So, cairns. Rainforest and reef and backpackers everywhere-even during the steam of the off-season. Actually, today is quite temperate. At least, that's what I thought at the bottom of the four meter pool sucking dry compressed air. Yes, I've started my scuba lessons, and I should be certified for open water the day after tomorrow. I'm taking a three-day cruise to the outer Great Barrier Reef where we float about at 18m on nine different dives, including one night dive.
Almost all the travelers I've met are european here, with a fair smattering of Canadians but nary another American to be found. Quite surprisingly, I must say, Canada being so much smaller. Cairns is called the backpacking capital of queensland with good reason. It's the most incredibly touristy place I've ever seen, with signs for river rafting, mountain biking tours, guided bushwalks, bungee jumping, skydiving, pleasure cruises, and of course diving.
If you'll humor my perhaps unjustified extrapolation, Australia on the whole has such a clumpy, small population, and developed primarily from ex-europeans, so that it never developed a strong economy independently of its beauty and available land; its primary moneymaker must be tourism. As a result, ozzies become a leisure-focussed nation, hence their laid-back nature. (perhaps it'd be more accurate to say they failed to convert to an economic or technologic powerhouse like the US and kept, instead, a subsistence mindset without an overarching drive towards Progress. Perhaps this is a bias coming from my scientific background, but it certainly forms a catchphrase of modern political speech.
Cairns'd be a very expensive place to stay and enjoy fully, so I'll be leaving for Darwin in a week. Can't go by bus due to flooding, but I got a great deal on airfare. Then from darwin to bali, perhaps immediately onward depending on the current balinese population's agitation. It should be cheap to get an outward ticket, with the indonesian rupiah being worthless.
Don't know whether anyone wanted a digereedoo (I'll find out upon reading my mail, I think) but I'll definitely be able to work a good deal due to bulk, say $80 for a nice playable instrument. I've stopped in a few stores and learned how to play, circular breathing included. So I can readily teach any interested.
So, yum, the hostel is having it's weekly barbeque and I need to convince the owner to permit me use of his fax line before things get too hectic.
Oh, I didn't mention my beautiful solo bushwalk along a barely marked trail through the local rainforest! 325m to the top of Mount Lumley, with a stellar view of Cairns and country, winding trails deep within the rich canopy shared by wary meter-long lizards and oblivious mound-building birdies, and an insect sound texture of rising pitch-intensity hums or synchronized zhirs punctuated by coos and songs of tree birds. I thankfully forgot my camera, giving me a welcome excuse to return. Alas I can share but a miniscule 3"x5" window.
Relaxedly,
-xaq