Actually, I saw more than one kangaroo. I saw three huge fields of many, many kangaroos. They were just sitting relaxing in these fields beside the road. Finally!
The kangaroos were on the road that led to this:
Palm cove!
Palm cove is where I decided I like Australia more than yesterday. Why?
Sean and I are walking along beautiful beach. The weather is awesome, it was like 5pm at this point so it was cool (maybe about 28 degrees or so) and calm. The beaches are so clean here and the shops are quaint and cute. There is a jetty to walk out which is basically a long dock, I'd never heard the term jetty before. We're walking up it looking down into the clear crystal waters and this little girl runs up to me!
"We saw a turtle today."
"Oh really?!"
"Yeah it was big. And we saw a sting ray over there."
"Over here?"
"Yeah if you watch you might see it. It looks grey in the water."
"Oh okay" and I look for it.
"Those ones can kill you too you know."
"Yup."
(I didn't end up seeing the sting ray but that isn't the point of the story)
Her adult comes walking by and she says to me:
"We took a picture of the turtle. Show them the picture!"
So the dude pulls out the phone and shows Sean and I the picture of the turtle. It was one of those huge sea turtles!
Then the dude starts showing us how big the turtle and the sting ray was. The sting ray was one of those huge ones with the 6-7 foot tail. Craazzyyy!
But again not the point of the story.
The dude starts explaining where the best fishing spots are, how you get there, what the roads are like, etcetcetc.
The little girl had run up the jetty by now and she comes back.
"The guy up there caught a shark on his line!"
"Nooo wayyyy"
"Yeah" the dude says "He would have had to cut the line."
At this point my mind is blown.
The wildlife is awesome but the people are so friendly and open. They are the furthest thing from stuffy-polite at the same time. In Ontario all the kids are taught "don't talk to strangers!" and I've been approached by so many little kids by now telling me random things.. it is great to see kids so relaxed and friendly. The little girl was leaning so far over the bars I felt a bit like "yikes better stand back" but the adults are relaxed about it.
I haven't met a rude Australian yet, though I'm sure that time will come.
But... it is the people here I find the most surprising. They're plainly awesome.
A couple more pictures of Palm Cove:
These little guys were hanging out everywhere!
And of course the flocks of Lorikeets. We finally got a good picture.
We also went to a national park called Babinda, or as I like to call it "Boulder Place".
The river/creek thing is very well known for many deaths, and it is nicknamed "Devil's Pool". The aboriginals have a legend about it if you're curious it is here.
I'm going to let the pictures do the talking of this place:
The boulders were unlike anything I've ever seen. They were smooth and you can see where the water has made its course.
That is the pathway of the nature walk. I just found it cool how it goes straight up on either side.
Golden Orb spider! Sean threw a cricket at it to watch it eat. It was pretty cool. It is hugggeeee and it was a little bit creepy how it wrapped up the cricket in webbing.
I really liked these mushrooms... they're cute!
On the way there I saw my first volcano ever!
It is in fact extinct, but I still think it's cool. Volcano yo!
And in closing, a picture of Junooooo and April
"Awwwww" you say. See that cute little baby face and think of me getting baby puked on and drooled all over! It happens!
So! Things have been a bit more real-life-ish, less vacation-ish this past week.
Sean and I have spent the majority of the past week job searching. Many many hours spent and so far it has seemed fruitless! But we have only been here two weeks... but I still don't have an interview yet...! Sean has an interview with McPukes on Tuesday, and though he was really hoping for a different type of job, I'm really relieved than at least one of us has an interview somewhere.
Other realities: I knew this prior to coming here, but it SUCKS without a car! I miss our car. I also miss our cat. I think the car and cat are what I miss most about Canada. The busses here are fairly unreliable, and it's about a half hour walk to a bus stop. If Sean gets that job at McPukes, it will take him about an hour and a half to get to work.
Scary Australian things that are completely unlike Canada:
You can't walk in a field of long grass. There could be brown snakes, which are deadly!
Ricky and April keep on prepping me on what to do if a cyclone hits, since it is cyclone season. Such as filling up the bathtub of water in case we can't get any water. Or putting tape on the windows.
Also what to do if it floods: go for a walk up the mountain.
If you go in a swimming hole (there are tons of beautiful ones around here) watch if suddenly the water starts rising. Rains can start on the tablelands, and then flood all our streams and then you're in troubleeee.
Don't go by rivers, generally speaking. Crocs!
One thing that has just started - dengue fever. An outbreak has occurred fairly early in the season, there has been 25 cases in Cairns so far. They actually have a sign up in town that says "dengue fever zone". The fever is transferable by skeeters, and the skeeters are out all day long.
There are TONS of fires in Australia right now. I've always heard about them, and though we aren't in any danger here generally speaking, it's crazy how severe they are. They just recorded the hottest day in Australia ever this past week.
It's pretty intense here!
Other than that however, the fruit here is great. It's totally awesome.
