I just got back from my week long winter break in Cairns (pronounced "cans"). I can honestly say it was the most exciting week of my life!
The first day we made plans and reservations for the week and then walked around downtown Cairns, went to some cool shops (like a diggereedoo store), ate a nice lunch, took a walk along the "beach," and went swimming in the "lagoon." The beach is more of a marsh, and since you cannot go in due to crocodiles, they have a big pool with a fake beach and a big grassy area which they call the lagoon. Each night we got a free meal at the woolshed, which is a place where a lot of hostels give free meals. Quite the place to be.
On Wednesday we went on a boat (http://www.passions.com.au/) to the Great Barrier Reef! It was a fun ride over and then I went scuba diving and snorkeling! I got a bit claustrophobic at first, but then it was really fun and I ended up going down twice! I saw Nemo and got a picture with him, I touched a lot of fish and stuck my hand in a giant clam! It was a beautiful day (besides a little rain here and there) and I saw so much and got to touch fish! Ooh la la!
On Thursday, three of us went north to Cape Tribulation (http://www.tropicsexplorer.com.au/capetribulation.htm). We went on a croc cruise, but didn't see any, we ate a funky fruit called the rambutan (http://facethewall.com/fruit-rambutan.html), saw some beautiful lookouts, ate fish and chips, saw a huge spider and a blue, dead lobster on the beach, and went swimming in a river. Oh yes, we stopped at Port Douglas and I had the best ice cream I have ever had, but before that we had stopped at this fruit farm to have their home-made ice cream. There were some funky flavors!
Friday was by far the best day of all! We chose to take "Uncle Brian's" tour to the southern rainforest (http://www.unclebrian.com.au/). Most trips go north (like the one we did on thursday), but Uncle Brian's is different in every way and goes south. The whole atmosphere of the trip was so friendly and fun! We all sang along to songs and danced and swam a lot. We went for a rainforest walk, then swam in the river where it started to rain. It rained pretty much every time we went swimming. Then we went to Josephine Falls and went down a natural rock water slide. It was really fun and so beautiful!
Next we ate a super good lunch and went to Millaa Millaa Falls! It is the most photographed waterfall in all of Australia, and they did a hair commercial there with a girl flipping her hair, so we all posed and took our pictures like that. The guide told us to only swim on one side, and after we were al out of the water he told us it was because there was a very territorial mother eel on the other side who had bit a girl with a warning bite, but since the girl stood there and screamed, the eel went to town on her leg and sent her to the hospital! I swam under the falls and took pictures with an underwater camera!
After that we went to Lake Eacham and swam for a while and had our afternoon tea. The water was relatively warm compared to all the rivers we swam in. After that we finally got into our dry clothes and went platypus-spotting! Out of the entire group, our group of three saw the first ones and got to do the nature call to get everyone over to our spot. We saw lots of turtles, a wild kangaroo, and a few platypus’s, but they were so far it was hard to see.
On the bus ride home it was dark outside, so we had the lights on (colored because they had pink cellophane on them) and we sang and danced along to songs. It was seriously the most fun I have ever had! I can’t explain what goes on in “gus the bus,” because you would think I am crazy, but it was so fun!
On Saturday we went to a Mexican restaurant and got microwaved, mediocre food. It just doesn’t compare to the Californian food, but at least I had some quality tortillas to remind me of home!
Now I am home and I have to get to work because school is starting up again tomorrow!
