Quick Update

First off, we just posted a couple hundred new photos. You should all go take a look and see what you could be doing instead of working. I garuantee it will make you want to quit, no matter how much you like your job. There's a link to our photo page on the side.

We did a 3 day sailing trip around the Whitsundays, which is a cluster of 70 islands, a week ago. My first 3 hours on the boat I spent clutching the side and cursing myself for getting on a boat for that long of a time. I thought for sure I'd spend most of the time with my head over the side. But alas, I was okay. We stopped for a snorkel and after that I was just dandy. I was however as conservative as can be with the goon at night. The last thing I wanted to experience was a combination sea-sickness-hang-0ver. That would be bad news. The trip was great. We had clear weather, pretty snorkeling and made some great friends. The trip concluded with an after party at the trashiest bar in Airlie Beach, Magnums. It was Wet T-shirt night if that gives you any clue.

**Fun fact: Australia has these crazy ants with green butts that are filled with citric acid. We licked their bums and tasted it ourselves. They'll bite you, which doesn't hurt too much, but then they'll squirt citric acid over the bite. So mean.

We've spent the last week at Mission Beach recovering from the sailing trip. Jen's body recovered quickly, but her head just didn't get the concept. 5 days later and it still thinks it's asea. To the doctor we went. The doctor she got was much better than mine. He actually seemed to know what's wrong, and she should be on the road to recovery. As a result of her continued sea-sickness we got 5 days lazing in the rainforest poolside. Life as a backpacker is hard. We did have one outing to the Bicton Hill walking track. It was a short walk, only 3.9 km, but it was well worth it. We spotted a cassowary about 1 km in. I'll post a picture of a cassowary, but I can tell you it's sort of like a cross between a turkey and an emu, but more like the emu. They can stand as tall as us and the grown ups have a crazy blue and red neck. When we saw it, we couldn't remember what all the signs told us to do. We froze, took some pictures and decided to walk to the beginning of the track and read the sign. It's a good thing we did. Apparently they can be pretty aggressive towards people if they feel at all threatened. Good decision made on our part. We ended up seeing an adolescent cassowary and another adult cassowary back at the hostel too. They are pretty crazy. Jen also saw a family of wallabies early this morning. While I'm sad that I didn't get to see the wallabies, I was pretty content in my sleeping bag.

And now we're off to Cairns. We'll only be there 2 days, but people say that'll be more than enough. On the 20th we're flying to Melbourne. We have another WWOOF host outside of Melbourne, we'll go to Melbourne for 6 days and stay with a new friend from the sailing trip, and then we're off to New Zealand.