Before I begin I have a complaint. About internet cafes. People really should show some common courtesy in these places. It is so frustratingly hard to write anything, my thoughts and experiences (let alone personal emails!) with people standing over me, potentially reading what I'm writing...drunk people shouting and singing and talking about totally annoying and stupid things....people having loud arguements with their boyfriends/girlfriends back home....and yesterday people sitting on top of each other and making out on the chair next to me. So I apologise if my writing drones on or doesn't make sense, but if these people could be shot my blog would be far better, and would include all the details I'm probably missing out that will be tragically forgotten forever. ARGH.

Rant over.

Have spent the past three days in Cairns had had a totally amazing time (as usual)...though I can't say it's anything to do with the town itself. On my first day here I spent the day walking round the town, only to realise that there's nothing here. A lot of travel agents, but not a lot else. The esplanade is supposed to be the exciting happening place...but there's not really anything there. As for the lagoon....well I'd heard about this loads when I was looking online for a place to stay here, so i kinda expected something reasonably impressive. At the least I expected a real lagoon. It was in fact a pretty bog standard swimming pool.


Something I did notice as well actually was the type of in Cairns is different to everywhere else. I mean still the majority of people you meet, like the rest of Australia, are absolutely awesome. But there seem to be quite a few "scummy" looking people around, for want of a better word.... According to some police I got chatting to, who were on my sailing trip on their day off, there's a lot of violent crime here as well.


Another thing, while I'm on the topic of people in Cairns....so far in Australia I had been quite conscious of the fact that I hadn't seen any Aboriginal people. Seeing as this was originally their country I thought this was quite strange, but up here in Cairns though there are quite a lot. Unfortunately they all seem to be very poor and separate from the rest of the community, which really is quite sad. As I mentioned before the book I'm reading is about a shipwrecked white boy who becomes part of an Aborigine clan. The part I'm on at the moment is talking about how the white people came to take the land and the way the Aboriginal people were treated. It's quite disgusting, and puts a very different light on Australia as a country.


Moving on from that bad thought, yesterday I went on a trip to the Great Barrier Reef. Most amazing experience ever. Beyond words. As soon as I got back I had to phone England to tell people about it because I was just so excited about the whole experience I had just had.


We went on a 21 foot sailing boat, which in itself was a bit of an achievement for me! I was really nervous about the boat trip. As you may or may not know, I have a problem with boats. A MAJOR problem with boats. I literally just have to look at a boat and I throw up. Well not quite, but I have been known to be horrendously sick on even half hour trips, on very large boats, on a completely calm Mediterranean. It's ridiculous, I know, but until yesterday I had never been able to find a way round it. However, you can't come to Australia and not see the Great Barrier Reef, so I was preparing myself for a lot of throwing up, but ultimately I thought it would be worth it, and I'd get over it once I was in the water, if I let myself float around a bit before actually doing anything....and we were stopping at a tropical island which had the all important factor of solid land!


Things went very differently to how I'd expected. Just before I got on the boat, there was someone selling sea sickness tablets. Normally these either don't work in the slightest or completely knock me out, but these were specially sold for people going on reef trips, so I thought I would give them a try. Absolute miracle pills. Not the slightest whiff of sea sickness whatsoever! I was completely stoked, and able to have a fantastic day.


Anyways, the trip itself. We set off on our sailing boat for the 2ish hour trip to Green Island. There was about 15 people on the trip and we spent this time getting to know one another over complimentary chocolate chip muffins. Perfect. The part of the reef we were going to was the opposite side of Green Island to where all the other boats go, and we were the only boat who had a licence to operate on this part of the reef, so it was really quite a unique experience.


Again I was quite nervous, this time about actually snorkelling in the reef. Firstly I haven't properly been swimming for years so am not at all a strong swimmer, secondly the idea of deep water and the open seas seems very terrifying and then of course there's the things I would be swimming with - I was certain some of the fish would be rather scary looking, and I'm definitely not one for being near scary looking creatures. As soon as I was in the water all my fears went away. Everything was so amazing, and I was so in awe that there was no room for nerves. We swam about 20 metres away from the boat before we reached the reef and then at some points the reef was so close to the surface that we could touch it even when snorkelling. The fish...the thousands of fish...just totally ignored me, like I was just another random fish swimming about the coral. If you just floated completely still for a while they would curiously come right up to your face. They were amazing - all colours imaginable, some as small as my thumbnail, some bigger than me. My favourite fish was (I think) a type of surgeon fish - it had a bright yellow tail and bright yellow fins, then the rest of it was this crazy yellow and sky blue psychedelic pattern! It was like the fish had been designed by some mad artist, who had spent hours carefully drawing this mad design all over the fish's body. It makes you wonder really the purpose of such a look. Nature generally has a purpose in it's designs, but these fish look like nature came into work one day on acid. I was so absorbed by these amazing creatures of the sea that before I knew it, I was begrudgingly being called back to the boat, 2 and a half hours later, for lunch. It had seemed like mere minutes. After lunch I even came back to the boat 2 hours early, preferring to spend my time swimming on the reef than on the tropical island!

