Uncle Brian's Fun & Falls

The other day I went on a tour of the rainforest and waterfalls from Cairns, Australia called Uncle Brian's fun and falls. This was probably the best tour I've ever done, and not even because of the places we went, but because of the way the tour was run. This could've been a highly uneventful day where a bus takes you from one place to another, but instead it was full of random fun and stories so there was never a dull moment.

Immediately after driving off with all of us, our guide Cousin Rohan talked about the bus, who was personified into Gus the Bus. There were all sorts of stories with Gus the Bus, his other car loves, his feelings, and Rohan would honk and make the bus bump around using the clutch if Gus didn't feel like doing anything. Later in the day we couldn't find Gus' girlfriend and he cried by cleaning his windshield. We would also wave at people down the road just for fun, which was always a good time. We waved at everyone, but mostly street workers. Always good to brighten people's days like that. :)

And of course the places we went weren't too shabby either.

The first place we went to was a place called Babinda Boulders. Not much there actually, just some dangerous plants, a nice view, and some cold water we could swim in. They did talk a lot about all the danger signs that littered the place. Many people had not followed the signs in the first place and died in the falls, since a few places look like a great place to swim but you get stuck under the water. The water was pretty cold, so a few of us got in for a bit but didn't stay in too long.

Babinda Boulders

The second place we stopped was called Josephine Falls. This was the best place since there was a natural water slide to hang out on. You could go down the rock where there was only a little bit of water or a crazy rushing rapid. Head first, sideways, you name it, we did it.

The third place we went to (other than stopping for lunch on top of the tablelands) was Milla Milla falls. This place was cold. By the time we got there it was all in shadow, so it was hard to get in the water, but most of us did, since Rohan was talking about sticking your head in the water and flicking it up to get a nice effect. Guys could even do it as long as they stuck their whole head under water and flicked it up. Here's my try.

Woosh kahhhhh

The last place we went to was a big lake. No rivers ran into the lake, it just caught all the water from the nearby mountains and ended up being very clean, clear, and calm. There was a tree by this lake that grew outward in a certain way that made it easy to walk over and jump into the water. By this time I was done with cold water, but I got peer pressured by my friend Heledd into jumping. She jumped first, now it was my turn. I climbed the tree...damn it felt high. When I got to the jump point, I was scared. The guy with the camera was ready, and I said 1, 2, 3, and jumped. Whew that was a hard one, I got a shot of adrenaline when I jumped off, and I have to say I think I was less scared before I skydived out of an airplane than when I was jumping off this tree 15 feet above the water. But of course I landed with a splash and was fine, and with all that adrenaline I wasn't cold at all! The pic was on Heledd's camera, so I'll post it here after it eventually comes up on facebook. Once was in the lake, I realized it was really nice, and we swam around a bit. It was a good workout not touching the bottom for about half an hour.

With Gus the Bus and Cousin Rohan

We actually went to one more place after getting back on Gus the Bus; platypus hunting! There was one place where it was very common to see a platypus right at dusk, and so we all ran around by this river and caught a few glimpses of the popular Australian mammal/fish/whatever.

On the drive back, we had the most epic singing and dancing session, we had red and yellow lights than Cousin Rohan would flash and yell "disco lights" while the song was playing. We went back on a road that wound down a mountain for a very looong time, so it was good we were occupied instead of getting car sick. My favorite song was when we did "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and did row alternating head bobbing to the chorus haha.

Overall, highly recommended tour that everyone going through Cairns should definitely do! I haven't said everything, so there's still plenty of surprises if you were to actually go on it.

The Whitsundays Islands

The Whitsundays Islands in Australia, named because it was Sunday and a holy day when Captain Cook arrived there. Wikipedia says that they had a timekeeping problem and it was really a Monday...whatever. I went out with a tour where we sailed around to some of the best spots around the islands. I barely knew what I was getting into, but it was a fantastic experience.

The first afternoon, after mingling and sailing a bit, we had our first snorkeling adventure. Now I've played around with snorkels at home in swimming pools and such, but nothing was like this.

We arrived at a little cove next to an island, and they pointed to a section of the water that supposedly had some things to see. After putting on a stinger suit and getting a mask and snorkel that hopefully wouldn't leak, I was the first to jump off the boat and start swimming to the reef area. At first, I swam way too hard and started to tire myself out. A little ways away from the boat, I looked behind me and no one else had jumped off the boat yet! Also, the small dingy motorboat that Liam (one of our guides) was gonna take out for help wasn't even unhooked from the boat yet. I kind of started to freak out a little bit. I put my mask and snorkel on and started to look at the ocean floor, couldn't see much, but mostly I was thinking about the lack of air I was getting, since I was already panting from swimming too hard I couldn't get enough air through the snorkel.

