Brisbane...

On April 21, I left Townsville for what I considered my most exciting trip. I was to fly to Brisbane, where I would spend the day, and then board a plane once more to make my way to New Zealand.

Although my desire for adventure is generally for the excitement of hiking and romping in uninhabited areas, Brisbane had been on my go-to list since I arrived in its airport this past February. Perhaps its intrigue was simply that it was the first place I saw in Australia. Albeit, the only parts I saw were the airport and the roads connecting the international and domestic terminals, but something about the city captured me. Unfortuately, money would not allow me to spend a great deal of time in Brisbane and New Zealand, and my choice between the two was clear, so I decided to make Brisbane a day trip. I scheduled it as my layover while en-route New Zealand, arriving early in the morning and leaving late at night, and although I wish I could have see more, it worked out well.

The best way I can think to describe Brisbane is as the love child of London and New York cities. Of course, I have never seen London, and I have spent only a matter of hours in NYC, but as far as the popular images that are portrayed of each of them - this is it.

I picture London as a city of old buildings, Churches, cafes, and cobblestone roads (or at the very least, brick).

New York is probably the exact opposite; sky scrapers, metal, and glass making up the best of the architecture.

But Brisbane - Brisbane was strange and striking because it combined the two styles.

Of course, the buildings in Brisbane are not actually old (at least, not very), but many of the structures are made out of brick and stone that give them the appearance of having aged with elegance. Most of the buildings were new - New York City-like buildings with large glass windows, but then there were walkways made out of brick and buildings thrown in as if to accent them. The city seemed bright and alive (despite the fact that it was raining for most of the day), something that stood out even more to me when I arrived in Auckland (more to come on that later). I was accosted almost immediately by a group of environmentalists trying to raise awareness (unfortunately, as this was two months ago, I now forget what they were trying to raise awareness about), and at that moment I knew that Brisbane was my kind of city.

New Buildings:




"Old" buildings:





I did not have anything planned to do while in Brisbane. I did not know what museums there were or where good shopping was. I'll admit, I was a bit nervous about winging it, but as it turned out, I probably would not have had nearly as good a time if I had a plan. After wandering along a street of shops, ranging from tourist stores to outrageously expensive fashion boutiques, I came to the end of the sidewalk. I was about to turn around and head down the other side, when I realized that if I crossed the street in front of me I would end up in a market. I allowed my nose to lead the way to freshly baked foods and organically grown fruits, and realized that I had walked into my own little slice of heaven.

Turkish garlic bread, raspberries, and freshly squeezed orange juice - probably the most delicious meal I have eaten since I have been in Australia.


The Market:




After lunch, a little more wandering revealed that two museums I had heard of were closed for construction, but a stroke of luck (and a map that I picked up from the train station) led me right to the entrance of the city's botanical gardens.













I call this one "Afro-tree":












After wandering through the gardens, where I stopped to finish my lunch which was too large for one sitting, I regrettably had to head back to the airport for my flight which was leaving in only a few hours. Despite the shortness of my time in Brisbane, I loved it.

Part two of this trip, consisting of my time in New Zealand, will be up soon (hopefully)!

Cairns

Once again I have procrastinated in writing this for so long that I am rushing to finish it the night before I leave on a new adventure. But ah, that is to be expected.

--Scratch that last bit. I am now sitting on one of the three free-internet computers in the Frienz hostel, where I am staying in New Zealand. I abandoned my last effort in favor of two hours' sleep before my plane left.--

---Once more, I have been back from New Zealand for a week, and am only now putting this post up. I think I might have a procrastination problem...---

Anyway...

My second-to-last journey was to Cairns (the pronunciation of which is something between "cans" and "canes"), a rapidly growing city on the tropical north east of Australia.

My first full day in Cairns was spent with a small boat over the Great Barrier Reef. The weather was cold - or maybe more like "cold," as it was about 70 (Fahrenheit, of course; Australians are weather wimps, by the way). I would not have been able to complain about the "cold" weather, except that it was accompanied by rain (which, in comparison to the temperature of the air, actually was cold) and wind. Even still, I was determined to see the GBR one way or another, and hey; I'm from Buffalo, I can deal with chilly weather. The hour and a half ride out was like a roller coaster. A kiddie roller coaster, but a roller coaster nonetheless. Personally, I found it exciting, but it seemed that about 3/4 of the people on the boat disagreed. They just found it nauseating. So, I spent most of the ride out there in the front of the boat, trying to immerse myself in Harry Potter (which got very wet, by the way, and now looks very.....loved) and pretend that nobody was throwing up.

Regardless of a slight bout of facing my worst fear on the way out, it was worth it. To fully express why this is, I feel that I must explain what I expected, and what I got, for they are two very different things.

