Queensland Locked In

We depart (sadly) Sydney at 7AM on Monday the 4th of June. Upon landing at the Cairns Airport we pick up a car and drive north to Cape Tribulation. This is wild country, full of vicious cassowaries and fungi that would close up your mother's throat. Well, my mother's throat at least.

When my parental units visited this unforgiving land a year ago they just barely escaped with their lives from a team of hungry cassowaries. They sought refuge in the kitchen of their hotel after the lights went out, thinking the hunting cassowaries would never be able to break into the meat locker. They did. Those cassowaries hunt in a pack and are especially sensitive to motion. A sneeze gave away their location, but they were able to climb into an air duct and into the safety of their own bed, just in the nick of time. In their slumber, when they thought it was finally safe, the killer fungi got them. Gasping, they fled under the cover of night and recovered in Port Douglas, and also went antiquing.

Port Douglas isn't in our schedule, but that depends on the cassowaries and fungi, I guess. What is in our schedule is a short stay at the wild Cairns YHA hostel. Our boat leaves at 5:30AM the next day, so we picked the cheapest option we could find. As a bonus, it appears the guests tend to get crazy drunk each night and take compromising photos. Let's see if Dana winds up dancing on a table.

Yes, the next day we are departing for sea at 5:30AM for a three day, 2 night scuba diving trip. Over the course of 11 dives, we will be able to get up close to creatures living in one of the most diverse ecosystems on earth... sea turtles, giant clams, rays... but no sharks. Definitely no sharks, Dana.

The boat is run by ProDive, and Dana & I have a private room on the boat of 30 or so people. No doubt it will be an interesting experience. Dana is a bit worried... but she has nothing to fear... I'm a Rescue Diver, for Pete's sake! A Rescue Diver!

Our last two nights in Queensland, and all of Australia, are in Palm Cove. We have a nice, relaxing place near the beach, far from deadly cassowaries, fungi and giant clams, so we can take in our last few thousand breaths of Australian air in peace.