Cairns 2016, December 29 (All These Things That I've Done)

Last full day already. Started the day with another run and no more watch glitches. Didn't have too much planned in advance in case anything was left over from previous days, and just to have a slightly more relaxed day to finish.

Took a short ride over to the local ten pin bowling place in the morning. I found a couple of balls with good hole sizes, but after about three attempts the nail on my thumb had already started to rip off. My scores were terrible in the low 100's.

The pink size 10 ball was still a bit heavy...

The same bus in the other direction ended at Cairns Central shopping centre. It's just a standard shopping place, even most of the stores are just the same as Victoria. Wasn't too hungry for lunch so just got a McFlurry. Had some spare time in the afternoon so booked tickets for a Rogue One session - I would have preferred something else but there was really no good alternative.

Spent some more time exploring the city before the movie started - the west half of the city is just deserted - and had to pass through the bat forest in the middle of the city again, which smells terrible. My main discovery was that there's way too many tour agencies in the city.

Got some quick dinner after watching Star Wars, from the hot food section they had in the Woolworths. Instead of potato cakes they had potato scallops so I had to give them a try - they weren't the best, probably had been sitting around for a couple of hours.

Had to have dinner early because the NBL was starting at 6:30pm between Cairns and Melbourne. Two weird moments before the match started 1) they sell unopened beer cans (projectile missiles) at the venue and 2) the Cairns mascot was throwing out unwrapped snake lollies into the crowd - and kids were picking them up off the ground!

Cairns Taipans.

The (unnecessary) music played during the game seemed really loud, Cairns were up by about 15 before Melbourne quickly caught up, then teams exchanged leads in the last minute and Melbourne won in the final seconds - I guess I go for Melbourne when Sydney Kings are not involved.

Melbourne wins.

Walking - 17500 steps and 180 minutes

That was the end of the trip to Cairns.

• Cairns
• 7 out of 10
• Good
• Close to the airport
• No traffic
• Temperature
• Bad
• Crocodiles
• Jellyfish
• No local sport besides basketball
• Too far to walk
• Missed Out
• Atherton
• Barnacle Bill's
• Scuba diving?
• Swimming in the ocean
• The Big Marlin

Cairns 2016, December 28 (On Rails)

Back to running after a couple of days off, surprising how steaming warm it is already at 6:30am.

Got picked up by a bus in the morning to go to Smithfield where the sky rail (cable car thing) departs from. There is one mandatory and one optional terminal change before reaching the end of the line - nothing to see at the first stop, the second stop was near some waterfall at Barron Falls.

The sky rail at Barron Falls.

The final stop was at the town of Kuranda, quite big considering it's somewhere on top of a mountain, although it was specifically for tourism now, so nothing but craft shops, opal shops and restaurants in the streets. It took a while to find a good place for lunch but eventually found somewhere selling nachos and chips! After a long wait for lunch to turn up had the choice between visiting 1) Bird World 2) Butterfly Sanctuary 3) Koala Gardens 4) All 5) None.

The Koala Gardens seemed like the best option. Inside they had crocodiles, tired koalas, wombats and some free range kangaroos. In the night enclosure all I found was one bilby. The place was alright but you'd be better off visiting an actual zoo I think.

Koalas sleeping all day.

Some member of the Kangaroo family.

With a bit of time remaining I decided to try and follow the signs for Barron Falls Gorge. The signs said it was between two and three kilometres but the road just went on forever, and it was all up and down hill. I gave up eventually since I didn't want to walk forever and there was no sign of the place being close yet. To get back I went via the Jungle Track and River Walk instead which was much more pleasant, the highlight was the rail line running through the forest that reminded me of many episodes of The Walking Dead.

Jungle Track.

TWD.

Jungle Track continued.

Yet again I was dying of thirst so went through about a litre of water while waiting for the scenic railway back towards Cairns. The railway was like a poor man's Puffing Billy - it took about an hour and a half and the scenery was mostly on repeat, a big forest gorge on one side and nothing on the other side but a cliff face. It didn't help that our allocated seats were facing the opposite direction of the train and were at the very end of the carriage.

