tomputer

This morning we were back at the airport, but this time for a helicopter ride over the Whitsunday Islands and out to a pontoon about 30miles off the coast in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef. I got to take the front seat and pretend to be co-pilot which meant I got the best views over the islands. It was the first time either of us had been in a helicopter and I was surprised by how smooth it was but also how noisy until you put on your headset.

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Tags: australia, hamilton island, helicopter, holiday, snorkel, snorkelling, whitsunday

An early (07:25) flight from Cairns to Hamilton Island on Monday meant an early alarm call but we got most of Monday on the island. (By the way, it was a prop-engined plane, but the Dash 8 aircraft was still a pretty big plane). Just to maintain our track record with the weather, it started to rain as the plane taxied down the runway in Cairns even though it apparently hadn’t rained for months! We’re staying in the Palm Bungalows which means we get our own little self-contained chalet – we’d been advised by friends to reject an upgrade if we were offered it because that means you end up in the multi-story hotel complex but no upgrade was offered anyway (I think you need to have confetti in you hair to get an upgrade!).

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On Sunday I did a bungy jump at the AJHackett centre in Smithfield just outside of Cairns. AJ is one of the people who “invented” bungy jumping and did the now famous jump from the Eiffel tower back in the eighties. It was good fun and I quite enjoyed it (despite the look of terror in one of the pics – thanks for capturing that one Tracey). Although you definitely feel it when you stop falling and the rope starts to take the strain it isn’t a massive jolt – I would do it again at some point. Here are the full set of pics:

Tags: bungy, cairns, holiday, smithfield

We leave Cairns early tomorrow for Hamilton Island where we hope to go snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef. Don’t know much else about Hamilton Island but take a look at the satellite map below (or click here). They had to reclaim land from the sea to  make the island big enough for the runway. Not sure if that means we’ll be on a 4 seater propeller plane (apparently the runway is just long enough for a 747 though).

map

It’s warm in Cairns. That’s the first thing to note and apparently it hasn’t rained for three months. We’re not going to do the typical British thing and start complaining about it being too hot after moaning about the rain for the last few weeks though. Let’s hope that the monsoon season can hold off for a few more days. When we arrived at lunchtime we dropped our bags at the hotel and took a walk alongside the water into the centre of Cairns. Based on our recent experience Cairns seems like a fairly typical Australian city and is geared up for tourism and backpackers in particular but not a lot else.

We booked a 4WD trip to Cape Tribulation for our second day. This involved being picked up in a cool 4WD minibus thing (at 7am!) and transported to various parts of the tropical rainforest.

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Tags: 4wd, crocodile, daintree, rainforest, tribulation