ph03nix
Well-Known Member
Yes! And shame on you. You should have done us first.
You wouldn't have bothered with the rest if you did, you would have just kept coming back here... or wanted to stay... In WA you can be travel through the desert and just pop out the other side onto the most pristine white (and I mean white... glowing white) beaches. Don't forget your sunnies if you want to head over there.
Tassie has cold, windswept rocky little beaches, but apparently is the place to go diving to check out seahorses, abalone, lobster, all of that cold water stuff... SA's beaches are apparently very pretty, but windy and cold (at least for a tropicana like me)... and Vic (cold) and NSW (warmer) have really nice beaches as well. Honestly Dave, ALL of the beaches in Aus are awesome... They're all different though, they just vary in their wow factor.. The sand gets finer and whiter the further you go north, the trees get more tropical, the water gets warmer... You do have to watch out for jellyfish if you're swimming in the warmer months. Some of those little bastards will kill you within 15 minutes. And of course, up here we've got the reef. If we keep fucking up the earth though, there have been scientific studies done that say that we could lose it completely within 10 years. There are areas that are already dying off. So you should come over as soon as you can, otherwise you might miss it. There are heaps of dive companies up that way, and I've been told that most tourists believe they're reasonably priced. You should probably go out with someone who's experienced, at least at first, so that you can learn a bit about the local conditions, etc.Where we want to go, you can simply snorkel the reef if that's your preference. That's what I'll have to stick to... I doubt I could dive. But it is so close that I'll still be able to touch it if I wanted to... I'll still be surrounded by fish... it just won't be so hard on my lungs. Now, Cedar Bay is north of Cairns, and actually a National Park, so you're not supposed to camp there, but if we get caught you guys can do the talking and play the dumb tourists.
They're pretty lenient on the whole for two reasons... 1, because there's a hippy community living in the area and they don't give up and move away too easily. Some of 'the ferals' have been there for decades. And 2, the rainforest in there is too thick for them to really want to be too vigilant. It would take them months to search the whole area properly. It used to be a fair walk from the nearest road to the beach, but we're not too sure about how much has changed up there these days. We are planning a trip up there very soon though... hopefully just after christmas... we'll keep you updated.If I was you, armed as you are with two amazingly talented and good looking tour guides such as ourselves, I'd hire a camper and drive around the country. We'll join you in ours and show you some places that don't appear in the tourists' brochures... and some that do, if you have any particular preferrences. But be warned... you won't want to go home. At the very least, you'll be making plans to come back for your next holidays. No matter where we go, you won't see even an 'nth' of the wonders we have to behold. We haven't even seen all of the amazing stuff that we're lucky enough to have here. I do promise you'll love it.
I'm going to make you eat meat pies and vegemite sandwiches.Now as for the grub...Pork is awesome. I just made a superb Chili Verde. And the coffee? I've got some of the best Columbian Peaberry coffee that you'll taste. When I brew it in our vacuum pot, it's simply perfection.
That's about the extent of our 'national food'. I won't tell you what kind of meat is used for the pie filling... nor that vegemite is the stuff that's left on the bottom of the barrel after making beer...
You'll love it, mate!As for the coffee... don't make it too good... Gryph might decide he wants to go home with you.
Seamaiden said:This is my geek; as I'm scrolling through the pictures, I'm naming the fish. Oh, there are some anthias, a tomato clown, better watch your wrasse! (It is not pronounced "ross-ee", like a he-she did on one of our tattoo shows, that was some funny shit right right there, I spent the whole show trying to figure out what this "ross-ee" fish was he-she was talking about, and finally they show the tattoo, and I busted up laughing, that's a WRASSE!
Jesus, do I go off on tangents, or what?
Tripper!You should do some googling of your own. I just picked a few photos that were taken in roughly the same area. You'll find heaps more if you look for tropical north queensland, around the Cairns/Cooktown area. We did check it out on GoogleEarth again last night, and they've uploaded new pics. You can see the coastline really well now... you can even see how close the reef and rainforest really are in places. You should have a look around the mouth of the Daintree River, see what you think...
Apart from that, there's not a whole lot of stuff on the net about this place, it's pretty wild. We'll change that, you can be sure. There will be photos everywhere soon... and if I'm going snorkelling, I'm going to buy a decent underwater camera, you can count on that! You can help me out with the names of the fish I photograph... In return I'll tell you all about the birds and animals... deal?
And funnily enough, this is the song that they started with. I was going to record them singing it because it was so cute... they're 10 and 11... they know this word for word. But the point is, it made me think of you guys...