Train stop at Barron Falls.

Is there a chance the track could bend ?

Walking - 20500 steps and 215 minutes

Cairns 2016, December 27 (We The North)

After breakfast I walked down to the car rental place to get the car for the day, it was supposed to be a Nissan something or similar, which turns out to be a Hyundai Accent, at least it was new. When I got in the steering wheel was blocking the speedometer and the back window view was quite small, I was able to fix the first of those problems at least.

The first stop of the day was Mossman. Driving along Captain Cook Highway was annoying because they have a roundabout every couple of kilometres and you are supposed to reduce speed to 40 kilometres before entering. I found the Hyundai brakes to be quite unresponsive and the acceleration was much more sensitive, so the GPS would often trigger being over the speed limit.

Not a V8 supercar.

Only stopped in Mossman to visit the Woolworths, then back on the road to the Daintree Ferry. Instead of just building a bridge over a small river you have to wait in line for a one-way ferry that can only take about thirty cars at once. I turned off the car while waiting in line, not a good idea as the car became a furnace within minutes. When it was time to start boarding the ferry the car didn't want to start even though I'd left the keys in the whole time. After a bit of random key turning and button pressing the engine finally started up again.

Waiting for the ferry.

The road to Cape Tribulation was very slow and usually only about 40 km/h, a bit like the Great Ocean Road. There are no sealed roads after the town so it was a good place to stop for lunch at Myall Beach nearby. In addition to the jellyfish warnings they now also have warnings about crocodiles at every beach too - how did they get there? Next to the beach was Dubuji Boardwalk which is not like the one in Monopoly, you just get to tour a bit of the rainforest.

Cape Tribulation.

Dubuji Boardwalk.

Similar to the boardwalk was Marrja Botanical Walk a bit further down the road. This one was more like a swamp full of those mangrove trees. After another stop at Thornton Beach it was back across the ferry and over to Daintree Village. This was a better attempt at a town, and they even have their own big thing!

Marrja Botanical Walk.

Thornton Beach.

Daintree Village.

The Big Barramundi !

Back to Mossman again, this time stopping to visit the Mossman Gorge. You can't drive all the way to the gorge yourself, you have to park at the visitor centre and either 1) walk 2) pay nine dollars for the shuttle bus 3) have someone else hand you their shuttle bus tickets on the way out. The main feature of the gorge is the river and rock pools you can swim and explore - without crocodiles and jellyfish - but I hadn't brought equipment for that, plus it was a bit late in the day already.

At the end of the park was a circuit which supposedly was only two kilometres long but took a good forty minutes to complete. That was the end of the day and another slow drive back towards Cairns as they have Great Ocean Road Part II south of Mossman too.

There was a power outage during the night which luckily only lasted for about three hours, any longer and it would have been quite uncomfortable, since you need air-conditioning running all night to survive.

Walking - 18000 steps and 190 minutes

Cairns 2016, December 26 (Adventure Island)

After a bit of confusion around booking a trip with one of the three ferry operators that go to Fitzroy Island we managed to get a return trip departing at 11:00am for the day. I spent most of the boat ride sleeping but all I missed was the water and some islands.

I'm on a boat.

The main purpose of Fitzroy Island is the camping and resort accomodation, but the rest of the island is available to day visitors too. The first stop was at one of their acclaimed beaches after a short hike through the forest. I don't own any thongs or similar footwear so I had to walk barefoot on this beach that was full of rocks and coral I think - it was too sharp whatever it was.

A bit of sand would be nice.

Had some lunch on the beach but the jellyfish take over the water from October to May - basically the whole year then - so unless you have a stinger suit or even a wet suit you risk getting stung. Apparently the jellyfish weren't as common out this far from the coast, but I didn't really care to find out. It would have been to have a go at snorkeling otherwise.

After heading back to the resort they had this glass bottom boat leaving that goes around the island and visits some coral reef. The coral wasn't as colourful as I expected and the glass wasn't very clean either - maybe somebody could order them in some more glass.

Next was a big hike for the afternoon up to the top of the island. The route was ridiculously steep, it was really tricky coming back down since my shoes didn't have much grip left. On the way up I almost tripped over this big lizard just hanging out beside the path, it didn't seem to be concerned with people. Finally made it to the top despite the lack of signs, for a view of not much.

The summit.

Walking - 23000 steps and 250 minutes

Cairns 2016, December 25 (Like Here Comes The Sun)

Had an early start to Christmas morning - and I didn't even have any presents to open. The Cairns park run was one of many locations running an extra event for Christmas, and because it gets hotter than hell during the day they start an hour earlier than usual at 7:00am.

I had time for about 20 minutes of warm up before the start, then realised at the last minute I'd left my barcode back at the hotel - but it wasn't far away so I could get it after the race instead. I wasn't planning to run too fast but ended up trying to catch and overtake people in front like usual, finishing in fourth place in about 20:15. Sadly my Garmin activities for the day got corrupted somewhere as I tried to connect the watch to my phone or tablet, so I lost most of the data for the day.

I included the buffet breakfast in the hotel booking - it had all the standard things like cereal, fruit, toast and yoghurt but it was exactly the same every day, which was a little disappointing. They also had some pancake maker but it was broken on the first day! as well as a hot food section with bacon, eggs and sausages that only weird people would eat so early in the day.

Plans for the first day were pretty limited since I didn't know what would be open, so started with some exploring around the city centre and the esplanade, boardwalk, lagoon pool and marina. I had three hits in a row finding Barnacle Bill's, a souvenir shop and an Asian bakery in just a few minutes.

Cairns city.

It wasn't much warmer than Melbourne's mid thirty temperatures, but felt much more humid and steamy so I found myself always getting dehydrated - probably never properly recovering from the morning running and being behind for the rest of the day. My left leg was already aching which wasn't a good sign, the same problem came after too much walking around Halls Gap the same time last year and took months to recover.

We stopped in at a burger place that had a mushroom burger - almost as bad as meat - as the only vegetarian option so I had to settle for chips and a milkshake.

Big Captain Cook.

After walking all the way back to the hotel and resting up for a bit it was back out towards Centenary Lakes. The short way into the place was closed due to some bridge repair, so had to walk all the way back to the start and go the long way instead. The place offered a freshwater and saltwater lake, some bamboo forest that was alright and a pretty poor botanical garden. At the end of the area was the entrance to the Mt Whitfield walking tracks.

Centenary Lakes.

Great view of the airport.

Mt Whitfield.

They don't like the carbs.

I would have liked to have taken the longer loop under normal circumstances, but with several days still to go I only took the short loop, which was still quite steep and had a lot of steps. There was one view of Cairns along the way, but was partially blocked by some trees - you did get a view of Cairns Airport at least...

Finally made it back to the hotel and recovered in the pool from too much walking. Heading out in the better direction in search of dinner there was some half Asian, half non-Asian restaurant. I ordered a big bowl of chips and steamed rice and never stood a chance of getting through both.

Should have taken the water birds advice.

That was the end of the first long and thirsty day.

Walking - 28000 steps and 300 minutes

Cairns 2016, December 24 (Closer)

A five day trip to Cairns was all I could manage this year.

The flight is a little over three hours, but without daylight savings you get a bonus hour on the way there. The airport was pretty empty compared to Melbourne, not a lot of flights coming into the domestic terminal at the same time. There was some bus options from the airport to the city but the information was pretty poor, so I just got in line for the taxi instead of wasting any more time trying to find out about it. It was funny that there was about ten groups of people in line and one car would turn up about every minute.

The hotel was a couple of kilometres north of the city centre, not ideal as it turned out, but it was about the best option for a late booking. There wasn't a lot of food options around, even the local Subway had incredibly closed after lunch on Christmas Eve, but there was at least one pizza shop still going. After dinner I found out there was a few more options in the opposite direction, so at least that was good information for the following days.

