The trip to Rockhampton (Rocky to the locals…) takes us further inland. We end up 340 k or so north from Bargara. The land shows more signs of water stress as we gain a bit of altitude and distance form the sea. Still nowhere near as bad as in the south. Grass actually exists, as do a variety of gums and palms. This is cattle country. One of the two radio stations we can hear seems to be devoted to cattle. Prices at the most recent auctions, feed prices, farm equipment adverts, water conditions, repeat. JD listens long enough to learn there are differences in the price per kilo of different “meat” varieties, dairy and stud bulls sell per animal, some lower grade meat animals also sell per unit rather than by weight. Fascinating? No. Better than the local version of NPR? Absolutely. KK chooses to have a lie down during this portion of the drive…
This particular section of QLD is referred to as the Capricorn Coast. Stopping at a Golden “i” (local information center) while entering Rocky we find ourselves straddling the Tropic of Capricorn. One foot in the tropics, the other out. Our lodging options are somewhat limited. The best place we check out is on par with a country prison. Our cell is about 8x10 with a bare bulb light/fan and one heavily tinted sidelight type window by the door. We have been told that Rocky is the place for
steak being the seat of cattle country and all. The Bush Inn is where the locals go for tucker. The place was reasonably busy, often a good sign, and did have atmosphere: Lots of wood, western pub-like interior, discreet lighting. JD orders filet. KK was not feeling beefy and orders the garlic shrimp entrée (In Oz, entrée’s are appetizers, Mains are entrée’s…). The meals were adequate, nothing to blog home about…On the way out of town we keep our eyes peeled for the Big Bullock (with actual swinging bollocks!). We are unsuccessful in our hunt.
420 kilometers later we pull into the Golden “i” in Prosepone. The helpful info lady tells us about some available lodgings in Airlie Beach (eye-lee, or ahh-lee, depending on who is talking… Ozzies seem to misplace or soften random “r” sounds, replacing them with a modified “h” type sound) including some studio apartments overlooking the marina. There is also a huge backpackers called Magnums, as well as assorted other smaller b’pckers, hotels and such. After checking out Magnums (nice enough, but way too college in atmosphere: cheap food, drinks, live music, billiards, internet café, wet t-shirt contests nightly, etc- fun to hang out, not conducive to actually sleeping.) we decide to head up the hill to the studio apartments. We chose wisely. A wonderfully clean and quite facility with pool, a/c, and a phenomenal view of
the marina and sunset. A short aerobic walk puts you back into the heart of townAirlie Beach is the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands. A group of 74 varied landmasses ranging from low-tide sand spits to vast tracts of secluded jungle. Almost every backpacker passing through Oz goes on a multi-day, or minimally a single day, sailing excursion through the Whits. More than a dozen companies charter out multiple boats on regular trips. We had been hoping for a 3 day-2 night jaunt on one of four different boats. The sheer popularity of the cruises left us at least a week away from availability on any of them. Finding our sailing options minimized, we thought it prudent to check ahead on our dive plans in Cairns (Cahns- lose the “r”, substitute a very subtle “h”. more like Cans…) to decide if we could wait. This was a good thing. The company we had chosen was starting its last trip of the season on Sunday the 1st, today was the 27th. This definitely altered our
schedule. We found a spot for a day-trip tomorrow on a 100-foot catamaran called Camira. It is also known as “purple”. You can see why.The shuttle picks us up 7:30 on the dot. The boat sails at 8:00. It’s a big cat. The captain impresses KK. He fits her mold of what a captain should be like: Cropped white hair, tough tan features, and a casual competence handling his boat and crew. The boat itself has been in the water about two years. The actual designer himself was onboard for this trip. He was wooing a couple of potential Italian clients and was using the Camira as a working demonstration of his talents.
