Townsville

29.05

Today I'm leaving Cairns, direction Townsville, starting to make my way back to Sydney. 
For this last part of my trip, I'm going by bus. I'm going to spend a lot of time sitting in it, but it's the easiest way to do that part and stop along the way.

I do get travel sick every now and then, but I've never felt soooo sick than when I arrived in Townsville :(. I had to sit at the bus stop for a little bit before making my way to my hostel. And the heat and humidity didn't helped. Hoping I'm not going to feel that bad everytime I'm on the bus...

So once I've been able to make it to my hostel, I just laid down for a while, hoping to feel better.

It didn't work to good, so I decided to move a little, get some fresh air.
I went to Castle Lookout, on top of the hill, with a beautiful view of the city and Magnetic Island.

I felt a little better after that, but still not a 100% ok. So early bedtime and hoping to be all good in the morning to go to Magnetic Island.

Magnetic Island

Outer Reef snorkeling trip

28.05

Back to the great Barrier of Reef, at the outer reef this time.

Green Island was nice, the outer reef was awesome!! Could have stayed there for ever!! 

I've never been snorkelling before, not really interested to do so. Well, I'm happy I gave it a try and discover a new thing I really enjoy doing :)

Thought about renting a waterproof camera, but decided that for once I just wanted to enjoy myself and see as much as I could and not spend my time taking a million of pictures trying to get a good shot...

I've been lucky to see a turtle, most of the people on the boat were complaining about not seeing one. Maybe if they swam further than 5m away from the boat they would have seen one ;). Again I saw a lot of fish than I don't know what they are, but they looked nice, that's all what matter, doesn't it??

I did go for a tour with the marine biologist on board and learned more about all the life out there, but it's hard for me to remember all of it. The one I can't forgot about is we found Nemo!! Lot's of them, living in their anemone!!

It was low tide, you can see the reef form the surface

Daintree Rain forest and Cap Tribulation

27.05

Day tour to Daintree National Park and Cap Tribulation. I had a good day, learning about the rainforest and the area.

Daintree River

Small water crocodile

Mount Alexandra lookout

Root system to help the tree stay up

Strangler Mango tree

Cap Tribulation

Cairns

26.05

And an other day not doing much, just hanging around the city, relaxing, seems to happen a lot lately :)

Green Island

25.05

I'm in Cairns, and to start my Est coast trip what's better than going snorkeling at the Great Barrier of Reef!!

It was great. The weather was not the best, rainy and windy, but still warm so not too bad. 

I went to green Island, which has been created by sand and coral debris accumulating onto a coral foundation. It's a small island, take 30min walk to go around.

I saw many fishes,all size and color, but the best was the sea turtles. Just swimming above them, loved it!! 
I done some snorkeling in the morning, it was really nice and went back in the afternoon, but this time the water got murky and didn't see much.

I went on a glass bottom boat, to see more corrals and wildlife, that's where we saw a shark. I know they are around, but don't really want to see them, rather ignore this fact...

I really enjoy snorkelling, so when I went back to my hostel, I booked an other trip to a different place, further away off shore. Can't wait to be back out there!!

Darwin

22-24.05

Back to Darwin. Not a lot to say about the two days I spend there. I didn't do anything special, just relax, done some planning for my east coast trip and hang out with my travelmates.

I have to say, it was hard to leave Darwin this time. I made some really good friends on that part of my trip and I hate saying goodbye, but the the adventure has to keep going, still a lot to see!!

Next stop Cairns, getting to the East coast for my last three weeks.

Day 9

21.05

And it's already our last day!! Time go by too fast... 

Beautiful parrots :)

Edith Falls, Nitmiluk National Park

Upper pool

Lower pool

Day 8

20.05

Sunrise on Lake Argyle

Room with a view :)

Early visitor

The damn

Durack Homestead, the only house they've been able to move before the lake fill up

Officially leaving Western Australia and Back to the Northern Territory

Day 7

19.05


Back to civilisation for the morning. We are going around the city of Kanunurra before heading to lake Argyle for a cruise and spending the night on one Island.

We went to the Zebra stone gallery, Sandalwood factory, the old access road crossing Ord river and Hoochery rum distillery.

Lake Argyle is the largest fresh water reservoir on the mainland. It's not a natural lake. 
It use to be a valley where the Duracks settle their cattle station on the side of the Ord river.  
Ord river is one of the fastest flowing river during wet season, the amount of water that flowed to the ocean everyday would be enough to supply Perth for 10 years. But during dry season, the area become desertic. The idea of building a damn was to help the farming of the land in Kununurra area. Stopping the water from flooding the land in wet season and having an irrigation system to water it during dry season. It took five years to built the damn, and they only used material coming from the area.
They built a power station too, providing electricity to Kununurra, Wyndham and Argyle Diamond mine.
They though it would take 15years to fill up the lake, but it took only 3. Which mean they've been able to save only one of the building from the cattle station when they wanted to relocate all of them.

Used to be the only way to get to the city from the west

Lake Argyle

The damn and power station, no cement was used to built it

Rock jumping spot :)

Rock Wallabies

Fresh water crocodiles

Our home for the night

Sunset swim

Silver cobbler for diner, thanks to Gary for catching it :)