The room had a few Foxtel channels, about four of them were Fox Sports but no ESPN - I think one channel was dedicated to darts for the entire week, one to rugby and one to some useless cricket matches with either Bangladesh or Sri Lanka involved.

November Review

This is the November review - should try to do more than one blog post a month.

I managed to run six days in a row for the first time in a year, only it resulted in a minor hip injury that same afternoon. I was able to get by with a bit of rest and set a new course best time at a park run afterwards, so my 5 kilometre speed (under 19 minutes) is finally getting better, but my long distance is still really bad. At the City2Sea I just missed out on 15 kilometres in 60 minutes, which was about 3 minutes slower than last year but not too disappointing given my lack of fitness.

I took it easy the week after that race, and was just on a casual morning run near home when someone ran up and attacked me. I thought it was just some idiot messing around so I was ignoring him, but then the next thing I knew I had regained consciousness after about 10 minutes and had already walked a few hundred metres away from where I was knocked down. For the next couple of minutes I couldn't even work out where I was, but somehow I managed to get home although I don't remember how. The worst injuries were to my ribs, which still hurts the same two weeks later, and my right jaw which started to improve after a few days. The most frustrating thing now is to have yet another multi-week injury when this one was no fault of my own.

My shares had a terrible run prior to the USA election, then the next day all the experts were positive again as if there was nothing to worry about. I had planned to start saving some money but somehow ended up putting $5000 in The Reject Shop because I think it has room for short term improvement. I've started tracking my shares and super total at the end of each week since the crap websites can't even do that automatically. Somehow between two jobs I got only $200 deposited into my Super for the month, hopefully that is just a delay somewhere...

I went to two matches of the NBL to watch Melbourne vs Sydney both times. The first game was an easy win to Sydney but the second match Melbourne had the lead all the way, the Kings managed a comeback in the final quarter so it was the much more interesting of the two, but only tied the game once at the end before losing in the last two seconds.

My regular NBA betting website William Hill took away all the player over-under bets which I was having success with last season, instead they replaced them with these 'player will get 10 or more of some stat' bets and they made the odds really bad too. Since I like to have the option of betting under I signed up with Sportsbet instead.

Nothing much happening with the to do list due to some other distractions.

I finished up at work on November 4 which was a big relief, the company and the conditions might have been alright, but my job was just depressing. Having most of the development work outsourced (and most of that offshored) was not something I wanted to be involved with either.

I only got a three day weekend before starting my new job the next Tuesday. I spent the first week training at head office, then got assigned out to a company to begin as a senior consultant. The customer's office is just between Southern Cross and Etihad Stadium so it's not bad, except it's not close to either The Tan or Princes Park is the one downside. It's only been two weeks so far but it's definitely an improvement. I am back to zero days of annual leave once again which is annoying.

That's it for another month.

• Books
• None completed, been really tired most days, not sure why
• Movies
• The Barkley Marathons
• A documentary about some ridiculous trail multi-marathon
• Some years nobody even gets close to finishing it
• 8 out of 10
• Music
• I was going to be seeing Grouplove in January but it just got cancelled due to illness
• TV
• Black Mirror Season 3
• Some episodes a lot better than others like previous seasons
• My favourite was Shut Up And Dance
• 7 out of 10
• Brock
• A two-part documentary / drama that aired after Bathurst
• I don't know how much was fictional but some of the events were quite crazy
• 6 out of 10
• Scream Season 1
• Surprisingly good adaptation of the movie on MTV
• 6 out of 10
• Video Games
• Playstation 3
• Gran Turismo 5
• I did a few more license while the Xbox 360 was dead
• Xbox 360
• Console
• My second console died, the red ring again!
• I  managed to find a new 500 gigabyte version on ebay for about $150
• I got all the data transferred from the old hard drive without any problem
• Final Fantasy XIII-2
• Made slightly more progress
• Fun but not so challenging