I expected it to be pretty cool - obviously, or I wouldn't have spent $100 on it. But they way I pictured it was a vast expanse of reef. A large, shallow area coverd with coral and fish. I expected the water to be clear and blue, and everything to be just out of my reach. I suppose what I expected looked something like this: http://www.tourcart.net/tourmate/img/tours/7642-1.JPG Beautiful and amazing, no doubt.

But the day I went was cloudy, and real water is never that clear. We were nowhere near an island, but instead set up camp where all we could see in any direction was ocean (with the exception of one other boat in the distance, who was out there for the same purpose as us). I do not have pictures to show you, but even if I did, I doubt they would mean anything. Some of the people I was with took pictures, and they look like they came from a different world than the one we were in.

This is one of only two pictures taken of me that day:


That is one of the big things I have noticed here. Pictures never do anything justice. I think it has to do with peripheral vision, to an extent. A picture can concentrate on one thing, or one group of things, or one area, just as vision can, but it can never give the whole context. For example, many of the pictures I have taken (including many of the ones that I will put up with this post today) look like they were captured from a remote hiking trail - some special, secret spot. In reality, many (though not all) were taken from cemented pathways where crowds of tourists all stood and take the same exact picture. In this way,the limited view of a camera works to my advantage. However, there have been far more situations that I have been in here where the camera cannot capture enough. I wish that my camera had an ultra-zoom-out button.

Seeing the GBR was, clearly, one the later situations. There is no way that a camera, underwater or not, could ever show what I saw. So, while I am sad that I had no waterproof camera and could not capture the likeness of a parrot fish (my favorite of the ones I saw), it could be worse. In a way, I am glad that I do not have pictures, for the fear that looking at them would morph my memory to one less spectacular than it was.

So what was it actually like, you ask? My first impression was of an underwater mountain. Rather than a vast expanse of flat ocean floor covered by reef, when I first jumped into the water I could see nothing. Well, I could see water, but nothing else - no bottom or anything - it was not even remotely shallow. But as I swam in the direction that the crew told us to go, communities of coral began blossoming out of the point where my vision could no longer penetrate. Higher and higher they built, and as their altitude rose, more and more fish swam about, until eventually we hit the peak of the mountain, which was just about the depth from the surface that I had expected the entire thing to be, but was only a very small area. Things were not as brightly colored as I expected, but that did not make them any less spectacular; only spectacular in a different way.

I don't know what more I can say about it without babbling. Any more attempt at description feels as though it would be futile, for I know that I simply do not have the vocabulary (perhaps nobody has the vocabulary) to properly describe it. I wish there were more words in the English language.

Another exciting note to make about this trip was that I was stung by a jellyfish! Several times! I don't know what kind it was; clearly not the deadly type, though. As it turns out, they are virtually invisible in the water. I felt it, but did not see it, which is why I cannot identify it. The sensation was quite different from what I expected - it was less sharp than I imagined, especially since the word used to describe their defense mechanism is "sting." It felt much more like a burn than a sting; slow to take hold, but once it did, it sucked. At first, I didn't even realize it was a jellyfish; I just thought the salt in the water was starting to bother me! Most of the stings were completely better by the end of the day, though, and the one that wasn't was fine within about 72 hours.

The next day we took a tour of the tablelands, a "fertile plateau" (I stole that from Wikipedia) on which there are vast farmlands and rainforest. I DO have pictures from this trip, and therefore, I shall continue on my (perhaps bad) habit of letting those speak for me:









This was a waterfall by where we stopped to eat. Ironically, I think it was the most epic one of all the ones we saw (unfortunately, I forget the name of it).


As we drove, it felt like we left Australia and ended up somewhere in the European countryside:





This is Millaa Millaa Falls, the most photographed waterfall in Australia:



And this is on a trail near Millaa Millaa falls, after which I found land leeches looking for sustenance on my legs:





One of our stops was at a giant fig tree. As it turns out, fig trees use another tree as a host until they grow large enough to suffocate the parent tree and take over for themselves. As you can tell, they are very loving.




Although it is difficult to see here, this is a picture of a GIANT ASS SPIDER. If I recall correctly, it is a golden orb web spider, which is easily bigger than my hand and can catch birds in its web. They are poisonous, but not enough to kill humans (just enough to make you barf for a few hours x.x). (I would like to note that I might NOT be recalling correctly, because while the picture of the spider on wikipedia LOOKS like what I saw, it says they only grow to ~2 inches. This spider was significantly larger than that; so either my memory fails me, or the last person to update Wikipedia is an idiot.)