The skipper was not afraid to sail. We had steady 18-20 knot winds across the channels and he was able to squeak out a good 17 knots of speed. We toured around a few islands before anchoring at Whitehaven Beach. Whitehaven is classed as the whitest sand beach yet found. It is
99% pure silica sand, and never gets hot. Purple anchors about 75 meters off and we have the option of ferrying in the ribbie, or swimming. We swim. Stinger suits are required if you are going in the water. As flattering as they are, everyone looks the same. Everyone looks like a Super Hero minus a cape. Here in QLD it is part of summertime water fun. The sand is indeed incredible. We bob around, soak up some rays, bob some more, and then back to the boat for lunch. Free drinks began at 11:00, and food was plentiful and tasty throughout the voyage. Time to weigh anchor zip around another couple of islands to a protected section of a small straight. Snorkeling had poor visibility, 
however the water felt really good. Back on the boat KK had the opportunity to try and knock out the skipper… We were trying to get a picture with him and she solidly elbowed him in the head. He still managed to get us back to port. As we have been fond of saying lately: It Was The Best Day Ever!We found a great little food court for our meals. Thai noodles both nights so far. In the center of the food court is a large projection TV, tuned into The Sport. “The Sport” is a global referrence, meaning sports of all kinds. Individually they are called The “…”. The Cricket, The Footie, The Rugby, etc. It is the world championships of swimming, broadcast live from Melbourne. A multi day event taken very seriously by the Ozzies (all sport is taken seriously here). In an amazing display, the US was kicking ass and taking names. Japan, Korea, Oz, a number of the European Union all had broadcasters and announcers present. Interviews, personality pieces, and just plain old-fashioned competition. What was wrong with the picture? Americans setting incredible new world records? Nope. Americans setting new championship records? Nope. Americans unseating previously unchallenged Ozzie champions? Nope. What was noticed, respectfully mentioned, and worked around was the complete and total absence of any American broadcasters. Of course I am sure ESPN (US) pulled some feed from their Ozzie syndicate and spread it around NBC affiliates. BUT, where was an American interviewer when Michael Phelps took 8 separate gold’s and set three worlds records? (At least 3 records, we had separated ourselves from news for almost a week following…) Mark Spitz was there… we both commented simultaneously “He’s still alive?” and spoke of his pride in the accomplishments of our swimmers.
We gave ourselves three days to travel the 500 kilometers to Cairns. We thought we’d split the trip, spending two at the halfway, more or less, point of the city named Townsville.
Townsville seems to be unique in all of OZ. Not because it is the 2nd largest city in QLD, nor because it is home to the biggest cash prize for a regularly occurring wet-T contest, and certainly
not because the city is home to the Big Spider… JD feels Townsville is so unique because it does not seem to be called Towny, or Townsie, or by any other Ozzie name streamlining moniker.
As a city Townsville seemed pretty unremarkable. However, they have a waterfront Strand that boggles the mind. It runs about 3 kilometers along the beach. Two stinger enclosures, one large freshwater pool, one huge man-made saltwater “rock pool” swimming area, and countless pieces of sculpture, public art, barbies, and play structures. Good solid old-fashioned if-your-kid-screws-up-he/she-
might-actually-get-hurt; play at your own risk structures. A modern version of Jungle Gyms- huge steel bar pyramids 5 meters (15 feet) tall! Climbing, sliding, crawling things, and a free water park section complete with slides, continuous fountains, 
water cannons, and regular dumping water 
bucket. Oh! to be a kid in Oz.Just across the small bay is Magnetic Island. Nope- it is not made of iron, or anything cool like that. We take a ferry over and rent scooters. Yes- KK is driving her own. There is one road on the island, 12 kilometers long. Runs from the bottom to the top. KK has a day of new experiences… She is tentative at first (OK, she is driving like Miss Daisy…) getting her little scooter almost halfway to the posted speed limit of 60kph (about 40mph) on the all but abandoned road. JD zips ahead a few k
and waits. She catches up. He zips ahead. Waits. She catches up. We hop our way to Horseshoe bay at the north end of the island. After a respite on the beach we head south to find lunch. KK is now becoming quite the accomplished Bikie Babe and almost hits the speed limit once or twice. JD has figured out how to make his little hamster wheel go ten to fifteen over…not bad considering his size to horsepower ratio. The island is definitely laid back. The water wasn’t inviting so we head back to the mainland to wander about the Strand.The final push north. Cairns is the topmost major urban center in QLD. It is another recreational hub, launching a major portion of the Great Barrier Reef snorkel and dive adventures. While the GBR covers 1700-2300 kilometers of coastline (depending on your reference source), it is closest to the settled mainland along this section of coast, getting as near as 4 kilometers out. Cairns is also famous (infamous?) for its nightlife. A properly endowed fit young lady can live comfortably on winnings from the multitude of daily Wet-T and pole dancing contests. We are in town for just one night before heading to sea. There is quite a bit of wine left in our 4-liter cask, so JD offers it up to a table of younger folk at our backpackers. They are quite involved in a drinking game and invite JD to play. Needing to empty the cask, but not wanting to be miserable in the morning, JD cautiously agrees. No Worries. The kids are far enough into the game they don’t notice subtle variations he applies to the rules… They are also making up rules as they go, focusing on specific mates for drinks. Almost the entire table is from Ireland, with one Ozzie and one Swede, and an even mix between ladies and men. JD makes quick work of distributing his wine. We need to be ready for an 8:00am pick up. Our car and luggage can stay at the backpackers for our return.
