The Not So Great Barrier Reef

Next, onto Cairns. Cairns is another popular beach town which caters to folks wanting to dive the outer bits of the Great Barrier Reef. The advantage of going further out is that the Reef is less trafficked and has not suffered as much damage from all the tourism.

While the original idea was to do an overnight on a dive boat, a refreshingly honest travel agent told us the weather was pretty harsh out on the Reef and she would not recommend doing more than a day trip. She had just been out diving a few days before so it seemed pretty good advice.

That said, we found a one day, two dive trip that left the following morning. As the travel agent had warned about rough seas I picked up some seasickness medication for the trip. This comes in two varieties - natural (which is basically ginger) and chemical. The chemical kind makes you sleepy so I went for natural. This may have been my first mistake.

So we get on the boat and are informed that it's going to be a hard and wet ride. We are advised to take seasickness medication and shown where the seasickness bags are kept. We are told that the winds are at 30 knots so be prepared.

I was actually pretty ok for the first hour (of an hour and 45 minute trip). When I started to feel sick I requested some of the chemical medication but I think it was a little late as I filled three full barfbags about 10 minutes later. The good news was that I was not the only one and I felt much better after the fact. Nicole Richie's got nothing on me - I can take her. See photo of me with barfbags (an after shot).



By the time we got to the first dive site my stomach had calmed down. Most of the folks onboard were snorkeling, a few were doing an intro dive (for people who aren't certified divers but want to get the feel of diving), and a few were doing guided dives. We were the only folks doing a nonguided dive so we were pretty psyched about that.

What was nuts was the winds were still going strong and the waves were pretty high and you're out in the middle of nowhere. How anyone snorkeled here I have no idea. It's so much better underwater. I really thought those snorkelers were nuts.

So first dive was good - the visibility wasn't great but it was fun to be on our own. The only freaky part was when we surfaced we came up facing nothing - no boat, no people, no nothing. It was like that bad movie where the divers get left behind. Luckily when we turned around we saw the boat about 100 feet away and just swam over.

After lunch was when the trouble began for me. We were briefed on the dive and the routine was pretty much just like the first time. So we jumped in and swam over to the reef just like before. But this time it was raining harder and the waves seemed to be bigger and I started to freak out. When we got to the reef, Michael gave the signal to go down and as we started to descend I freaked out. I came up after going down about 3 feet and felt like I couldn't breathe. In short I was hyperventilating. I've never been a big fan of the initial descent anyway so being as I was already freaked out from the conditions I think I was just panicking a bit.

Michael came up and swam closer and tried to figure out what was going on. I told him I was hyperventaliting, etc. and he talked me through slowing down my breathing, etc. The funny thing is that I knew it was better underwater - no waves, all the air I could want, etc. but I was just having a hard time getting down. After about two minutes I was ready to try again and this time we made it down without incident. This is now known as the, "Michael saves Katie's life" event. After that it was pretty smooth going. There were some cool swim-throughs which we had never done before and we got to pose by a huge purple clam for an underwater photographer.

The boat ride back was just crazy as the ride there. By the time we got back to shore I had taken a total of five seasickness pills BUT I used no barfbags on the way back. A minor victory.

Now we spend the next 24 hours in Cairns (as you have to wait to fly after diving) and then off to Melbourne.

Final observation. Here's a little piece of art I saw this am in Cairns - a bunch of plastic and wooden turtles and things in the shape of turtles going into the local art museum. Just my kind of art.

Come a Waltzing Matilda with Me

We were lucky that our boat had fewer passengers than usual - 10 instead of 14. This gave us all a bit more room to spread out and relax. Wayne was our trusty skipper and Paul our chef - I use that term loosely - and overall boat guy. We were also lucky that everyone on the boat was nice and interesting - no obvious weirdos or strange folks. In sum, four Germans, two Brits (not including Michael), two Americans and us.



Our days were spent sailing, snorkeling, and hanging out on the beach.





If you want to dive around here and you're not on a dive boat - no problem. Your sailboat will take you to the dive boat. It's sort of like a floating bookmobile where they ferry you over and on this little boat are wetsuits, tanks, BCDs, fins, etc. So while others were snorkeling one day we did a dive. Saw some really big fish which was cool.