Worse than poisonous spiders, though, are poisonous plants. This is known as the stinging tree (despite the fact that it is not a tree), and simply touching it can kill. Albiet, it kills by mere touch rarely, but it still kills. More often, it just cases months worth of excruciating pain.


One of the last rainforest sights we saw were these HUGE, 2,000 year old trees:


Although the most adventurous part of our journey was over, we spent the next day wandering around the city, our friend Jade acting as a guide through her native land. The rest of this entry will be of random pictures taken throughout the city!

Magnetic Island, take two

Warning: This post is really long. It is also, however, filled with pictures. Beware.

So, as expected, I am awful at updating this, and as I am about to go on a new adventure, I figure I should get up my entry about my last one -- a visit to Magnetic Island, almost three weeks ago. Although my first visit to this miniature paradise was less than I expected, my second visit was all that much more than I could have hoped.



























Although we got a later start than we wanted, and the ferry ride out was concerningly turbulent, we were picked up from the ferry terminal by the extraordinarily nice couple who owned the first place we were staying. Although I do not have a picture of it, the inside of the car they picked us up in was akin to a giant, squishy lamb. It was covered in inches of fluff, which was in turn covered by some material that was made to mimic sheep pelts. The house itself was something of a mix between a hostel and a bed and breakfast. Most of the rooms were nicer, more expensive, and fitted to only two people, but we managed to get a place in the room called "Horseshoe Bay," which was made for four people. To our luck, the room was only $30/person/night, even if there were not four people in the party, and although this room was one of their less extravagant ones, it was still impeccable.







I ate this. The whole thing. It consisted of a bun and burger - ordinary enough - but also contained a mystery meat (which I am fairly certain was some kind of bacon), sauted onions, a fried egg, pineapple, tomato, lettuce, beats, and normally it would have carrots, as well, though I asked for it without those.

We only stayed at our first shelter for a night, though, and the next day we packed up to begin our hike from Arcadia Bay to Horseshoe Bay. Honestly, I don't know how far the hike was, but it took us about four hours. One map (which I've now lost) allowed me to estimate it was 5km, but as we all know, estimates are not my strong point. However far it was, I can now truly appreciate hiking without anything on my back.













On our way, there was a small offshoot from the path that led to a waterfall, at the bottom of which was a picturesque pool with a rope swing hanging from a tree. I'll admit that, out of the four hours we hiked, at least half an hour was spent here.










Eventually (meaning when a bunch of guys came to sit in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall and drink beer) we left and continued on our hike.








Finally, we arrived at Horseshoe Bay, where I promptly found a really cool looking dead possum!




























Our destination was Bungalow Bay Koala Village, a hostel in the midst of a national park. Originally, we booked the cheapest accommodation we could, intending to share a room with six strangers. Yet, when we arrived, we learned that we were lucky enough to receive a free upgrade (due, most likely, to an overbooking somewhere) to a two person bungalow...with air-conditioning. Normally, I am not one for artificially cooled air, but after only knowing restless sleep due to the heat for a month, even toxic coolants start to sound like a brilliant idea. It. Was. Fantastic.

Here, we met up with out other friend, Amy, who only stayed one night, but was awesome to have nonetheless. (The "we" I have been referring to the whole time is me and my friend, Lindsey, by the way.) After our hike, we weren't up for anything too strenuous, so we spent the rest of the day chilling at the beach...until it started to rain.

The agenda for the next day (for me, at least) was to snorkel. Unfortunately, when we went to rent the equipment to do so, we were informed that a cyclone (which never ended up hitting us) was on its way, and the conditions were bad for such things. After a brief bout of disappointment, I happily lounged on the beach while Amy and Lindsey went jet skiing. I must admit, it looked like a great deal of fun, but the price was a bit too high for me!

After spending some time at the beach(less than an hour, actually....with sunscreen....and I still managed to get burned!), and eating not-college (and therefore delicious) food, Amy had to leave (it was a really short trip for here, but she had bee there the weekend before anyway), and Lindsey and I decided to hike a trail called The Forts Walk, which we had heard much about.

All the fantastic reviews we heard about it were true (except that we would see wild koalas there), and the pictures and videos that follow are really the only way I can even begin to describe what it was like.

















You can ignore the conversation I am having as I begin to record this one :p




The Forts Walk is a trail that goes through an area that was a fort back in WWII, and is now basically just ruins. One of the main buildings still stands, though, at the top of one of the tallest hills on the island, and that is where we hiked to. We lucked out and made it to the top just as the sun was setting.

It took me three weeks to get this up, but it may be one of the longest (in literal length, if not word length) blogs known to the internet. I shall leave you, then, with this, the beautiful song of tropical birds: