³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

Explore the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳
This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving.

28 October 2014

³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Homepage

Local ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Sites

Neighbouring Sites

Related ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Sites


Contact Us

About Cornwall

You are in: Cornwall > About Cornwall > About Cornwall > Life Down Under

Life underwater at the Great Barrier Reef

Life Down Under

³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Cornwall's very own global traveller is back with her latest diary. After spending the few months working, Rachaels and her friend Nay are back on the road backpacking again. Find out what they have been getting up to with Rachael's latest diary.

G'day mate - the last time I wrote was about two months ago and I have been such a busy bee that I've only just got around to writing the latest installment and do you know what I go and do; forget the most important thing needed - my life saver - my little black book.

Map of Australia

No it's not what you're thinking - it's my day to day diary that I've been using since I left home back in October last year! I usually have that by my side so that I can remember what I've been doing whilst I'm writing, so this time it's all going to have to from memory - ahhhhhh - going to be a hard one I think.

The bulk of my time has been spent working - Monday to Friday, 11am till 5pm thereabouts, so that's easy enough to write about - work, work and more work and obviously fun, fun, fun! I can't complain though - I made a lot of good friends at 'The Orient' and will hopefully keep in contact with them all. Apart from work my time was mostly spent socialising with friends and generally just hanging out - so mainly all fun and games here down under for me.

Rachael at Mossman Gorge

Rachael at Mossman Gorge in Queensland

I suppose the one big thing I should tell you about is that I moved house. Up until just the other day I was living in Balmain with some lovely family friends - Michael and Clare - it was like a home from home and I had such a wonderful time living with them. It was like having surrogate parents for a while and I was like their third child, as their two children are living abroad in Europe. They made me feel so at home with them and I'm extremely grateful for that - if you're reading this Michael and Clare - thank you!

I'm now no longer living in Balmain as I'm up in Cairns, Queensland now. We, being Nay and I, arrived here on Monday 21 May and are now true backpackers once again as we're living in a hostel - but it's a gorgeous one in a converted Queenslander house and again feels like a home from home. Not badly priced either - at $22 a night, which is about 9 pounds.

On board the Boomerang

Rachael became part of the crew on the Boomerang

Cairns seems like a proper country town and has a friendly vibe to it. The sea/beach here isn't so nice though - instead of seeing beautiful turquoise water like you'd imagine - you see mud flats! But to get around this they have built a water lagoon in the park, so there is water which you bathe in to cool yourself down from this hot and humid weather. We haven't explored the area in great detail yet as we haven't been here long - but as from Thursday we have hired a car for 10 days - so Nay and I are going on a road trip. We're both so excited as we're going to have the freedom to explore all the sights at our own pace and freewill. Obviously in my next entry I will be able to fill you in on all the shenanigans that we got up to. But for now, I think I will sign off and keep this entry short and sweet. Cheers xxx

Well hello once again - it's now been a fair few weeks since I last wrote and the car has come and gone and we have gone further down the East coast via bus - oh the joy of long bus journeys. Madge, yes we named the car, did us proud for those 10 days and we managed to see so much. Unfortunately it rained quite a lot of the time, but we still had fun visiting lots of waterfalls and rainforests - so the rain was well suited actually.

We went up to Cape Tribulation - which is the only location in the world where two National Heritage sites meet face to face - the Daintree rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef - truly stunning scenery. We also headed inland and explored the Atherton Tablelands, where we stayed in the nicest hostel so far in a little town called Yungabarra, it’' name - 'On the Wallaby' - I recommend it to anyone who is in that neck of that woods.

Daintree Rain Forest

The beauty of Daintree Rain Forest

Whilst there we saw many waterfalls, lakes and rainforests - along with the rainforests came leeches though - not one of the highlights but still it made an interesting walk when they kept attaching themselves to us and sucking our blood. We also were lucky enough to see Tree Kangaroos and Possums whilst on a night canoe on Lake Tinarro.

One of the waterfalls that we went to was where a Timotei advert and Peter Andre's 'Mysterious Girl' music video were made - Milla Milla Falls - beautiful. On our last day in this area we swam in Lake Eacham which was a crater lake - the water here was so clear and the lake perfectly round.

It was then time to head back to the coast and get our first experience of the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Port Douglas. We went out on a day trip and visited three snorkel sites and saw so many fish and different types of coral. Again it was raining a bit, but that didn't seem to make much of a difference when we were underwater - so Nay and I had the time of our lives.

Rachael at Milla Milla Falls

Rachael, the new Timotei Model...

There was one fish out there called Marvin, he's lived out on the reef for at least the past seven years and he lets you stroke him and swim with him - that was an experience of a life time being side by side with a huge fish.

Once we'd had this amazing experience it was time to start heading down the coast and out next port of call was Magnetic Island. We only spent a couple of days here, but thank the Lord the sun had decided to put his hat on and come out to play, so Nay and I got our first day of sunbathing since we began our trip - woo hoo! That's all that we did whilst here - but that was fine with me.

From there we came to where I'm writing this from - Airlie Beach. And we have just spent the last few days on a sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands - wow! We were on a Maxi sailing boat called Boomerang - 83ft in length, 20ft wide and a mast that extends 110ft above the deck.

Meet Marvin

Marvin the friendly fish

Whilst on board we became a part of the crew and helped with the grinding (which puts up the sail) and other bit and bobs around the boat. The highlights of the trip were the snorkelling and visiting Whitehaven Beach - it was like looking at a postcard. The sand here, which technically isn't sand it's Silica, covers the bay and works as the best exfoliate in the world - with it being perfectly round, unlike sand which has jaggered edges, it gets rids of any dead skin you may have - and trust me it works, I did my whole body.

The weather on this trip was rather odd - we had near enough gale force wind on the first day – 35 knots, great for sailing as the boat was gliding along at a 30 degree angle along the ocean. The second day was patchy cloud to start and then the sun came out and with that came lots of girls in bikinis – 'tan baby, tan!'

The third day it was even sunnier but the temperature dropped and the wind was quite chilly - but luckily that was the day to sail home. And home is where I am now - well till tomorrow anyway and then it's time to embark on a 12 hour bus journey south to Fraser Island - an island made of sand. Well folks, that's it for now, till next time...

last updated: 21/06/07

You are in: Cornwall > About Cornwall > About Cornwall > Life Down Under


A 63-year-old man dies after getting into difficulties while diving with a group of friends in Cornwall.

³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio Cornwall
Your Local ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio Station Listen to the latest bulletin

Spotlight
Monday to Friday at 13:30, 18:30 & 22:25
Watch the latest edition

How to download RealPlayer



About the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ | Help | Terms of Use | Privacy & Cookies Policy
Ìý