looking shark on the opposite side of the island - so maybe it's best we didn't snorkel at that stage. The crocodile park was a bit tacky, but not too bad and they had a heap of island carvings (most of them with large wooden genitals) and three marine turtles there, which I guess is something. The visibility on the outer reef wasn't great, but Debbie and I still had lots of fun, and there was very little swell, which is the main thing. Just as Keith had warned me, the reef had degraded substantially since the last time I visited. I didn't see any crown-of-thorns, but there wasn't a huge amount of colour on the reef.
After Debbie went home I just took it easy for the next few days.... although I unfortunately had to write a couple of articles for "SIMBAlize" which annoyed me on my holiday. I really am way too involved in these extra curricular things.... I've promised myself I'm going to try and get out of doing any more work for uqdance as soon as possible.... I have to focus on my PhD more.
It was great to spend some time with Jenny, mum and Keith, but all over too soon, and on the 4th of August Debbie picked me up from the airport. I already miss being close to the rainforest and the beach. I also visited my friend William Lucas - who now has a FANTASIC new house in the Redlinch area - and he cooked a barbeque for Birdie, Jamie and I, which was fun, but that was pretty much all the time I had to spend with friends. Maybe I'll get a chance to go down for Christmas, although I now know that I'll also be going to a conference in America *around that time - early December... so it's hard to say.
13/08 | House Hunting
The other big news is that I'm pretty serious now about buying a house. Actually the word house is deceptive - this close to Brisbane city all I can really afford is a unit. It's sad, but everyone in this house is ready to move onto something new, and I definitely think it's time for me to invest in property... I'm sure it will only go up in Brisbane over the next 20 or so years. Anyhow, I still need to do more research and go to more house inspections, but if anyone hears about a nice place for sale make sure you contact me! I'll take all the help and free advice I can get... it's a scary world for first home buyers in Brisbane. Houses are selling like hotcakes !
