Zelma’s Trip

After an early night I woke up early on the Tuesday morning ready for my trip out to the reef.  The trip had been cancelled the previous day due to bad weather so I was pleased to find out that it was still running from reception.  I went and got changed into my bikini etc and headed back to get on the bus.  Unfortunately when we arrived at the beach a guy on the radio said that “Rum Runner” (the boat I was due to be going out on) had a technical fault and this, along with the poor weather, meant they had decided to cancel for the day.  We were taken back to our accommodation and I changed my horseriding which was due to be the following day to the afternoon and the reef trip to the next day.  I spent the morning watching television and faffing online.  I also went down to the shops and explored the area a bit.   On the way back through the accommodation I found a fifty dollar bill on the floor which was rather exciting.  Being the overly moral soul that I am I went and handed it to reception and asked that, if it was not claimed, I could have it when I left.

In the afternoon we were taken down to the area where the horseriding was.  I was looking at one of the horses which had been saddled up and thinking how beautiful it was.  I was delighted to find out that this was the horse they had allocated to me, well at least until the point when it was noticed that its shoe was coming off so they had to get another horse.  The second horse turned out to be cool though and was called Chief.  The only problem with Chief was that he was a bit of an anti-social chap and didn’t like any other horses.  This led to him going backwards rather quickly at the start of a big hill in order to try to kick the horse behind him at one point on the ride.  Although he was a horse loner he actually liked human attention, so I forgave him!  The scenery on the ride was spectacular.  We started heading through rainforest which was lush and green then after some time we popped out onto a beautiful beach.  We cantered down part of the beach, albeit not for as long as I would have liked, and then stopped to take some pictures.  After the beach we returned into a different section of rainforest and continued until we got to a small shelter where we stopped for snacks and drinks.  During the ride we went through streams and creeks in the rainforest and even saw a crocodile on the river bank.  I have come to expect joint rides not to be that exciting due to the different capabilities of the riders but we had about four canters and the scenery more than made up for any lack of speed.

When we got back to the accommodation I went and bought some dinner and some wine.  When I got back to the room I sat and had a couple of glasses of wine and listened to music.  The French group returned from the restaurant and one of them decided that drinking wine was a good plan and later accompanied me to P.K.s’ the bar at the hostel over the road.  We got talking to two guys and it transpired that they were father and son.  Somewhat bizarrely this was the first time they had met (well a few days previously) as the father didn’t know about the son.  Apparently he was the result of a one night stand between an English woman and Australian man and it only came to light who the father was recently.  They were very open and frank about it all, which, along with the wine led me to say, “Are you quite sure about this, I mean you look nothing like each other”.  I was then informed that they had had a D.N.A. test.  Having realised what I had said I tried to remedy the situation by saying, “Oh, so you have your mother’s looks then”.  I caught the French guy’s eye and translated his look to mean, “Oh my God, please shut up right now, you’re digging..” so I did.  After more drinks, including the obligatory black sambuca the guys offered their room as a place to carry on drinking when the bar shut.  Okay, that sounded worse than it was meant to, I think I have a knack of that.

After a long night we headed back and I awoke the next morning in order to turn my alarm off and go back to sleep.  Melissa (the French girl in my room) informed me that the bus had arrived to take me to the boat for the reef trip and that they would be returning in five minutes.  I thanked her and promptly fell back to sleep.  A little later there was a knock at the door.  It turned out to be the bus driver who later told me how funny it was when he just heard this panicked, “Oh, shit!”.  So I got up for the bus, bought a can of coke from reception and was taken down to the boat to take me out to the bigger boat.  I strolled from the bus down to the beach, fag in one hand, can of coke in the other and then realised there was a whole group of people sat in the boat staring at me.  After apologising I got into the boat to be taken out to Rum Runner.

Once aboard we were given a briefing about the day.  Well I think that’s what it was I was actually dozing for a fair way out to the reef.  When we got to the reef I asked the Captain if there was any way that I could smoke on a non-smoking vessel.  He went on about how illegal it was and boring things like that and then told me that, as long as no-one saw me, I could smoke on the top deck at the front.  I think that the pathetic look helped.  So, after a crafty cig, I descended into the surprisingly cold sea to snorkel.  This was the first snorkeling spot and it was really good.  The Rum Runner is the only boat allowed to go out to this section of reef to protect it and you could see that it had worked.  There were numerous types of coral and an abundance of fish.  The water was amazingly clear, especially given the recent rain and you could see for what felt like miles underwater.  After lunch we headed to the second snorkeling spot.  This was slightly murkier than the first and, after about twenty minutes, I thought about heading back to the boat as I was really cold.  I decided to go slightly further out and was so glad that I did.  I saw so many luminous blue starfish and giant clams which felt like they were the same size as me.  At one point I dived down so that my face was inches from one of them and then promptly swam back up due to, probably ridiculous, thoughts about it eating me up (cartoons have a lot to answer for).  Back at the top I came to a section at the reef edge like an underwater cliff.  There were hundreds of angel fish and these bright yellow fish just floating in the tide.  At the bottom were parrot fish and some huge black and white spotted fish.  The place was amazing. 

After the snorkeling we were taken back to the shore.  The ride throughout the day had been pretty rocky in terms of the waves and several people were very green.  I wasn’t thankfully although when I got off the boat I realised I had the irritating thing of still feeling like I was on the boat – again!  I was dropped at Ferntree and told that the bus would come back to collect me twenty minutes later to take me to my accommodation for the final night – Crocodylus.  The bus driver assured me that I had enough time to shower, change and pack my bag, if I was quick.  Evidently I wasn’t as when I was walking out of my room he had come looking for me again.  I then managed to get to reception without my bed sheets so they sent me back for them.  I asked the guy on reception about my fifty dollars and he denied all knowledge of it.  Admittedly it was a different person to the one who I had given the note to but still!  That’ll teach me for being a good citizen! 

I was the last person to be dropped off from the bus and the bus driver told me that he had met the two guys I had met the previous night.  I asked if they had gone to Cooktown as planned and he told me that they had looked very ill and the son was actually asleep in the back of the car.  I was pleased that the father described me as a “trooper” which I took to mean a cool lady rather than the military general type.

When we got to Crocodylus I was impressed as it was just as I had hoped.  Although the Ferntree lodge was beautiful it was not as engulfed by rainforest as Crocodylus.  The accommodation was relatively basic with huts with canvas walls which was ideal as you could hear all the nature.  Although there were a lot of things dropping noisily from the trees onto the roof which was slightly odd.  I had some food and went to my shared room (which I was the only one in), read the paper and fell asleep to the sounds of the rainforest.