April 2-15
My trip to Australia didn’t end up exactly as planned. For
the fall break I intended on going to FIJI with 3 other girls for 10 days. We
were going to go island hoping, visit the Cast Away island, snorkel, be lazy,
etc. Unfortunately 2 days before our flight, Amanda Wescott and I found out
that Fiji was in a state of emergency and the flights were being canceled left
and right. A cyclone had hit the city we were flying into and flooded all the
roads in/out of the airport. Anyways, the day before our flight we were flying
to Auckland and we decided to have a back up plan and fly on over to Australia.
On Monday, our flight was canceled to Fiji and we booked our flight from
Auckland to Cairns… just like that! That night we flew to Australia, going from
10-15C to a nice and warm 30C.
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| ready, set, AUSTRALIA! |
Stop 1: Cairns
The next day we went to a travel agent directly downstairs
and planned our complete Australian trip within an hour. She was beyond helpful
and even gave us 2 more free nights in Gilligan’s… unbelievable. After this I
officially decided that I loved Gilligan’s :)
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| cute sign at Gilligan's |
Day 1: ZOO
After the zoo,
we showered, ate the free dinner (which was normally rice and some sort of
meat), then Amanda and I went to check out the night market. It was filled with
many touristy things, and is mostly where I bought all of my souvenirs from
Australia. That night we went out with our roommates from Sweden, who were
really cool and I really enjoy hostels for the reason of meeting interesting
people from around the world.
Day 2: Uncle Brian’s Rainforest Tour
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| GUS the BUS! and our awesome tour guide |
Amanda had heard that it was a MUST DO attraction in Cairns,
so we booked it ASAP, and I’m so glad we did… I don’t think I’ve been on a
better tour. Our tour guide was the quirkiest person you’ll ever meet. When you
start the tour he immediately memorizes everyone’s names, and then introduces
you to the bus, aka GUS the BUS. Him and Gus had a certain “connection,” he
could speak back and forth with Gus, while Gus was honking his horn. Every time
we got off the highway Gus would honk his horn as if saying “High Bruce” “Bye
Bruce” (Nemo reference). The tour guide went on to tell us about Gus and his
mysterious lover who writes him letters all the time. Throughout the tour he
kept bringing this romance up, and he eventually read one of the letters from
the woman lover to Gus. He was very heart warming and came with a very “erotic”
picture of the two of them… which just ended up being of the two buses facing
towards each other “kissing” (very cute.. or weird… at the time being it was
hilarious). The tour was actually about waterfalls and such…not bus love, but
it definitely makes the experience 10x better. We visited 3 waterfalls, one was
too strong to get into, the other was a natural slide, and the last one was the
one where you naturally flip your hair in front of it…very modelesque.
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| 1st stop! |
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| the bus gang |
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| many different ways to go down the natural slide... |
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| trying to go backwards, but it's so smooth it turns you around haha |
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| Amanda and I doing a bit of posing |
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| being a model...even the guys on the tour joined in! |
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| crater lake | |
Then we
stopped at a beautiful lake formed in a volcanic crater, and searched for
platypus, but didn’t have much luck. On the way home, the tour guide made us all do choreographed dances and sing to songs like "I'm walking on sunshine," etc. Every other row would be doing opposite of the one in front, so it probably looked insane from an onlooker's point of view. Honestly, the most depressed person in the world would come back from that tour feeling like the happiest guy alive...seriously, funnest tour EVER. The tour was literally an all day thing
and Amanda and I were left extremely exhausted yet again.
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| crazy things we did on the bus...basically a lot of singing and choreographed dances |
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Day 3: Great Barrier Reef
We took a one-day cruise to one of the wonders of the world.
I decided to scuba dive on the first reef… after all I didn’t scuba certified
for nothing (NZ waters are a little too cold for my liking). For the dive I
found a buddy who knew his way around the reefs pretty well. I also had brought
my gopro to get it all on video. When we got into the water I didn’t
immediately set my camera to record, because clearing my ears for a couple
minutes isn’t that interesting. When I got to the bottom of the reef at about
18m, I decided to turn my camera on which had in the meantime completely
flooded...just my luck! We saw all around the reed and through a couple a tight
fitting reef caves where I saw some colorful fish. The coral was quite brown, I
didn’t see any sea turtles or clownfish…in my opinion it was not at all worth
it… except for the fact that I can now say that I scuba dived in the great
barrier reef! I’ve done a lot of snorkeling in various locations in the
Caribbean and I have seen coral and fish just as pretty or even better. The
coolest part about the reefs was their clams… their mouth could be as big as an
arm or as small as a finger, but man-oh-man were the colors AMAZING! They came
in turquoise, purples, reds, pinks, stripes… it was so awesome, and when you
poked at the opening of their mouth they would tighten up or even shut. We went
to two different reefs total, and met a few people on the boat that we ended up
hanging out with that night.
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| One of the reefs where we snorkeled! |
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| Looking back at Cairns |
Day 4: Port Arthur was a very high-class touristy town.
