Keranda Excursions

This weekend, a friend and I went on a little semi spontaneous trip to a little village in the mountains called Keranda. It was very much a tourist trap in the main part where all the little markets were but outside of that on the less traveled path was Barron Gorge and Wrights Lookout. Both of which we walked to from the center of the village which took a really long time, but the views were amazing once we finally got there.
I personally thought that there would be a place that you could go swimming under the waterfall but i was under the wrong impression and was a little disappointed when there wasn't anywhere to go swimming.
So 1st story of the trip: we were walking back down the road from wrights lookout when i directed a young woman in a blue little car to the little dirt road to the peak and i had a feeling that on our way back down the road someone would have a soft heart and offer us a ride back. Several car/campers passed and then wouldn't you know it, the little blue car rolled up next to us and she offered us a ride back to the village...we never got her name but she said she was from byron bay area so we just call her byron. anyways, that was my first Hitchhiking experience, which apparently is a really safe thing to do in australia as long as you use your judgement and dont jump into a car with a creepy old dude...:) I was SOO thankful she offered us a ride because i really had to go to the bathroom and really didn't want to have to kill off some of the rainforest to relieve myself :)
Once we arrived back into town, we walked around a little as shops were beginning to close as they do there at 3:30 in the afternoon, which i think is rediculous, and we slowly were becoming the only people walking around which was a little creepy. we were scouting places that were actually open to eat dinner later on, and while doing so we stopped to look at a cafe's menu for a possible breakfast the next morning, and the owner told us she was closing up because she had a show to perform at that evening and preceeded to show us the poster advertising this "folk music" concert in the town hall. So we decided that we had nothing better to do and decided to attend a little local concert. Soon there after we found the hostel that we were planning on staying at and checked in and made our beds. it was only 19$ a night which is super cheap...but as the old saying goes, "you get what you pay for"...lets just say i was afraid to climb onto the topbunk because i had little confidence that it would support me as i tried to climb up onto it and heard the stereotypical noise of something about to crumble beneath you... I just pulled the matress on to the floor and slept there though i accidently baracaded another door in the process which almost caused me to be stepped on several times throughout the night. Wasn't the best night of sleep ever but it just added to the whole experience.

The next morning we got up really early, as you pretty much had to get up when the sun got up, and packed up our backpacks. we had planned to find some swimming holes that the owner of the hostel told us about which apparently only the locals know how to get there. So we were going to attempt to follow these sketchy directions and just hope that we would make it there, but we met a true aussie hippie at "breakfast" more like instant coffee and a banana that some one was gracious enough to provide us...and he decided to take it upon himself to show us the way to the local swimming holes. His name was dave and he ended up taking up to the top of the gorge which had been dammed up but water had overflowed the dam and preceeded to travel over the rock face of the waterfall...i call it bouldering, but we were literally climbing up and down the face of this huge gorge/waterfall system. at one point he decided to take off even further down the rocks and we stayed back and decided to go swimming under one of the many little falls in the waterfall system....it was so cold but exhilarating at the same time...i do not think i have attempted anything so adventurous and possible as dangerous, but it was soo worth it and i don't think i will ever forget it! after sun-baking (what aussies call sunbathing) on the rocks like a lizard for a while we went back up to the top to swim and jump off these massive rocks that were in the middle. that was tricky because when the rocks got wet they became extremely slippery so we made sure to take extra precaution before jumping off.

We probably could have stayed there all day but we had to catch a shuttle back to cairns at 12:30 so it ended out morning adventure before we really wanted to leave....there was just a different lifestyle up in this area that is was nice to get a different perspective on the classic "aussie hippie" mentality.

later that night we got invited to a wonderful birthday party for a girl that is in the youth group at church, so we all got together to have a really nice dinner inwhich we got to dress up. i thought it was funny that we could be dirty sweaty backpackers one minute and nicely dressed and made up women all within a 24hr period. Guess that means im versatile :)

It was such a wonderful little trip with so many great details that i just wanted to share and remember..... oh, we also went to a koala sancturary where we got to cuddle with koalas...though i already got to hold one the first few days i was here, this was heaps better because we actually got to hold and pet them for an extended amount of time and they let us take our own pictures so that was really great!

Im looking forward to more adventures ahead with new experiences to accompany them!

until later, Cheers!