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Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Cape Trib and Various

First and foremost I want to tell yall about the best lunch I have had in month's and month's! It was here in Cairns at a place called The Raw Prawn. We Ben and I just walked up on this place knowing nothing about it but, we saw you could get a two course lunch and a beer for 22 bucks (that is a really good deal for Australia) so we both had the steak and chips with ice cream for dessert and a beer. I know you are probably thinking that steak and French Fries doesn't sound that amazing but everything was just perfect!

We had absolutely perfect weather,looking right at the ocean on the esplanade and just had a super relaxing great lunch. The service was great,the food was amazing... my steak was cooked to perfection and the cut of meat was great! The beers were chilled just right and went down SO good it was all great! Not to mention even the chips and ice cream were awesome!

Now on to my Cape Trib trip....

 So Ben and I decided to book a little 2 day 1 night tour up to Cape Tribulation in the Daintree Tropical Rain Forest (the oldest continual rain forest on earth). Now I have done the exact tour we booked two years ok so I was debating whether or not to do it again but I just said go for it and I did it with Ben anyway. I am really glad I did! Last time I went it was the "wet" season and this time it was the dry season so it was two totally different experiences for sure. We had a beautiful drive up there and a great guide named Jo. She was awesome!

Once we got there they dropped us off and basically told us they would pick us up at 1:30pm the next day. You could choose to book optional "extras" such as zip lining thru the jungle,white water rafting etc but, I did all that 2 years ago and we wanted to save money so we just relaxed pure and simple. Most of the waters around where we were staying are inhibited by croc's big enough to eat you alive or jelly fish that can kill you in under 5 minutes so you  really don't want to swim there haha. Luckily, they had a great swimming hole with a rope swing and everything that had nothing in it that could kill you other than big rocks lol.

The only things we majorly had to worry about was spiders and Taipan's. The Taipan (there are like 3 different species in Australia) are in the top three most venomous snakes in the world. One bite from them can kill over 10,000 mice and actually kill a human in roughly 15 minutes. Not to mention they bite more than once sometimes. There is anti venom for them but you are usually so far from a hospital and in the rain forest there is no cell phone reception so it is generally a death sentence. Ben thought he saw one (thank god he didn't!) what he actually saw just one meter (about 3 feet) in front of him was a tree snake.

It looked like a Taipan and was actually poisonous we later found out but, it had fangs at the BACK of it's mouth so very unlikely you would get bit by it. Anyway he survived and I survived no worries. Nor did we get bit by any spiders that can kill you. Lots can kill you here in Oz, it seems everything is deadly lol. But, I have been here almost 12 months now and I haven't run across a single deadly thing anywhere I have been so far. Luckily they generally don't like people.

We also went on a "Croc cruise" in the Daintree River and managed to see a two meter (6 foot) croc and a baby one. Neither of those are big enough to kill you but, the six foot one could take a good nimble out of you if he wanted. We were told there was croc's in that river that were up to 10 meters long and 2 tons in weight! For my American readers, 10 meters is about 30 feet! Those guys could kill you easily. They routinely eat ENTIRE COWS. They also said that in winter you may be able to swim around in that river for hours and not have any problems but, in the warmer months as it is now as soon as you get in the water the croc's know it and if you are in the territory of a big boy you have a good chance of being killed. There was just recently a 6 year old little boy who ran into the river to rescue his dog and was himself eaten :(

So to rap this up and move on, we had great weather,beautiful scenery and just generally a relaxing time in the oldest rain forest on the planet and I loved every minute of it. Soon I will have pictures up on facebook for yall. It was a great way to end my time here in Australia as I leave for New Zealand in two days! So I will just kill time here in Cairns and enjoy what little time I have left in Oz. I will really miss it here... :( especially the weather. But, I have no choice but to move on so I will just do it.

Take care,Tyler

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