June 1, 2005

G'Day Mates!

First things first, I somehow got a little backtracked with the numbering of my last email.  The one I sent about a week ago from Cairns should have been #10 so here is good old #11.  I am finally back on the move I am into my daily stint of internet-ing again.  It can be quite addictive and expensive at times, but well worth it to stay in touch.

After my lovely month of comfort, I headed as far north as I could go on the east coast and ended up in Cairns.  I knew I would be flying out of Sydney eventually and figured that if I started in Cairns, I could buy an east coast bus pass and work my way down south toward Sydney. 

Cairns was excellent to say the least. It was a wonderful place to start traveling solo again.  I dove right in, literally, and hopped on a dive boat the first morning I awoke there.  I went out for the day and participated in an introductory dive on the Great Barrier Reef.  Not a bad place to learn, huh?  It was an unbelievable experience and I really enjoyed it.  I had a ton of trouble equalizing since we were down between 30 and 40 feet.  When I come home, I will work toward getting my diving certification and then it will give me an excuse to go somewhere fun to use it...hopefully!  The rest of the day I snorkeled around a few different parts of the reef taking in each and every color and all the different types of fish.  It was like a different world out there.  I also took an overnight trip into the rainforest where I did some hiking and sunbathing on the beach.  It is the only place in the world where the rainforest meets the ocean.  It's a pretty cool combination if you ask me!  My last activity in Cairns was my favorite for sure and that was hang gliding.  I can remember playing "X Games" on the the Atari or Nintendo and making this little guy run off of a cliff with a simple triangle above his head and then falling to the ground seconds later.  That's honestly what I expected to happen but it was far off from the reality of it all.  I got harnessed in with an expert flier below me and after taking a few running steps together, off we went, into the winds and up with the birds.  We stayed up for about a half hour just soaring along and literally watching the birds fly beneath us.  It was so exhilarating!  It's like the best part of a skydive but ten times longer and much, MUCH better. 

After an awesome few days and nights in Cairns, it was off to Townsville for a while.  I went to a sanctuary where you could see, touch and hold any kind of Australian animal you could think of.  From snakes, to kangaroos, to cassowaries (big, mean ostrich-like animals), to wombats, to cockatoos, and last but not least the beloved koala. Check out the photo attached to see my shining moment! It was such a fun day.  I felt like a little kid in a zoo for the first time.  That afternoon I climbed Castle Hill with my new Irish buddy, Neil, who I met at the sanctuary who just happened to be staying in the same hostel as me.  The climb was a tough one but well worth it in the end for a great view. 

I took the ferry over to Magnetic Island with Neil for a nights stay and had a blast.  We did some hiking and rented some scooters to play around with on the island roads.  The renting of the scooters is an entire story in itself.  The hostel rented them to us, gave us helmets, told us how to turn them on and that was about the extent of the lesson.  For someone, like myself, who has never even sat on one of these things, that lesson was lacking quite a bit of detail, such as how to stop.  After about 30 second of sitting on the scooter, I learned that turning the throttle makes you go, and that the brakes make you stop, but failed to figure out that turning the throttle and pushing the brakes at the same time doesn't do much of anything except allow you to practically crash into telephone booths.  There should be a warning swept through all of Australia saying "Do not rent motor vehicles to Lauren Coker!"  So I finally got the thing going after practically crashing into this telephone booth and then I faced driving on the left side of the road, as if steering and learning to use the thing wasn't enough.  All in all, I finally got the hang of it as we were pulling into the driveway to return them.  It was quite the experience and my white knuckles took about an hour to fade. 

After my arrival back on the mainland, I had a 17 hour overnight bus ride ahead of me down to Hervey Bay.  It actually went quite smooth and faster than I thought.  I arrived just in time for a meeting where I learned about the trip I was about to take the following day onto the world's largest sand island.  I was going to Fraser Island in a 4WD vehicle!  I have talked to so many people through my travels who say that Fraser was their favorite thing that they have done in all of Australia.  I went into it with BIG expectations and, let me tell you, this place was pure magic.  It went above and beyond what I could have ever imagined.  I was put together with a group of eight people from all over the world and we were given suggested shopping lists for both food and alcohol, as well as a suggested itinerary of what to do on the island.  For three days, we drove ourselves around this island that has nothing but sand roads with deep ruts, in which most people get stuck, as well as endless beaches that also serve as the roads.  We had so much fun checking out the sights. We visited a shipwreck on the beach, climbed to the top of a cliff where you could look into the water and spot tiger sharks and sting rays, sand boarded down sand dunes, jumped off of sand dunes and landed in sand up to your knees, swam in lakes that were more crystal clear than purified water, and, of course lazied around on the beaches.  I have never been so carefree about sand being on everything and in everything.  I won't elaborate, you can use your imagination.  What was I to expect on the world's largest sand island? Good times.

Following one of the top three of my greatest adventures in Australia, I headed south for Rainbow beach where I painted a didgeridoo, that instrument I learned to play when I was up north in the Darwin area.  It ended up turning out really well and, with the help and suggestions of some wonderful aboriginals, my didgeridoo looks like it was made by a professional!  I also took a stroll on the beach to check out the so called "Rainbow Beach-ness" and it wasn't anything to jump up and down and clap about.  I can tell I am getting winded from all of this east coast beach town stuff.  All these places are the same to me at this point. I know that sounds terrible but it's the truth. 

As I was reading my Southeast Asia Lonely Planet last night, preparing for my new and upcoming journey, I started to get so excited.  I quickly realized I didn't have nearly enough time to do everything I wanted to so I started thinking of possibilities to make my dreams come true.  I decided that I would check into changing my ticket so that I could leave Australia earlier and that's exactly what I am going to do.  I booked it today so that I will have an extra week there.  This means that I will be leaving Australia in only six days.  I only want to see a few more things along the way before I get to Sydney so I am not worried about missing out on the same old beach atmosphere that lends itself to the east coast of Oz.  If worst comes to worst and time runs out, all I really want to do is look at the opera house one more time.  Then my trip through Australia will be complete and over.  I am ready to move on now.

As you all know, my 2005 solo backpacking experiences this time around have strapped me into an emotional roller coaster.  Everything is either REALLY good or REALLY bad.  Sometimes those downward hills are SO long and seem as though they will never end. But, luckily, this was one of those upward hill emails.  I have a lot to look forward to in the next few months and have a feeling that I am on my way up, up and away.  I am very grateful for the upcoming visit from the greatest friend a girl could ever have, Janelle Hill.  She will meeting me in Thailand in just three weeks and will be by my side for a whole month.  It will be so nice to have a friend, a true friend, who knows me inside and out.  She is coming to my rescue and together we shall re-discover more of the Orient together as well as and re-living our amazing trip around the world in the fall of 2002 through Semester at Sea.  I just can't believe that was almost three years ago.  Off I go onto bigger and better things!

By the way, I am learning to surf tomorrow.

Lauren P. Coker