Report from Australia

Hi there, now that I have some spare time I would like to fill you in on my what I have been up to in my last weeks in Australia. I did not really get round to it before. So here we go. As you might have understood I went up to Cairns for a week. I was not really in the mood for travelling, but I really wanted to see the rainforest and the great barrier reef, so I took the easy way out and got myself a fairly expensive plane ticket to Cairns. The trip takes about three hours -2000 km- and then you are there. Cairns.


I assumed that Cairn would be a nice and big city with heaps of stuff to do, but that was a bit of a disappointment. It is small and it is there for tourists. There is not much to do on your own, so you will have to take a organised tour. So thats what I did. The first day I went snorkling on a massive catamaran that speeds out to the reef in about 1.5 hours. The snorkling was awesome, sadly I did not take any photos of fish as my camera is not waterproof. After that lunch is served and you are taken to a second, also nice, snorkling spot. The second and third days I went up to the Daintree rainforst at Cape Tribulation. This is where the rainforest meets the sea and there are some stunning beaches and trees. No swimming though as all the waters are inhabited by crocodiles. Most people that die of crodile attacks are Germans, closely followed by the Japanese. On the route from Cairn to the rainforest we stopped a several interesting locations: a jungle walk - pretty neat, a nice wooden walkway to keep you comfortable -, a river filled with crocodiles - we saw only 2 crodiles and they did not seem that fierce -, a viewpoint from where you could see the spot where Steve Irwin died and Port Douglas - I do not recommend going there -. All in all a nice trip.

When I got back I did not really feel like staying in Cairns for the reasons stated above. I thus decided to go to Magnetic Island near Townsville. The Island I really nice with forests and beaches where you can actually swim. I visited a Koala village and also managed to see some Koalas hanging from the trees. After that it was time to get back to Sydney again. When I got back there I met up with Megan for a weekend in Port Stephens. Port Stephens I a nice and quiet village about 3 hours North of Sydney by bus. It has some nice beaches and walks through the forests. Supposedly it is possible to spot dolpins and whales at Port Stephens, which is something I would have liked. This is either a lie, or I just had bad luck, I did not see any. It was a pretty nice getaway anyway.

The last days in Sydney were a bit sad, as I spend most of my time saying goodbye to many nice people. I have also been looking for a graduation project to start graduating when I get back home which is starting to get somewhere.

See some photoos on flickr