Cairns Continued

Since working for Peter Pans for a little over three weeks Sabrina and I had enough hours banked to go on a few adventures. First on the list was bungy jumping! I have been raving about the experience ever since New Zealand and Sabrina had her mind made up about doing a jump since we left Sydney. Lucky for us Cairns is the home of the second AJ Hackett Bungy Jump in Oceania, the first was in Queenstown.

Late one Wednesday afternoon we hopped on a shuttle with eight other anxious jumpers and made the winding drive up to the tower. The Cairns bungy stands at a mere 43m high, and after the 134m I jumped in New Zealand the tower didn't exactly evoke the same kind of butterflies. Nontheless I was really excited to try some more creative jumps. There's about fifteen different ways that one can jump from the bungy tower, one of which includes riding a bike off the roof. Since we opted for two jumps we had to do a dive for our first for safety reasons, but the second jump was up to us. After getting unintentionally dunked in the pond underneath the tower I was ready to try something a little more daring and I had every intention of doing it backwards. The guy on the tower backed me up to the edge until just my toes where left hanging on. Holding on to my harness he hung me out over the drop and pretended to let go about ten times, after sufficiently screwing with my head he let me fall. I have to say doing it backwards was awesome and almost easier. To end the day we did what they call the Minjin Jungle Swing. The giant swing gave us a gorgeous panorama of  Cairns just as the sun was setting.

Our next activity was an overnight tour up to Cape Tribulation and the Daintree Rainforest. It may be less of an adrenaline rush but it was just as fun as the bungy. On our trip up to the cape we had a few scenic stops before we checked into our accomodation. The first was a crocodile spotting boat ride up the Daintree River. We didn't get to see the four meter monster named Scar who patrolled that particular strip of water. Instead we saw some hatchlings, a two year old, and learned some facts about Crocodillions. For example Crocs have retractable penises and can stay under water for hours at a time! Next we headed up a very windy road that partially follows ancient aboriginal walking trails. The tour guide also told us to be on the lookout for prehistoric looking birds called Cassowaries. We stopped for a quick walk through the forest and found out some interesting facts about Mangrove trees. They are able to flourish in salt water because of a neat little adaptation they've made over time. They filter the water through their roots and channel all of the salt to a select few leaves on the tree. These are called "sacraficial leaves", they turn yellow and die while the rest of the tree keeps growing.

We finally made it to our destination, Ferntrees Lodge, around two o'clock. We were in a picture taking moode so we headed to the nearby bushwalk to take in more of the beautiful rainforest. An hour, and one hundred pictures, later we found ourselves on our first beach in over a month. We jumped at probably our last chance to sun ourselves on Australian sand and set up our towels. Five minutes later the clouds had come in and we were shivering. Oh well it was nice while it lasted!

The little town of Cape Tribulation is little more than a convenience store, a pub and a flying fox sanctuary. Seeing as it was a Monday nothing was especially busy but we decided to head down the road for a meal at the pub. It was pitch black outside and absolutely every rustle in the bushes sounded like a bear coming to attack us. Thankfully there are no bears in Australia and our very kind roomate lent us her torch for the freaky walk. After dinner we hit the hay so we would be ready for our seven o'clock saddle date the next morning.

We got picked up by an older, and very rugged looking version of Daniel Craig, Steve would be our guide for the day. We met our horses and the rest of the group, both of which were very ecclectic. One very enthusiastic woman looked like she was ready for the jungle, or rather had came out of it. Dressed head to toe in leopard print and jingling with about a pound of bangles, I was excited to see where the day would lead.  My horse Ringer looked a little worse for wear but I was told he was lots of "fun", I would later find out what that meant. We wandered through bush, trotted through pastures, stumbled through creeks and got to canter down the beach. But before Ringer I got a chance to feel the wind in my hair Ringer decided to get ornery. I hopped off and Steve put him through the paces before Ringer let me run him. We stopped for a snack and a swim and got regailed with stories from a horse whisperer. Steve knew every horse and their mannerisms and had stories to boot. All we needed was a campfire and it would've been a western movie.

Three hours, and a sore ass, later Sabrina and I mosied back to the lodge. We got picked up by our bus and enjoyed another scenic drive home. We stopped at some amazing vantage points for photo ops and made our way to Mossman Gorge for another swim. We stopped in the cute little resort town of Port Douglas and looked around at some funky shops. The day could not have been more perfect!

Our final excursion was a day out at a ranch quad biking. Before making it to the farm our driver got pulled over for doing an illegal U-turn, the day was off to a good start. The quads reminded me lawnmowers but having only gone quading once before I was kind of relieved. It all started out pretty slow doing some laps around a practice course before splitting up and heading into the bush. At a substantially faster clip I was white knuckling the entire ride. There were so many times I thought the quad was going to flip I was so relieved when we rode up to the barn three hours later. Of all the ground we had covered we brought back about half of it with us. We only got a little dirty...

After our crazy day we decided to unwind in the usual fashion on our last night together in Cairns. Sabrina and I had a Mexican feast at our favourite funky spot the Green Ant Cantina. Then we met up with some friends for some pool and some cider at our favourite bar the Bluesky Brewery. Everything about the day was a great last hoorah to end the trip with! I'll miss the people I've met in my travels and all of the places I've seen. But I'm glad to be coming home with an amazing friend who I can share these memories with for the rest of our lives! Awwwe :).

Thank you all for reading about my travels, this blog has been a really fun way to document it all. I'll be seeing you all soon!

Lots of Love,

Eva

xoxoxo