There was a main street lined with shops, restaurants and boutiques, and at
each end there was a beach and a marina. I guess I’ve failed to mention this
earlier, but upon our first day near the ocean we learned that during the
fall/winter season there were jellyfish in the water that could easily kill
you. Because of this you had to either wear a stinger suit, swim in a
designated area in the ocean, or swim in the communal pools that most large
cities seemed to have (everything above Brisbane). Port Arthur was nice, but not really my taste… more for
older couples or families, not really backpackers. That night we were catching
a greyhound shuttle that would take us to a new location…after a 14 hour long
bus ride.
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| closed off section of the beach from jellyfish...very unimpressive |
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| watch out for jellyfish!! |
Stop 2: Airlie Beach
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| the southern cross in the middle left :) |
Day 6-8: WHITSUNDAYS (79 islands off the coast of Australia)
Amanda and I boarded a boat called “Silent Night,” and there
were 15 people total. All the people were older than us, but we still had an
amazing time with them. The first day we just sailed and chatted and ate a
delicious dinner under the numerous stars.
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| our sail bout :) |
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| down under! |
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| our beds haha...very interesting couple of nights!! |
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| white haven beach! |
You could even see a couple of
planets and the Milky Way, the sky was so clear. It was so hot on the boat that
night, that sleeping was pretty miserable and sticky against the sheets. When
we woke up and enjoyed the nice sun and sailed for an hour to the 2
nd
most beautiful beach in the world: White Haven Beach. The sand literally felt
like you were running on flour, smoothest sand in the world… We had to wear
stinger suits of course… so we did a bit of modeling haha. We also had a mini
photo session because we know we’d never have a backdrop like this ever again!
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| the gang! |
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| ants that tasted like LIME?! |
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| my awesome stinger suit...don't want to die, you know? |
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| just soaking up the sun :D |
After we got back on the boat they took us to a couple snorkel sites where I
can truthfully say that the coral was 10x better in this location. There were
fish half my size just swimming around…Amanda accidentally kicked one haha.
They were very use to tourists by the way they acted toward us… they let us
feed them breadcrumbs.
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| We snorkeled in that area behind the sail boats |
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| gorgeous sunset of the Whitsunday Islands :) |
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| just sailin'.... |
That night we watched the sunset majestically against
the Whitsunday islands. During my sleep that night on the boat I had nightmares
that the boat was flooding because in reality waves were smashing up against
the boat. Amanda said when she woke up, she saw a light from another boat
nearby for one second and then all of a sudden we would spin in another
direction. In the morning the plan was to go snorkeling, but because of the
drastic change in weather overnight, it was decided that we would do some
extreme sailing. 10 of us sat up on the “high-side” railings of the 50ft
sailboat. As soon as the boat caught the wind, the boat was literally tilted 80
degrees. My feet were once 3ft from touching the water, and were now 20ft from
touching the water. You had to hold on with your legs or arms because when
you’d look back you’d see ocean directly underneath you. It was a real life
roller coaster, as waves were smashing into the boat, some going way over it,
soaking all of the passengers. If only I had my gopro for this :/
When we get off the boat we had lunch with our fellow sailors
and said our farewells!
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| being forced to try oysters, Amanda was way more open to the idea than I was! |
Amanda and I were set to board another 17 hour coach
bus to Brisbane at 8pm…luckily we slept through most of the trip and got our
own row to lay down in!
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| ya I know... we had a lot of luggage for being "backpackers"! |
Then ran home to get our
stuff and take the train to the airport. Well we planned our time accordingly
to having a 30 min train ride, when instead it ended up being over an hour
because the connecting trains were running late. When we arrived at the airport
(5 minutes late), the Jetstar counter had already shut down. Amanda and I were
going ballistic trying to find someone who would help us…didn’t have much luck.
Instead they made us rebook for a flight the next day. So we were sitting in
the airport… crying a little from all the stress…and then decided to go get a
nice little hostel next to Bondi Beach.
Woke up the next morning, went straight to the beach
for a couple of hours and then took a shuttle to the airport (which took 20
min… should have taken that in the first place!!) …and we were an hour TOO
early to check in. I just LOVE JetStar…best airlines ever…NOT! Anyways, we flew
to Christchurch, arrived there at 10 pm and had a 3.5 hour drive home (thank
you soososo much Monika for coming from Dunedin to come pick us up…best roommate
ever!) Amanda and I were so relieved to be home, but I must say… I sure do miss
Australia already!
Woke up the next morning, went straight to the beach
for a couple of hours and then took a shuttle to the airport (which took 20
min… should have taken that in the first place!!) …and we were an hour TOO
early to check in. I just LOVE JetStar…best airlines ever…NOT! Anyways, we flew
to Christchurch, arrived there at 10 pm and had a 3.5 hour drive home (thank
you soososo much Monika for coming from Dunedin to come pick us up…best roommate
ever!) Amanda and I were so relieved to be home, but I must say… I sure do miss
Australia already!
