Great Barrier Reef

As I sit in my living room in Virginia, let me hark you back to August.  Picture the cast...  me: recovering from pancreatitis (it takes a loong time); Tom, stressing about the move home; Thomas: la-de-dah;  our German friend Nici and her almost 3-year-old Flynn.


Cairns is the city in the top right point of Australia where people fly to visit Far North Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef.
It is a rainforest and quite refreshing to see green for people tired of living in the desert of Alice springs. I found it kinda like Virginia, with crocodiles.
An acquaintance of ours owns a gorgeous rental home near Cairns.  Really nice.

We could walk a block to the beach, but not so much go IN the water.  Still, having a sandbox for miles and miles made the boys really happy.
We had Breakfast with the Birds which surprised me.  I expected the Aussie "no worries" and birds stepping in our food, but they stayed at the perimeter on their perches. The rest of the wildlife preserve was great, too.  We finally saw koalas, lots of them.  Cassowaries were a freaky hit.  These huge meat-eating birds live in the rainforest there.  With their horn on the top of their head and their ripping claws, they make for a formidable nightmare.
I was impress that in a day we recognized the silhouette of the Lumholtz Tree Kangaroos on their road crossing signs.
The giant (I mean GIANT) strangler figs were impressive.  I wish we'd left time for the venom museum.

Snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef was simply amazing, not for the colors which were not like on TV - the corals were mostly a drab olive green.  But, just doing it.  I was terrified at the first stop.  Thomas wasn't much better.  But we worked through it slowly, very slowly, and by the third stop hopped off the back of the boat into the sea.  There are some experiences you just can't lose to fear.

We were there about a week.  Let's watch one of those slide shows.

<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" bgcolor="#ffffff"><tr><td><a href="http://smilebox.com/play/4d7a4d354d7a55774e7a453d0d0a&blogview=true&campaign=blog_playback_link" target="_blank"><img width="420" height="330" alt="Click to play this Smilebox slideshow" src="http://smilebox.com/snap/4d7a4d354d7a55774e7a453d0d0a.jpg" style="border: medium none ;"/></a></td></tr><tr><td><a href="http://www.smilebox.com/?partner=smilebox&campaign=blog_snapshot" target="_blank"><img width="420" height="46" alt="Create your own slideshow - Powered by Smilebox" src="http://www.smilebox.com/globalImages/blogInstructions/blogLogoSmilebox.gif" style="border: medium none ;"/></a></td></tr><tr><td align="center"><a href="http://www.smilebox.com/slideshows.html" target="_blank">Free slideshow design</a> made with Smilebox</td></tr></table>

Well rats, it didn't work this time!  Ok, just go to this link:
  http://smilebox.com/playBlog/4d7a4d344e4459354d7a453d0d0a&blogview=true

until I figure it out.