Because it is still jellyfish season you cannot get into the water without a stinger suit. These are lycra body suits which are hard for anyone to pull off. I thought this picture of Michael looked pretty good - I call it the Charlie's Angels shot.



My favorite part of the trip were the sunsets. We would sit on deck, drinking from our boxes of wine, eating processed cheese and crackers. All this while someone else was preparing dinner and would later do the dishes. We were clearly back in a first world country.





During one of our beach mornings Michael went walking between these two islands on a sandbar that was about 1 foot underwater.



After three days it was time to return to dry land. While I had a great time I'm not sure I have the best sea legs for the long haul. This will become more apparent in the next posting. But all in all, good fun and highly recommended.

Welcome to Oz

After climbing the glaciers it was time to head east again and get ready for our trip to Australia. We hauled ass for 2 days driving on some very curvy and narrow roads, which made night driving pretty exciting. One night in the middle of the drive through the Southern Alps we had to find our rough camping site in complete darkness. We pulled over at one place by the railroad tracks but both Susanne and I got freaked out when we saw a lone campervan hidden in the bushes. Much to Michael's dismay we insisted on moving, luckily only another mile up the road. Here we saw a few more campers and it didn't feel so much like a scene out of a Friday the 13th movie.

We spent our last night in Christchurch at the airport holiday park so we would be close by for our 6:15 am departure to Brisbane. Susanne was a real trooper - not only did she get up at 4 am to drive us to the airport, she also had to clean out the camper all by herself - even the yucky bits.

Getting to Australia turned out to be a bit of a chore - see Michael's blog for details of our visa fiasco. I think that after almost five months of traveling we might be losing our touch a bit - getting a bit lazy, a little slack, whatever. In the end it was a miracle that we were able to board our flight.

That same day we flew up the east coast of Australia to Airlie Beach. The gig in Airlie Beach is to take a 2-3 day cruise around the Whitsunday Islands that are part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. There are numerous boats to choose from - the classic booze cruise, racing boats, catamarans, sail boats, really expensive boats, etc. I pretty much based my boat choice on the name - the Waltzing Matilda. It evoked just the image I was looking for. Traditional and classic and not so fast moving. Anyway, we left the following morning on the Waltzing Matilda for a 3 day, 2 night cruise. As you are not allowed to bring any glass on board I purchased my first box of wine and prepared for the journey.

Glacier City

Next we headed north of Queenstown and up the west coast to Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers. We stopped briefly at Fox Glacier on our way to our accommodation for the night. As I'd never seen a glacier I had no idea what to expect. In short, it looked like a huge pile of dirty ice. But really huge. At Fox we didn't get on the glacier but we did manage to sneak a peek.





The next day Susanne and I got up really early to go on a full day hike on the Franz Josef. As Michael had already done some glacier hiking on his trip he opted out and stayed back and tried to sort out some plane ticket issues.

Franz Josef is 6 kms high and 1.5 kms across. Our hiking company suited us up with waterproof jackets, pants, hiking boots, wool socks, hats and gloves. All we had to bring was food for lunch and sunscreen - remember, no ozone in NZ.





The hike was pretty cool. The first hour was spent climbing ice stairs - big stairs so it was pretty tiring.





After that we just hiking around on the glacier discovering little paths, climbing ice walls, crossing bridges, etc.









The entire trip was 14 km roundtrip. Writing this the morning after I'm still pretty tired and sore. Now it's time to head back to Christchurch where we grab a flight to Australia at the end of the week to begin the last 2 and a half weeks of our trip.

Adventures Day Two

After a night of camping rough - no holiday park, just parked at the end of a dirt road - we headed off for our second day of adventures. First up, flying to Milford Sound. Michael rented a plane and took us on a 90 minute sight seeing tour.



The scenery is just amazing. We flew over big snow-covered mountains. In our small plane we were able to fly between the mountains all the way to Milford Sound on the Tasman Sea.





On the flight back clouds were coming in below us in the mountains which made for some incredible sights.





Our final adventure was not one we had planned but it too was really cool. Susanne's friend Lee works on the 1992 New Zealand America's Cup yacht. The NZ14 does tours twice a day out of Queenstown on Lake Wakatipu. Lee got us half price tickets for the afternoon voyage and we jumped at the chance.



This was the boat with the famous funky keel that was kept secret for so long. This was a wonderful way to see Queenstown and a truly unique experience that I don't think we would have gotten anywhere else.

