Week twoish

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...