So these fish themselves were amazing enough, but just as I was swimming back to the boat to be taken back to the mainland, one of the ships crew called out: "Who hasn't seen a shark yet?" Of course everyone replied that they hadn't. Then he pointed out, about two metres away from where some of us were swimming, a reef shark! It was a bit bigger than me (though I have terrible perception of size), grey, with a fin....the exact picture that would come into your mind if you were trying to imagine a shark! The first thought that came into my head was that I needed to get out of the water immediately, but I couldn't take my eyes off it, and rather than heading as fast as I could to the boat, I found myself swimming after the shark, fear numbed by fascination, in order to get a better look. It was only later I found that these sharks didn't attack people, so I don't know what sort of idiocy had come over me before I knew this.

On the return home, sunbathing on the deck of the boat, I was thinking that I could really get used to this. Maybe in addition to learning to drive I should learn to sail?

The next day I went Cairns' tropical zoo. The travel agent I booked my ticket with told me I needed about two hours to look around the whole place, so I had a nice lie in and got to the zoo at about midday. After spending five and a half hours there, and being the last person ESCORTED OUT of the park, I really felt I could have done with more time. Maybe I'm just a sucker for animals.

The zoo contained all sorts of animals native to Australia and a few not - emus, koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, crocodiles, snakes, wombats, birds, red pandas..... I went to see them all, plus every show the zoo offered that afternoon. The shows were a great way to see the animals, as you could get close and interact with them, whilst learning more about the animal and the conservation work done to benefit it. So I cuddled a koala, patted a python on the head, tickled a wombat in it's sleep, hand fed some kangaroos, stroked a baby crocodile, watched a fullsized crocodile be hand fed a chicken.... I had so much fun! Even if I was a supposed adult on a kids day out! The keepers were so enthusiastic about their animals, which was lovely to see. Unfortunately a lot of these animals will probably be extinct soon, the red panda from Nepal only has about 400 of its kind still in the wild. For all the creatures in the zoo that are endangered, the zoo runs breeding and reintroduction to the wild programmes, and the money the people pay to go to the zoo helps to fund this. As for the animals more local to Australia, such as snakes and crocodiles, unfortunately most people misunderstand them. The snakes for example will generally leave you alone, they don't chase people down the street as seems to be an idea circulating among some Ozzies. Crocodiles usually will only attack you if you're swimming in crocodile infested water...which really is your own fault. Now I know that some people are against animals being kept in cages - surely they should be in the wild rather than in a zoo. Of course this is true, but at this zoo, all the animals are rescue animals. For example, the crocodiles have all commited offences that normally would mean the destruction of the animal (for example eating people's livestock or pets or being general menaces to society!) but luckily they have been found by sympathetic people who called the zoo rather than the animal destruction unit.

On a final note, while we are on the topic of animals, I have to recall a story I heard whilst on my reef trip. I'm sure you have probably heard about the terrible bushfires in southern Australia that have killed over a hundred people and destroyed the homes of over 800 more. On top of this it has destroyed a ridiculous amount of wildlife. And shockingly at least one of the fires is known to have been started deliberately. Why anyone would do this is beyond my comprehension. So anyways, amongst the wildlife that has suffered is the koalas, and that is where my story comes along. Whilst fighting the out of control fires, a fireman spotted a poor koala trapped up a tree, and couldn't bear to leave it to die. So he went into the fire to save the koala, as he approached the animal reached out his paw to the fireman, as though begging him to take pity and save him. The fireman reached back to the koala and lifted it from the tree, holding it in his arms as the koala wrapped itself around the fireman - his only hope of survival. The koala was saved! You probably don't know but koalas don't drink water, yet this poor koala was so thirsty from being trapped in the fire that it let the fireman hand feed it from a bottle of water, like a baby. The fireman, touched by this experience, went to visit the koala at a later date, to see how it was getting on. Now the local news reported on this story, making jokes about the fireman going on a date with the koala, and silly things like that, but due to the tragic nature of the bush fires, a great deal of people complained that this was inappropriate and disrespectful. The local news made an official apology to the koala.