Looking back to see that I was still the only one out, I decided to stop freaking out. I realized that I could stay afloat while treading water much less vigorously, and got my breathing down to a normal pace. Now I tried to put my snorkel on again and went under. Wow. I'm not sure if I floated to a different place than before or just wasn't looking before, but what I saw was amazing. This is the first time I've seen a reef like this with my own eyes. Colorful algae, colorful fish, everything alive and in its own natural habitat. I was able to breathe deeply through the snorkel and I was off exploring the reef from the surface! Before I knew it everyone else was around me and the motorboat was going around to anyone who asked.

While exploring happily on the surface, I was suddenly hit by something from below, oh wait it was someone! My childhood pool snorkeling skills came back to me, and I realized I should be diving down right next to all the corals and fish! I started to breathe in, dive down to take a closer look, and then come up and blow the water out of the snorkel with my breath out. The closer looks were even more amazing than exploring it from above, no aquarium or video footage prepared me for this. The only bad part about the diving was that I couldn't seem to depressurize my ears, so it felt a bit uncomfortable going down very deep. Before this I hadn't really had a strong desire to go scuba diving, but this definitely changed my mind.

After leaving this cove we went around to an anchor spot and spent the night there. We watched the sun fall, ate some delicious dinner, and drank the night away on the mighty Boomerang.

Boomerang was the name of our sailboat. It was built in 1987(same age as me!) and won the world record for fastest sailboat in 1988. After a life of races, it became a charter boat for the Whitsundays around 2002. When it was a racing boat it didn't have anything below deck since all the action happened above with people trying to make the boat go as fast as possible, but now it was decked out with about 28 beds, captain's quarters, a galley(kitchen), and a few tables. This meant it was not built for comfort, so on deck there were just obstacles anywhere and no real place to sit and hang out, but we made do hanging around the grinders. People just got hit in the head a few times haha.

The next morning we went straight to another dive spot that the guides said was even better. It was in fact even more amazing than the first. This time the reef area was farther from the sailboat than before, so Liam took us all out in the dingy and we jumped out of the small boat into an even more colorful reef with schools of fish going right past us. Sometimes he would throw food into the water and all the fish would come to the surface so we could get a closer look. So much variety too. A few of the fish were really big, like the size of my thigh, just roaming around in the reef soaking up the sun shining through the water. I tried to reach out to a few but they moved too fast and would always know when I was reaching out to them! It's those eyes on the sides of their head!

Liam lent me a waterproof iPhone case while out here, so I took a few pics.

After our second snorkel, we made the long journey to Whitehaven beach. It was time to put up the sails! Putting up the sails was hard work, since it was a pretty big boat and a pretty big sail, we all had to work on the grinders together to raise the heavy sail. It was a bit easier to raise the front one. The crew said that the sail itself would cost nearly 1 million dollars to replace. Wow, no wonder boats are so expensive. On the way over there we got to see some whales as well. It wasn't the cliche whale jumping out of the water, but we definitely saw some blowhole spouting and some tail flips out of the water.

Finally we made it to Whitehaven beach. This beach has sand of 99.9% silica, which means it's the purest sand in the world. NASA supposedly uses it to make telescope lenses. We stopped on a little cove and hiked over to see the views and hang out on the beach for a bit. After a few hours chilling and playing some sports(American football and frisbee wooo) we headed back to the boat and anchored for another sunset evening. Oh yeah another sidenote, they call American football Grid Iron here in Australia. Grid Iron? I had never heard of that one before.

The rest of the trip was quite uneventful, just some sailing...except for the last bit on our way back to the harbor. There was another boat called Slap Me that apparently isn't very good. It's more of a budget option and the boat is slower and maybe the tour isn't as good? Anyway, our crew said they usually try to pass them to show them you get what you pay for haha. And they don't just pass them once, they do it twice.

Once we got close I realized the boat also has a big red handprint on the back of the ship. Quite appropriate for a boat called Slap Me. We passed them once, the crews exchanged insults. We were smiling and laughing, but I'm not sure if they were haha. One guy mooned us. Then we slowed down, let them pass, and did it again! This time we passed them into the distance at 7 knots with the mighty Boomerang and made it back to port well before them. Now we were back in the small beach town of Airlie Beach, ready to take on the evening.