Lizard Island & Cairns
G'day all,
Well after taking my data coms final exam (scoring 111/180, ok not stellar performance,
but I passed), I packed up my dive gear and headed north. The plan was to camp for two
weeks on Lizard Island, a small exclusive resort island NE of Cairns. There is not much on
the island except for the resort ($600/night!) and the campsite ($5/night!), so I was
loaded with two weeks of food and charcoal briquettes. My checked bag came in at 29 kilos,
30 being the max allowed, another 10 kilos I put in my carryon.
Lizard island sign, near the campsite.
I arrive on Lizard Island at around 3PM. It was hot (85-90F) and sunny. The campsite
was a convenient 2 km from the airport, yo taxi! After about an hour of heaving and
cursing, I arrive at camp. No one home, I was the only camper around. I dropped my bags,
grabbed my snorkel gear and headed for the ocean. The reef was only a brief swim from
shore. The colorful fish, plants, and coral were amazing, I had to give a hoot through my
snorkel at several points to demonstrate my approval. The reefs was full of these giant
clams, some grew to be over a meter across. By touching their shell with my fin, I could
make them snap part way closed.
One of the lizards on the island, this guy is one of the smaller ones,
maybe two feet long.
I spent the next week snorkeling my days away. I tried all different beaches around the
island, the ones right off the campsite were still the best. The reef supports such an
abundance of life. There was never a point when there wasn't at least a dozen fish within
my view. The fish were amazing, it's like they're all in some big competion to see who can
have the best and brightest color scheme.
On top of Cook mountain on Lizard island.
After a week, I decided I needed to go diving. The resort dive boat was the only game
in town, I had no choice. After they charged me an obscene, no sacrilegious amount of
money, we were off to the outer barrier reef. On the hour trip to the reef, we had a
school of dolphins swim off the bow. Quite a sight, jumping and frolicking about, wish
I'd remembered to bring my camera. Our first dive was at the world famous Cod Hole. The
Cod Hole is an area where the giant potato cod (1-2 meters long) have become accustomed
to being fed by divers. We descended to the sand bottom and circled around the instructor
who fed the cod with special mesh gloves. The cod have become quite aggressive, they bit
the ladies hand next to me thinking she had food or something. It was quite a circus
really, I had a big green moray eel swim between my legs (they are fairly blind, they are
attracted by the free food as well).
Sunset from my campsite.
All in all, I think the Cod Hole's reputation is mostly hype, I saw plenty of other big
fish in more natural conditions. The crew laid out a big lunch of cold cuts and seafood
(most of the seafood I couldn't identify, much less figure out how to eat, I decided to
stick with the cold cuts and avoid embarrassing myself in front of the resorties). After
gorging myself and storing some leftovers in my backpack for later, we did our second dive
among the coral, then headed home. After diving, I decided I'd done all I wanted to do on
Lizard island. I managed to get an earlier flight to Cairns, I'm 100% positive this is not
allowed by my explorer pass, but it felt real good to win one over Qantas.
I spent about a week in Cairns. I got a good deal on a liveaboard dive trip, so I went
for it. I spent 3 days and 2 nights on the reef, we did 11 dives total. I saw several sea
turtles and a number of reef sharks. The sharks are harmless and small, 1-2 meters. I did
get startled by one on a night dive. The shark appeared several meters in front of me and
swam straight at me. He veered off just before hitting me, guess he was curious about the
lights. Liveaboards like this are the only way to go. In total, I spent over 7 hours
underwater in 3 days. I'd try and describe it in more detail, but words just don't do
justice. Well with a healthy dose of nitrogen flowing through my veins, I returned to
Cairns for the night.
One of Deep Sea Divers' liveaboard boats.
I spent my last day in Cairns white water kayaking on the Tully River. Rafting was also
available, but it was more money and you didn't really get to control your own boat. We
had a group of about 10 people and 2 guides. The kayaks were two person inflatables. We
practiced some safety procedures and then headed down the river. The first few sets of
rapids went well, I once again felt the need to hoot... The guide briefed us on the third
set of rapids, we were told to be careful of the first big rock, the river would try and
push us into it as we tried to make the turn. We waited for our turn and then headed down.
Ok, big rock, no wanna hit it. Ok, left paddle brake, good boat turn. Full speed ahead, no
problem we made the, yikes, gurggle gurggle. Boat flip, Keith and Ralph go bump-a-dee-bump
down the rapids.
This was our only defeat the entire day, we handled the rest of the rapids like champs.
Ralph drove the kayak for awhile, but after running up on every rock this side of Cairns,
he decided it was best if I drove the rest of the day. I'm now back in Melbourne until
tomorrow when I leave for Adelaide. A group of us are going for the Grand Prix and then
I'm heading north to Alice Springs and Ayers Rocks. From Ayers I'll fly to Perth, meeting
several other people there. Then it's back to Melbourne to meet my Dad. We'll drive up to
Sydney and then fly to Cairns and then fly back to the good old USA.
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