The live-aboard is a motor cat called Kangaroo Explorer. It stays at sea while the day-trip cat Sunkist ferries out divers/snorkelers with the day-trippers. New live-aboards are dropped off in the late morning; those returning to port are picked up mid afternoon. The trip out on Sunkist was lively… seas were running about 2-2.5 meters across the channel to the reef. There were two other Americans on the trip out. Steve was a My-Gym franchise troubleshooter from California, and Alan was a Cornell grad student spending exchange time at RMIT in Melbourne. Steve was newly certified, and Alan was a snorkeler.
There are two dive masters on board: Fabian (Yes, he was too sexy for his body- very German, very competent) the senior DM and Lauren- a pixie bob-cut Irish lass who was in charge of the
certification class. The support crew was also well versed, even though we may have had more dives under our belts than most of them… Fabian initially had a sit-down with all the arriving certified divers (there where 6 of us) to decide experience/confidence/competence levels. The first dive was a practical observation of the same.Quick background: JD has 270+ dives, and KK is easily in the mid 100’s. There are two basic PADI certification levels: Open Water and Advanced Open Water. Advanced cert involves a couple specialty classes and a few more fees. We both have always chosen to spend our money actually diving rather than sitting more classes. Dive Masters around the globe
(except on Maui) all look at our experience level and ask why we are not AOW. Technically OW divers should only dive with a DM or guide, and never deeper than 60 feet (18 meters). Most DM’s are intelligent and respect our experience levels. Fabian is one of those. When we wander back through Hawaii, we will just suck it up and have our favorite dive shop (Maui Dreams Dive Co) certify us. Maybe even go for Dive Master… Save us the hassle of demonstrating we know how to breathe… We had a good appraisal dive and were given free reign afterwards.The old Kangaroo Explorer goes in for a major refit after this trip. It is time… There are a variety of
smells in and around the passageways, especially the one to our cabin that would gag a maggot. We had been given the impression the boat moved through 16 or 17 different dive sites amongst 5 different reef sections. The reality was the boat moved between two dive sites, same reef (East and West Moore Reef). Further along in the trip Fabian confirmed that the boat does indeed use
other sites, but wouldn’t be during this cruise… He also acknowledged we were anchoring in his two absolute least favorite locations. Overall visibility was mediocre. The coral was very stressed; lots of dead sections, and sea critters were not abundant.Kangaroo Explorer does get credit for diving though. Six dive opportunities a day: 6, 8, 11am, 1,4 and 7pm. The boat typically moves after the 8am dive and again after the 1pm. JD has less than zero interest in getting up at 5:30 for the 6:00 dive brief… Sadly it is simultaneously the 8:00 dive brief. (Day two, KK gets up and fills JD in. Isn’t she the loving wife unit?) KK is not a fan of night dives, so JD partners up with Steve. There were a few extra feeders out and about, and the highlight was a cuttlefish hanging out just under the boat.
T
he second day we found ourselves under a tsunami warning related to the quake in the Solomon Islands, 600k north. This kept us at the initial site on West Moore, Fabians least favorite site of all,
but it was the one with the largest mooring blocks. Winds had picked up as well, increasing surge and stirring up the water even more. Visibility was an optimistic 10 feet or less. KK likened the dives to gem hunting in a junkyard. We found a few gems, but looked at a whole lot of trash to find them. We did see a few new nudies (nudibranchs- little sea slugs), some really large angels, a cuttlefish, a 
number of giant clams and a stingray. We had been warned by a few diving mates these past couple of years that the GBR was highly overrated, and are saddened that we cannot yet dispute that.Fabian did recommend a few dive operations that work the northern outer reef. These are liveaboards that carry working marine biologists who like help with data collection, tagging, and
other reef health and research type things. He assured us the outer reef is a very different environment from our present locale. These would be six or seven day trips, not practical this time around, but definitely on the top of the list for our next trip to Oz.Food was plentiful and tasty on this boat as well. Other than its desperate need for new inside carpet, a good air duct cleaning and a few coats of paint, the KE did all right. Since she was being refitted following this trip, we motored back to Cairns on her instead of Sunkist. Seas were “scrappy” and the ride across the channel was made longer by the need to keep the boat in one piece. No one “fed the fishes”, but everyone was tired when we hit port. Our luggage and car did well in our absence. After a couple of days to reset the sea-legs we head to the Far North- Daintree National Park: The tropical rain forest that touches the sea.
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