DOWNUNDER (at last)

Well, we survived four plane trips thus far, and I'm writing this from an internet cafe in Melbourne (Mel-bin, as they say here). It's been a circus trying to get on the internet. The hotels want way too much $$ for far too little time, and yours truly is still as Scotch as ever, so no go. The cafes either don't open when they should, can't get their equipment to work, or operate at hours when we're off on a bus or plane. Thus no posting until now. The problem now is that I can't seem to get the program to open my photo files. They mysteriously appear to be in an unknown file format. I'll keep trying, but I spent the first half hour today trying to get the *&^))%!!@# thing to work. So, a quick recap, with the hopes that pics can come later.

Got to LAX 4 1/2 hours early (flight at 10:30 pm) Saturday night, thinking we could get a good seat selection. Hah! They'd been checking in other tours that apparently paid more money to Qantas than did ours, as they had blocks of seats up forward. Ours were all the way in the rear. More noise, colder, bumpier, and, of course, the glamour (sp?) of being adjacent to the bathrooms. Qanta uses a seat pitch suited for amputees. I was using the reading lens of my bifocals in order to comfortably view the back-of-seat-in-front-of-you t.v. At least they had four films I hadn't seen before, some for good reason. You have to be trapped at 39,000 feet for 14 hours in order to watch "I [heart] Huckabees." Food was passable, service was "let's get it over with, ok?" The bright star in all of this was my $expensive$ investment in a pair of Sennheiser noise-canceling headphones. Those babies actually worked! The engine noise virtually disappeared, and you could turn the volume way down for comfortable listening. At half the price of the Bose, they're almost a deal. Anyway, got to Sydney at 8:00 a.m. local, only to shuffle our way to the domestic wing of Qantas for boarding our 3 hourflight to Cairns (that's CANS, mate). Zombies move quicker and more fluidly. We had pilfered some fruit from the previous flight, and Mom had brought all sorts of snacks in her luggage, none of which we thought to declare. The drug beagle was wagging furiously, and we got called over to open the cases. Fifteen minutes and some stern finger-wagging later and we avoided the $250 fine for undeclared foodstuffs. They freak out over that stuff here. Landed in Cairns to rain and leaden skies. Did I mention that this is the rainy season in the tropics? Cairns gets an average of 16.5 inches in February. I could see my snorkeling disappearing in the gloom. We met our guide, Dave, at the airport, and formed together as a group for the first time. So, 105% humidity and 85 degrees, we sweated our way on to the bus in the clothes we'd all been in for the last 35 hours or so. We stayed at Palm Cove, which is a beach resort area north of Cairns. Very nice, in the Hawaii resort style. They keep the air conditioning on full blast in order to dehumidify the rooms, a practice that we caught on to only after turning it off to avoid freezing in place. All our clothes were damp when we returned. We were drying them last night here in Melbourne. But I'm getting ahead of things. Dave, our guide is a genial big lug who hails from Providence RI. Go figure. That's where our tour operator is based. Anyway, he appeared at our first orientation meeting to be a font of misinformation, but I think that was our jetlag causing confusion. He's been doing this for 21 years, and we really benefitted (most of the time) from his advice. He turned out to be a little shaky on restaurants and pubs. Since we lost a day crossing the dateline, it was Monday when we arrived. Tuesday we set out on a high speed catamaran to go 15 miles offshore to Green Island in the Great Barrier Reef. Smooth as glass all the way out, even Loni didn't get sick. Green Island is about 30 acres or so, with a long pier for all the tour cats to dock at. Our good fortune continues in that we were informed it is the Chinese New Years and all of China is off for vacation in Australia. At least that's what it looked like. As we got off the boat, a large hole in the clouds opened up, and we had sunshine for the rest of the afternoon. That's more like it. Snorkeling was great. I took a bunch of dopey pictures of fish and coral, all of which are on a Kodak one-use underwater camera, so those will have to wait until we get back. [perhaps like the rest of my digital photos unless I can unlock them] Loni and Mom toured the Island while I snorkeled away. Oh, I forgot to mention our initial piece of luck. At noon on the Saturday we were leaving, Loni dislocated her knee. This happened once before and required a trip to the emergency room, much pain killer, and muscle relaxant injections. This time she managed to straighten her leg, push down on the knee, and there was a resounding POP as something went back into place. Very sore, very unstable, so she got out her cane from the last time this happened. I look like a Sherpa carrying all the bags while she hobbles along. It is getting better, thank goodness, but it's still painful. I'm running out of time on this computer, and have to go meet Loni and Mom, who are shopping at the Queen Victoria Market, a glorified food and flea market that covers a couple of city blocks. In our next episode, we'll catch up on the rain forest, the Army Ducks, the butterflies, and the Aborigines. Until then, this tidbit of info: Why is there no "U" in Qantas? Hmmm? Well, it got started in the 20's as Queensland And Northern Territories Air Services. Thus endeth our lesson for today. [[ actually, I'm back; just as I typed the "today," and was looking for the "send" button, the machine went blank and said I was timed out. Thought I lost the whole thing. But, with more money, I got back.]] I'd better figure out the send function, and get this off. Later.