Picture of me prepping breakfast fruit:
Check that out. Fresh mango, lychee, passion fruit and melon. The pineapple here is fantastic too. Well, all the fruit is. We've been eating very healthy, which isn't too different for me but it is nice having the variety of fruit here.
We did a couple touristy things this past week: We went to the gardens and we went snorkeling at Fitzroy island!
The gardens were just a quick tour while Juno was awake (our schedule revolves around that cute little baby) and we basically just walked around and took some pictures:
(I always like cool looking trees)
This tree had SPIKES all the way up it!
I like to call this tree Medusa tree.
...and me looking really lame but BIG TREE!
Snorkeling on the inner barrier reef at Fitzroy was really cool. We brought an underwater camera but it is film only, so we won't have the pictures from it for a while.
The boat ride over (and back) was beautiful!
If you look at that rock there are lots of birds in a row. I thought it was funny.
Sean and I in "stinger suits". It is advised to wear these whenever you swim in the ocean, as there are tiny jelly fish about the size of a dime that are deadly, just like everything else here!
We saw like 3 of these dudes, they're super cool.
That is a picture of Fitzroy Island resort while we were waiting for the boat back.
That day trip was great, though very exhausting! I had a bit of trouble snorkeling, but Sean loved it. He saw a sting ray, tons of fish and tons of coral. The beaches there were beautiful too, but we didn't take any pictures of it. Ohhwelll. Next stop: The outer reef!
And now a few random pictures we've taken over the past couple of weeks:
The cockatoo tree!
This tree was crazy. More and more cockatoos kept on flying to it. There were a few surrounding trees with more cockatoos on them, but this one had SOO MANNYY. It was unbelievable, and LOUD!
This little guy is called a hercules moth. One of it's wings were damaged but it was still alive. Its wingspan was longer than Sean's foot.
These cicadas are everywhere. And loud. And constantly loud, all the time.
Cute picture of happy family, with many ducks in the background!
These next three pictures are of a short nature walk Sean and I took very close to our place. There were like 5 nice swimming holes in the span of a half hour walk.
All we need is an income and why should we be any where else? Other than my cat...
It's beautiful here!
We haven't done too much these past few days, we are still recovering from our flight (I have a bit of a cold/sore throat). We have mostly been exploring the back yard here, which is shenanigans! Tons of new stuff and exciting stuff and all that stuff.
Sean is super stoked about all the bugs, which is really no surprise at all. Bugs are pretty well three times the size here. For example:
This lovely stick bug! Only the size of Sean's hand.
This cute little cricket found on the dryer outside.
Last but definitely not least, this nice golden orb spider.
I've also chosen my favourite tree. It's awesomeee!
All the entangled roots and stuff.. huge nest higher up (it looks like a nest I have no idea what it actually is) long branches that go farrr. It's plainly awesome.
There is neat wildlife around here. There are tons of cute geckos everywhere. We saw a green tree frog above our door yesterday. There are cane toads everywhere (which are terrible for the environment here). The birds are fantastic! I saw cockatoos sitting on a street light, there are lorikeets all over the place. Their squawks sound just like budgies so it is like I never left my budgies behind. There is this crazy black and blue butterfly that is sooo prettttyyy! Wild turkeys run around, they are like this area's squirrel. They dig and act ridiculous. I saw a huge flying fox swoop right above me. I could hear the whoosh of his wings. Pretty neat. We finally saw a huge tree monitor today, which I was very excited for!
You can see it in the tree there. It's huge! Sooo cooool.
In other completely unrelated news, we ate kangaroo. It was pretty weird. It is apparently an extremely healthy meat being quite lean. It didn't taste too much like anything because we had it in a strong curry. I would eat it again though for sure. The kangaroos get treated better than the cows do back home so it's a bit of a less cruel meat to eat.
The kangaroo is the dark chunks at the top there.
We haven't gone too many places, but our new year's eve was pretty cool! We watched the Cairn's fireworks at 9pm on the beach. It was a really nice night weather wise, and quite an enjoyable walk!
When the fireworks started you heard the first BOOM then a HUGE flock of lorikeets took off panic-squawking the entire way. It was absolutely hilarious and I couldn't believe it. They were way more interesting than the fireworks themselves, and the fireworks were pretty good!
We went to trinity beach, which is a short drive away from April and Ricky's place. It's too bad we can't swim there, but there are too many jellies at the current time. It was nice there! As soon as we arrived at the beach we saw a rainbooowwww.
It was super pretty scenery.
We went for a walk on a trail and I climbed a BIG ROCK. I climbed to the top and I could see lots of stuff! So nice being at the beach.
Other than that, it is sooo niceeee going for a swim whenever you want at the pool here. The pool is nice and warm. April and Ricky are very good company, and I'm quite the fan of baby Juno! She is the epitome of cute baby. And she likes the cute wooden dinosaur toys I made her!
