A Ripper of a Week

Aussie terms of the day...
"True Blue" - means 'the real deal' or genuine.
"Ripper" - in the Aussie terminology, this means amazing or really good. Which this week certainly was! Especially with the scenery!

            It’s been the saga of beautiful landscapes the end of this week and can I just say wow! It is so beautiful here! On Thursday Shane, Michelle, and I took the breathtakingly beautiful drive up to Port Douglas along the coast of Cairns and, of course, we stopped to take a number of pictures!

            Port Douglas itself is just as beautiful, the town mostly being various hotels dotted around and a small plot of touristy markets and restaurants.  There is a little chapel there that looks over the ocean and a jutting boathouse that apparently is the stage for many a tourist wedding and reception.  I can see why though, it is beautiful and the water is so amazingly turquoise.

            Friday it was up to the Tablelands and Lake Tinaroo again, this time for a weekend camping trip.  We took the ever windy and switchback filled path up Gillies Range and I don’t know about everyone else, but I was feeling a little queasy after that run! 

            First stop on the Tablelands was Gallos Dairyland for a sample of some of their cheeses! They have a bunch of chocolates and such they make there as well but after how much chocolate and how many biscuits we had on the drive, we decided to forego that part. 

            They were having their last evening milking when we got there as well so we got to swing out to the yard and take a look at some of the cows as they got milked and headed back out the pasture. 

            We got to our camping area in the late afternoon early evening and, as the first of our group there, got to choose our camping spot.  After a little incident with the locked gate and a trip to inquire with the camp host, we were setting up camp in no time and other members of our party began to trickle in.  And of course, it’s not really camping unless you close off the evening with a camp fire!

            The next morning most everyone else had plans to go down to Kuranda and the markets, but Michelle, Shane and I had plans to go water skiing on the lake again! And boy was that a blast! Michelle’s dad got there with the boat around 10:00 and shortly afterwards we were on the lake starting off the day with a run on those ridiculous Sumo Suits.  They are like these giant, blow up dresses essentially that you slip on and get dragged across the lake in, spinning and rolling over the water as you try desperately to hang on to the rope for dear life. 

Shane and Michelle's dad with the first run on the Sumo Suits

            The water was unbelievably quiet, the middle of the lake even having the look of completely flat glass.  It was amazing! Michelle said she had never seen the lake that still before, ever. 

            Which was why it was decided to have me try water skiing again, even starting way out in the middle of the lake! I am now proud to report to you that I got up! Twice!! Not that I stayed up all that long mind you, but I would say that’s a great improvement to last times ‘butt-skiing’ half the length of the lake.

            And of course there was lots of water tubing as well since I personally think that's the best part!  Apparently in this time I managed to break the record with maybe one of the most ridiculous and hilarious tumbles off the water tube Michelle has ever seen.

            As a bit of background information for you, while we were setting up camp the night before someone had need of a hair tie to hang up a light fixture and I happily donated on of mine, since I had two.  This meant I had one good hairband left for the rest of the trip and as most girls I know will understand, a hairband is pretty much one of the most essential hair things you can take with you anywhere, especially camping. That being said, while riding this water tube at a good 30 kph, I started to realize that my hairband was well removed from much of my hair thanks to the last tumble I had had into the lovely murkiness of the lake water. I decided I would try and just take the thing out real quick so as to avoid losing it during the next fall I was sure was going to happen.

            Such a task was to be much harder to do than originally thought I found out as the hair tie had decided to form the dreaded untagleable knot around a chunk of my hair and screech and wail at the thought of being removed from it's unruly charge.  Thus commenced a battle between myself and the hairband, all the while the boat and water tube racing down the length of the lake. It was then that Michelles dad, being the boat driver, decided to whip the tube which sent the thing screaming into a momentum charged turn and I was thrown way off balance.  Thus it happened, my right arm fully outstretched with the still attached hairband tightly held in my grasp, the left arm thrown up in a failed attempt to balance myself, and my legs flung every which way as I flew backwards off the tube and tumbled into the water.  And there you have it, the story of how I may have almost broken a record. 

             When the day at the lake came to a close and the three of us were all showered and clean, it was to the Tolga Pub for dinner with the rest of the camping crew and then the drive in movie theatre to watch some movies! The selection was the Muppets Most Wanted and Captain America 2 the first of which I will suffice to say was very... odd.  I think we all were left thinking "Whaaaaaat??"  Captain America on the other hand was awesome and a great way to end an amazing day.

             The next morning it was time to pack up and by late morning we were on our way across the Tablelands.  First stop was a lookout over the Barron Gorge...

... and then a short hike to see the Barron Falls themselves! I'm told these look simply AMAZING during the wet season with all the rain and such and the water all but engulfs almost all the rock you see exposed on the left side.

             We drove down the other side of the Tablelands, this time on the Kuranda Range and had to stop again to admire another beautiful lookout of Cairns.