mutteringhousewife

Today was time for some proper touristing, so off we went to Green Island. It’s visible from Cairns, but not afflicted by the mud flats and killer jellyfish that make Cairns such an unattractive place to swim. Waiting for the boat I note with a great deal of satisfaction that it is now possible to get a decent coffee even at a tourist trap and I have high hopes for Australian culture. On the boat itself I crossed my fingers that my hairdresser doesn’t read my blog and decided that wind formed dreadlocks would be my low maintenance holiday hairdo. As it turns out, wind plus salt water gives me ringlets rather than dreadlocks, so other options are being explored.

At Green Island we spent almost the entire time face down in the water. We have found an activity that the whole family loves. The coral around the island is pretty devastated, as you’d expect from such a highly touristed area, but there’s still a remarkable quantity of brightly colored fish to be spotted. I made the boys study the Fish of the Great Barrier Reef poster while we were waiting to get our snorkeling gear, and they were able to identify a wide range of improbably named fish. I think that the people making up the names get bored, I had to feel sorry for the rabbit faced fox fish. Or possibly the other way around.

We had close encounters with turtles, a startlingly large stingray, and a bird that ran up the Muffet’s arm to steal a lunchtime chip. We saw many sea cucumbers, and they really do remind one of disembodied penises, though why that would make you want to slice them into your salad is beyond me. We were a little, how do you say, there must be a German word for it, somewhere between annoyed and delighted to see a whole lot of turtles and two reef sharks from the pier on our way back to the boat. I have high hopes for our trip to the outer reef later in the week.

One didn’t take one’s iPad snorkeling, so you’ll have to put up with a photo of our dinner.

It’s a sushi train – on a train! Sound effects and everything, I loved it. I have to send my father this shot, he doesn’t read blogs. For some reason, an interest in model trains is mutually exclusive to an interest in the digital expression of modern thought.