Globetrotter Bente: Rainforest, great barrier reef & work!

It's been quite a week for us! The camping managers came back and we had a lovely couple of last days at Etteleah Park. We drank some wine, played some pool where I turned out to be a better player then Willem of course, and decided that it was time to move on. We were waiting for a call from a guy who worked at a resort nearby who was finishing his last week of work. We figured we might be able to take over for him. But while we waited we decided to take the Captain cook highway (supposed to be one of the most beautiful roads in Australia) and go to Cape Tribulation. It is a place where the rainforest meets the great barrier reef, and only three hours away from where we were. So we took Oscar on his next big challenge and drove on the worst speedbumps in the world. These speedbumps are huge, you hardly see them coming and they have stones all over them so that it is the worst idea ever to go faster then 10 km/h on them. The speedbumps are there because of the many cassowarys that supposedly walk through the rainforest and over the road. They are a large birdspecies that are closely related to dinosaurs or something, anyway, they look really funny and we really wanted to see one! So I dragged Willem on loads of hikes through the forrest but although we stumbled across warning signs and cassowary poop every ten metres, the stupid birds never revealed themselves. We did see and hear (! it sounded like a huge dinosaur according to me, and according to Willem like a car) a wild swine with babyswines! Besides the warning signs for cassowarys there are a lot of places where you are warned not to swim or walk to close to the sea because it apparantly is crowded by crocs. We looked for them and of course, nowhere to be found... We gave up and went to a wildlife experience instead in Port douglas on the way back where we found out that both the stupid birds and the crocs actually do excist, you just got to pay to see them. We did a boat tour in cape tribulation as well where we actually saw wild huge crocs as well, so that was pretty cool!

On our way back we also drove past the resort where we hoped to get work, but it was a luxurious five star resort, so we already felt like we didn't really fit in. I decided to post an ad on Gumtree and suddenly we got several job offers! This lead us to a guy living on a farm in New South Wales, near Vacy where he needed two people to both help out with the kids and on the farm. It is a cattle farm with lots of horses and they seemed like a great family, so we decided to trust on our gut and go for it! That means that we have a 3000 km roadtrip ahead of us, but it is for my (our?) dreamjob! Riding horses, working with animals...Sometimes I can't believe that everything I dreamed of doing over here actually is coming true. They also have labrador puppies so that itself will probably be worth the trip alone if the job would be dissapointing. We are having Oscar checked out on monday morning, and provided that everything is okay with him, we are starting our trip and hope to be arriving at our destination about 7-10 days later.

Before we left Cairns we had one more thing on our to do list: to see the Great Barrier Reef! We booked a tour and went with our go pro and lots of suncream. We had snorkled in Thailand before so we kind of figured we had seen similar things, but it was definately worth the trip! The water was crystal clear and we saw a lot of beautiful coral and huge fishes. We were unlucky with our second stop though, because it was supposed to be a spot with a lot of turtles and sharks, but apparently cool animals avoid us when we are looking for them and we didn't see any. We did see dolphins though! So that was a pretty huge bonus.

Right now we are planning our roadtrip down the eastcoast, lot's to see and do there so a week is never enough, but with our farmwork we get our 88 days of farmwork done, which means we are eligable for a second year visa...

Willem wanted to cycle through the rainforest. NOT a good idea if you are wondering. This bridge was basically the only thing you could actually sit on your bike instead of carrying it. But hey, who else can say they rode their bike through the rainforest?