Queenstown - NZ Adventure Capital

Next on the agenda was Queenstown where we planned to spend a few days doing some adventure activities and visiting friends of Susanne's who had emigrated from the UK. After dropping Susanne off at Lara and Lee's we found our holiday park (which is what they call camper parks here) and rested up...for adventure. As far as holiday parks go we had a pretty sweet view.



First adventure - jetboating through Shotover Canyon. These boats can go in 2 inches of water and can accelerate to 100/kmh in 2 seconds. Read Michael's blog for the full account and video but suffice to say it's incredibly scary, fast, and somewhat wet.

Next adventure - bungy jumping. This was too scary for me so I decided to just watch. But I have to say that even watching was scary. This particular jump hangs from cables over a 450 foot high canyon. So once you arrive at the very remote canyon, you ride a cable car out to the jump site. To illustrate how serious this is, even spectators like myself have to get all geared up and clamp on to the safety wire to get out to the jump site.



Again, read Michael's blog for accounts of the jump. It was unbelievable to watch him (and everyone else for that matter) jump literally into the abyss. Just a little beyond my reach I think but it did look amazing.

Oh Susanna

We were both thrilled to be finally meeting up with Michael's sister Susanne. The unfortunate news was that meeting Susanne in Christchurch coincided with three torrential days of rain. Still we were pretty psyched to have 11 days together to tour the South Island.



First stop was picking up our camper van. Traveling by camper van is pretty popular here in NZ so its been fun to be part of the in crowd. While she's small, we've learned to love our little van.





From Christchurch we headed south to Dunedin where we were pretty much trapped as the hard rains had closed many of the roads. Luckily some family friends of Michael and Susanne were also in Dunedin so we were able to spend some time together, most enjoyably in the Cadbury Chocolate Factory.



While we all had to wear hairnets during the tour, Michael was one of the few who also had to wear one on his beard. And he doesn't even like chocolate that much - a real trooper.



Once the roads were passable we made our way to Queenstown. The scenery was just amazing. While the North Island was much more rolling hills with sheep the South Island has more dramatic landscapes with snow covered peaks and ice blue rivers...and more sheep of course.

Land of Mordor

Next stop, Tongariro National Park. As with almost all of NZ, part of Lord of the Rings was filmed here. We stayed about 15 minutes out of town in another one of these towns that exists only to house tourists and travelers. Our plan was to do the Tongariro Crossing, a 17 km hike that takes all day. These plans, however, quickly changed as I put on my hiking boots and discovered that my feet were still pretty sore from the Glow Worm caving experience.



So we moved on to plan B which included a 7 km hike that was relatively easy and scenic, and didn't tear up my feet further.

The Sky is Falling

Or wait, I was falling. This was the day of reckoning - the skydive birthday present. We lucked out with the weather as it was a perfect sunny, blue sky day. We arrived promptly at 10:30 and immediately filled out a form with the following questions: #1 - Name (fair enough); #2 - Next of Kin (what ever happened to emergency contact?); #3 - Weight (which they then write on your hand in magic marker that stays for three days).

When it was our turn to jump we were suited up in adorable little red jumpsuits with skullcap hats. We were shown a 5 minute video - yep, just 5 minutes - on what to do during the jump. I stopped paying attention when they mentioned the banana pose.

As it was a tandem jump I got to go with this super cute Kiwi - Kane. All was good as we boarded the plane until I realized that last in meant first out - yikes. We flew up to 12,000 feet where the fun started. First I got to sit on Kane's lap as he harnessed us together. Next, we moved awkwardly toward the door with me on Kane's lap. By now the door was open and we were looking 2 miles down. Double yikes. We sat with my legs dangling out the door for about 30 seconds before we just jumped.

The first 3-4 seconds are pretty terrifying as you're gaining speed - up to 200 km/hour. Once you hit terminal velocity you just feel like you're flying, even though you're really plummeting toward earth. This lasts for about 25 seconds before the chute is pulled and you're jerked straight up. I actually found the freefall scarier than the initial jump as we were doing all these sharp turns and you really have time to realize just how high up you are. From there it's about 3-5 minutes to landing which was surprisingly easy.

At this point the jump was about 2 weeks ago but I can't stop thinking about it. It's totally amazing and I think I'd do it again.