On to Cairns!

If you're gonna say it like an Aussie, you gotta say "Caaans" like you've got a couple of wallabies stuck up your nose. After 4 days in Sydney, it was on to Cairns (Caaans) up in the tropical part of Aus for more than a week. Cairns was MY kind of place! Sydney was cool, but it was a city. In and around Cairns we snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef twice, hot-air ballooned, rode horses, rented a car (scary), swam in the stinger nets (to avoid the deadly box jellyfish), walked the beaches, hiked in the rainforest, and lounged by the pool at our awesome hotel watching old French guys in their speedos with a kind of disgusted fascination.



Here's me, Daryl, and Judith doing the tourist pose at an overlook between Cairns and Port Douglas (P.D., by the way, is near where Steve Irwin had his run-in with the stingray)

Then Daryl, while we're waiting to take off in the hot air balloon.

Then here is me unwisely traveling off the beaten path at Mossman Gorge National Park. Aussies don't travel off the path, and for good reason - turns out every other thing can either temporarily maim, permantly maim, or outright kill you. Of course we didn't really know this at the time...luckily all any of us suffered was a case of Mango Itch. Actually, it was just me, and I didn't know what it was until a couple of weeks being back in the States...until then I really thought I'd be fitting into the "permantly maimed" category. Mango Itch is an ugly, itchy rash similar to poison ivy, and happens when you pick a green mango, let the watery sap run down your arm, and then don't bother to do any more than wipe it off on your shorts. Lesson learned there!