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cape trials & tribulation

as if we could top the dive trip....well, K. it didn't exactly do that but cape tribulation - an unexpected gem in the way north of australia was an awesome surprise. had barely read the aussie guide book so had no idea what to do around cairns. had heard a few rumblings from other back packers to 'go to cape trib'. had a few days to spare before flying back to sydney, so we rented a tin can, got a map and drove north in search of.

what we ended up with was a pristine desolate beach complete with an ancient jungle forrest running right to the edge. think of a picture-postcard beach. now plunk me down in the middle of it. oh yeah, and I bet I'm screaming "oh. my. GOD!" with loads of hand gestures and a huge grin. yeah, that's pretty much it.

we were all set for swimming & hiking until we saw the loads of warning signs posted at every single beach: ornery capaberry sightings (basically take an ostrich crossed with a rhino and make him mad cause he's too low in the food chain), 3m long salt-water aligator sightings, the start of killer box jelly fish season, our guest house telling us 'check in before you hike the jungle so we know you're out there'. yeah, riiiiiight.....so much for that cool relaxing feeling: you go in the water....no, YOU go in the water....no you FIRST.

since it was obviously unsafe for us to exert ourselves by hiking or swimming, our only other option was some serious nothingness on the beach. feeling energetic? well, then flip over....

as if we needed any more proof the jungle wanted to kill us, that night at the guest house bar, a dutch girl almost put her cigarette out on a python. now think about this for a sec....we're in the middle of nowhere. no other guest houses around. loads of jungle in every direction. tons of OTHER places for that python to be.....it was only hanging around us becuase there are obvioulsy SO MANY OTHERS OF THEM all over the rest of the jungle. right? I mean c'mon - that python didn't exactly want to squeeze 'round a beer that night. he was just getting away from all the other pythons, looking for a space of his own, that happened to overlap with a space of OUR own....sheeee-ITE! the crazy bar guy chased after it and held it out for us all to touch. I made damn sure it was a python and not something of the biting variety before I did any touching. was pretty cool tho, that's for sure.

our 2 days of beach chillin went by way too fast. money flew out of our pockets even faster. we headed back to cairns, a flight to sydney, a drive back to suburbia. we're in the final count down of civilization before its off to bangkok, then india!

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