3... 2... 1... Jump!

2008-09-29 - Monday

Tsk, tsk, already reusing titles...but as you'll shortly see, it's very fitting.

Compared to the last couple of days, today's drive will be a breeze... Only 365 km to Cairns (remember, pronounced "cans").

On the way to Cairns, we stopped at Millea Millea falls for a cool, refreshing dip in another fresh water falls. Correction, cool is not the correct adjective, it was downright cold. So cold that none of us could weather much more than a very quick dip - a stark contrast to the fresh water pools of only a couple of days ago. I would certainly put it down as one of those little hide-aways better seen than experienced! :-)

It may only have been a 365 km drive; however, in terms of landscapes, it represented the most dramatic changes we've seen yet. Left behind was the red soil and dust, sparse trees and shades of brown and grey to be replaced by magnificently lush greens: Trees, grasses, ferns and other plants. By far the healthiest landscapes we've seen yet.

Ok, it's time for another personal sharing moment. More or less unknown to my trek mates, I've spent the last couple of days in quiet comtemplation. My body and soul heavy with a decision I knew I would soon have to make. Unfortunately, our arrival to Cairns indicated that my time for contemplation had now come to an end and that a final decision was required.

With one final internal weighing of the arguments, the decision was made and with minimal fanfare, I embarked on a personal trek that would bring me face to face with one of my greatest fears.

The voyage was little more than half an hour, but was one of the longest half hours I've had to endure. With every step closer to my destination, I had to work harder and harder to fight back the fear; to try and maintain an air of calm. If ever a Vulcan mind meld was available to help share the strength of another, now would have been the time. In the absence of such powers, I found myself focusing on seamingly insignificant things... the structures around me; how they were composed, how they worked. Anything that helped to separate me from what I was about to face.

Finally the time had come. After some final words of encouragement and last minute instruction from my guide; I smiled, looked forward and took a leap of faith.

What followed was what I'm sure was clocked at under 3 seconds, but felt much, much longer, of gut wrenching terror of a sort I had never experienced in my life - for before me all I could see was death, my own in particular, in a most horrifying manner. I could feel my body was frozen in stance...all except for my lungs and vocal cords who were working in unison to create a vocalization of the fear I was experiencing, uttering a scream unlike any I had ever produced in my life. I could hear it clearly all around me as the end quickly approached. And then a most miraculous thing happened, I felt a force being exerted on my body, pulling me back from the edge of my demise and before I knew it; I was plunged into a watery world not of my own and an instant later was back in my own looking down over my trek mates. It was at this point that I had known all would be Ok. Adrenalin pumping and swinging victorious over my fear I knew that I had made the right
decision. With another two whips of the bungee cord, my voyage was over and I knew deep inside, I was better for it!

There were two of us who took on our fears and conqurred them that day: Both myself and Paul. For it, we were rewarded with a free T-Shirt. Matt had also jumped that day, it was his 3rd and finally Sophie took on a giant swinging rope in the form of a Mingie cord.

It was a good day!

Both tonight and tomorrow night, we'll be staying in the Bohemai Central Hostel in downtown Cairns. Our supper tonight will be prepared by them as well and consists of three types of salads (one leafy vegetable, two pasta); BBQ'd beef and sausage.

But before supper, several of us made time for a game of Ultimate Water Polo Rugby. The rules are relatively straight forward (which of course were all made up as the game progressed). The game takes place in a standard sized hostel pool and each team consists of 3 players. The objective of the game is to get the volley ball to the opponents side of the pool and score a point by tagging said ball to said poolside... anyway you can. Being the gentlemen we are, there was an unspoken rule of no underwater bagging... but other than this pretty much anything was legal.

Well, I'm sure that if the Hostel knew the kind of mayhem that was about to unfold, they never would have tossed that volleyball to us.

It was a display of testosterone worthy of its own Wild Animal Kingdom documentary! By the time the game was called, due to lack of light, several inches of water was removed from the pool and pretty much all players were sporting a minor scratch or two.

In the end it was the team of Paul, Nick and Ken that were victorious (the other team of Matthew, Martin and Bart will undoubtedly dispute this; but history is written by those with a pen - or in this case a Nokia N800 - so Yea for us!)

Finally, as I had first mentioned, my 30 day tour is made up of two tours: an 18 day tour and a 12 day tour. Well, today represents the end of the first tour and tomorrow the beginning of the next. As such, we were to have some people leave and others join. Nikki was scheduled to leave us, but has decided that she enjoys our company so much she'd like to stay on for the rest of the tour. In addition, we have two more participants joining us (technically tomorrow, but they are staying at the hostel with us tonight). They are Emma from the UK and Jessica from Germany.

Well, that's about it for tonight. Need a good night's sleep for tomorrow I dive on the Great Barrier Reef!!