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Animals in the water, I didn’t write fish!
Living in Australia is more difficult than you might imagine, but traveling there can be too, and you have to be careful about spending money and dangerous animals. Just avoid snakes and spiders (hard to find in winter); sharks and crocodiles. Locals told me that there are more than you hear about bathers or surfers becoming shark gruel. But it’s news that is thinly disclosed so as not to scare tourists.
Walking on an expanse of other people’s clothes
Being very expensive, to lower the budget a bit, not combining anything with couchsurfing, I almost always slept in hostels. This solution is often used by more or less transient and stable workers.
Many people travel around Australia stopping occasionally for a little work and then leaving again. The timing and very trivially also the luggage of a tourist traveler is very different from a working traveler, even more so from a laborer. For those who wake up early, for example, it is a problem if their dorm mates come home at 4 a.m. drunk and cackling after post-work drinking. In the hostel in Cairns there were two Welsh guys who, in addition to having no respect for those sleeping in their room, had scattered all their belongings on the floor. On the day of my departure I had to walk on their cloths to get out.
In our image of Australia there is unspoiled nature and endless space, and this rightly fascinates us. For those who live there, the perspective may be different. It is true that as the Italian girl I met in Sydney told me, on Sundays they go surfing and not to the mall; but it is very true that in the late afternoon when they finish work, and even more so on the weekend; especially in the small and more isolated places; men and women fill the pubs and drink until they tear each other apart.
For a traveler who can take in even the best in a few weeks; lively pubs (often with the rock music I like) can be fun; boundless spaces amaze; and exotic animal sightings thrill.
The Great Barrier Reef the top place to see animals in the water
Cairns has a beautiful waterfront, and it is an ideal base for exploring the Great Barrier Reef and also the forest. But you have to know where to go because some beaches are infested with crocodiles that come down from the rivers. In the flood of 2023 they came right up to the residential areas. I did a marine tour and a land tour, beautiful,
About the excursion on the Great Barrier Reef, it included three stops in addition to lunch on the ship. On the first two I splashed around with colorful minnows and minnows. For the third one I had planned to do something different, opting for the submarine ride.
It was actually a small craft that resembled a submarine, but it was more of a very shallow-bottomed boat with many small windows. It was also yellow like the Beatles’, but it turned out to be a bit of a rip-off. Much better mask and snorkel, as I saw blurry fish at a little less depth than I would have seen at the surface of the water.
The rocker cook
I also thoroughly enjoyed the transfer to the Great Barrier Reef. On departure they rounded us up (there were about a hundred of us) to explain the basic rules of safety both on the ship and around the corals, which of course it is vitally important to touch and step on. Then they introduced the crew, and of the cook they said sneeringly that on the way back he would take care of other things as well, and that was a surprise.
Once they had fed and cleared the big table where the tasty buffet of fish and fresh fruit stood, they set up a stage and the cook began tuning a guitar. The repertoire of rock classics with the chorus of most of the other passengers was mind-boggling. The Anglo-Saxons have a musical culture and taste for such things that I absolutely love.
Previous stop Seeing animals in Australia and boyfriend for an evening
Next stop The penguin parade at Philip Island and the hitchhiker
Trips taken, travel stories divided by continent
Countries visited in my travel stories
Anecdotes, divided by type in travel narratives
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