I Got Lost In My Travels: Australia, Part 2

Flying across the world is no joke--particularly when your flight requires you to jump ahead in time. Brian and I departed from LAX on a Saturday evening, and when we shuffled, zombie-like, off our plane  into the Brisbane Airport 14 hours later, it was Sunday night. The flight itself had not been awful--on the contrary, it was probably the best flight I've ever been on, with plenty of food and wine and leg room and enforced, guilt-free idleness. But a 14 hour flight is a 14 hour flight--plus, as much as possible, we fought hard against the temptation to sleep on the plane. The reason being: we had a 12 hour layover in Brisbane before the final leg of our journey to Cairns the following morning, which was  a freaking awesome opportunity to try to orient ourselves to Australia time. We rented a hotel room adjoining the airport, and collapsing into the bed was utter bliss. 

Too soon, we had to wake up for our next flight, but we were nearly there, nearly to the real start of the vacation. As we left the hotel, I hounded Brian about putting on sunblock--"Highest rates of skin cancer in the world, dude!"--but when we stepped outside and took in the fact that the sun had not yet even risen, Brian simply smirked and shook his head, and I knew I would be in for many years of mockery. 

Three hours later, as our flight began to descend over Cairns, I happened to glance out the window--my eye had caught an interruption in the endless blue of the Coral Sea. Below us was a massive reef. I nudged Brian, and together we silently watched one reef, and then another, and then another, pass by far below, and for the first time, I grasped the sheer size of the Great Barrier Reef. And what we were seeing was only a tiny, tiny portion.

Cairns: The Gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. My initial impressions were somewhat muted--travel and sunlight and heat and crowds often overwhelm me, and there was plenty of all of that! It's a bustling city, or at least it was a year ago. I suppose, a bit, it reminded me of a far-less-trashy Daytona Beach. And to be fair, most folks don't go to Cairns to go to Cairns; it's a stopping off point before moving on to the really good stuff. And that's exactly what we used it for. We didn't waste a moment. The instant after we tumbled out of our cab, we hit the ground running--we got to our hotel and dumped our stuff and charged ahead. The next couple of hours we spent  exploring, getting some local currency, and grabbing a bite to eat, before heading to the Marina, where we took a ferry to Green Island. 

Not much to say about Green Island--it's a resorty-kind of island, catering to daytrippers and overnighters. We booked a brief excursion to there, simply because the idea of me not exploring the Great Barrier Reef on my first day was anathema. And it was worth it; we snorkeled a bit, and it felt a bit like an appetizer of things to come. And we got to spend some time stalking this little fella: 

 

Our time at Green Island was brief--perhaps mercifully so, as it really was crowded-- and after a few hours of snorkeling and walking about the island, we hauled our waterlogged bodies back onto the ferry, which soon deposited us back on the Mainland. Blissfully exhausted, we made our way back to the hotel for a bit of rest before we went out to dinner. 

Later that evening, we sat outside on the terrace of an Indian restaurant, and enjoyed a soft breeze finally start soothing away some of the heat of the day. We relaxed over our paneer masala, lamb vindaloo, and naan, watched the crowds of tourists pass by,  and agreed that no matter where one went, Indian food was delicious the whole world over. We managed to stay awake long enough to devour it all, and then stumbled back to our hotel for a few hours of sleep. 

(To this day, I resent the amount of time I had to spend on sleep when I was there. Anyone else feel like that about vacations?) 

Our next installment will find your intrepid heroine on the high seas, trying her best to befriend sharks and keep her cool whenever she finds Nemo.

I Got Lost In My Travels: Australia, Part 1

I've never really trusted time. It seems to be one of the most inconstant concepts, you know? You're experiencing something wonderful, and time flies. You're witnessing a catastrophe unfold and 5 seconds can feel like 5 minutes. You're engaged in something absolutely boring and time seems to move backwards. You graduate from college at twenty-two and then five years later, you're forty and trying to figure out how many years have actually passed. 

So? Time? Never to be trusted, in either the best or worst of circumstances. And then there's time in 2020--we'll call it "Plague Time." I've recently started falling into the habit of saying something like, "Oh, yeah, we did such-and-such about seven years ago, back in August." Y'all know what I'm talking about. I've heard a dozen variations of it over the course of the last eight months; I've seen it play out in countless ways. Someone forgets to pay their rent at the beginning of the month because what is time anymore? Someone no longer can find their watch, because they haven't had to be anywhere at a certain time since god only knows when. I've missed more than one meeting, forgotten more than one appointment, and entire months have blurred together for me.     

So it seems a little ridiculous for me to say what I'm about to say, given that Plague Time makes the following statement feel a little impossible: 

A year ago today I was on a flight to Australia, with my friend and travel companion, Brian, headed for an unforgettable Bucket List experience.

Whenever I start to feel a little low, or anxious, or isolated, or completely defeated--which is to say, about once every ten minutes--I remind myself of how, a mere year ago, I was so very lucky and privileged to be able to go on that journey. The timing was freakishly lucky--the Australian Bushfires had already started but had not yet gotten out of hand, and we had about four months to go before the world really went to hell in a handbasket, with the pandemic. Of course, when Brian and I were sitting on that plane, happily availing ourselves to the free booze and trying to figure out which movies to watch first, we didn't think about pandemics and travel bans and masks and crowds and all the ways that our lives were about to get completely upended. 

It was an incredible trip; we spent almost twelve days exploring Tropical North Queensland, snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef, hiking through the Daintree Rainforest, and simply reveling in a land so completely different from what we've known and experienced. And then, in a blink of an eye (that pesky, fickle concept of time again) we were back Stateside, and returning to our homes and our jobs and our cats and the holidays. And what with one thing and another, I never did get around to posting on the ol' blaurgh about this magical trip. 

Well, now that we are in the middle of a raging pandemic, and the weather here in Southern Indiana is turning pretty durned cold and precluding even outdoor gatherings, I certainly have a bit more time on my hands than I used to. So I'll see if I can't take a bit of that fickle time and spend some of it recalling and recording my journey to Australia, and my explorations there. Maybe it will only serve as a memorial for that one time I went somewhere--or maybe it will be an inspiration and reminder that fuck yeah, some day, some time, I'll go somewhere again. 

And you will, too.