Cairns / the Great Barrier Reef

Hello everyone! Sorry it has taken me this long to blog but I've been extremely busy with school work and exams. I guess that's what I get for going on vacation during a study break! Don't worry though, I just took a midterm and I thought it went really well!

I traveled to Cairns on April 2nd and I was there until April 8th. Cairns is in the state of Queensland located in the far north part right along the Pacific coast. The Great Barrier reef is located here and also the Daintree Rain forest, both World Heritage Sites. There is a place where you can actually stand on sand reef and touch the leaves of the rain forest. This is the only place in the world where you can be in two World Heritage Sites at the same time. Cairns was about a 4 hour plane ride from Perth. I traveled there with 10 friends who I have met since being here in Australia. It was one of the best weeks of my life. I feel like I say that a lot, but seriously all my experiences here in Australia have been absolutely amazing. This vacation was jam packed with new and exciting activities that I had never done before.

Day 1: The action started right away, literally. We flew into Cairns at 4:30am, got to our hotel at 5:30am, and then caught a bus to go white water rafting down the Tully River at 6:30am. Luckily I slept a couple hours on the plane so I was all ready to go rafting down the Grade 4 river. Just to put things in perspective, Niagra Falls is a Grade 6. We only flipped over once! I actually think our guide purposely flipped us just for entertainment on his part. But it was actually really fun getting tossed into the river. In the second picture, I'm located in the back row, holding onto the rope for dear life.





Day 2: We woke up early to go do something I have always dreamed about doing, snorkeling and scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef! We took a Catamaran out to two different reef spots. It was raining this day but it didn't affect the visibility under the water! Unfortunately I don't have an underwater camera so I can't show you pictures of the colorful and vibrant coral and beautiful fish. You will just have to believe me when I tell you that it was breath taking. While I was snorkeling at the first reef spot, I swam with 2 sea turtles with shells that were about 2.5 feet in diameter! I swam down and touched their shells, just for you CC! At this spot I also got to scuba dive. I only saw a sting ray while scuba diving but it was still a ton of fun. After scuba diving, we took the catamaran to the next reef spot. This is what really made the trip worth it. While I was snorkeling, I came to about 20 feet from a reef shark. The shark was about 3 meters long. I really wish I had a picture of it for you. Surprisingly, I wasn't scared when I saw it and I didn't feel threatened by it. I think I was just overwhelmed with excitement and I didn't have any emotion left to be scared. Here is a picture of us with our wetsuits on...we have auditions for the Blue Man group next week.



Day 3: This day I will remember for a long long time. I went skydiving!!!!! I skydived 14,000 feet which is almost 3 miles high. We were way above the clouds. It is the last legal height for companies to take you skydiving. At the next height, oxygen needs to be supplied in the aircraft. When I was sitting on the edge of the aircraft ready to jump, I couldn't even see the ground because of the clouds. Adrenaline was pumping through my veins at this point and I jumped! I free fell for 60 seconds up to 120 miles per hour. If you think about it, that is a really long time to be falling through the atmosphere. It was such an incredible feeling. When the parachute was pulled, we sailed through the sky for about 4 minutes before we actually landed. I forgot to mention this, but I was attached to an instructor who did the semi-important stuff like pulling the parachute chord. I just went along for the ride. My instructor let me take the strings to the parachute so I could steer us around. It was so peaceful up there and the views were amazing.




Day 4: I went on an adventure tour of the Atherton tablelands and waterfalls south of Cairns. We got to see the spectacular views of the beautiful natural landscape. The main points of this trip were Babinda Boulders, Milla Milla Falls, and Lake Eacham. Babinda Boulders is usually a popular swimming hole. However it had rained 1.3 meters in the 2 weeks before I got to Cairns. So as you can imagine, this was not a light flowing creek.



The next stop was Milla Milla Falls. This is a magnificant waterfall surrounded by lush rainforest. Just take a look at it!



The last stop of the day was Lake Eacham. This lake was formed about 12,000 years ago. A volcanic eruption formed a crater which was later filled with water, now known as Lake Eacham. There was a tree on the edge of the lake that I climbed up and jumped out of into the water. I was feeling fearless from my previous day of skydiving.



Day 5: I went on another nature tour, but this time we traveled north of Cairns to the Daintree Rainforest, Cape Tribulation, and Port Douglas. We traveled along the Captain Cook highway from Cairns to Port Douglas. The Captain Cook highway is a very scenic highway that winds along the coast of the tropical seaside rainforest. It is compared to being as beautiful as the Great Ocean Road in Sydney. Here is a view from the road:



On our way to Cape Tribulation, we stopped at the Daintree Mangrove Animal Sanctuary where we saw kangaroos, snakes, cassowaries, and crocodiles. Did you know that crocodiles are preyed upon by no other predator? That's right, crocodiles are one of the few animals that actually prey humans.



Then we moved on and traveled across the Daintree River on a cable ferry and entered the Cape Tribulation section of the Daintree National Park. Here, we got a bird's eye view of the coastal ranges and Coral sea from the Alexandra Lookout. See the little island on the left side of the picture? That is where Steve Irwin was stabbed by the stingray!



Next stop was Cape Tribulation itself. Cape Tribulation is a beautiful beach. But the cool thing about this beach is that you get to it by walking through the rain forest. Unfortunately it was cloudy at this time of day but it was still pretty.



After Cape Trib we made our way back to Cairns and passed through Port Douglas. Port Douglas has had significant visitors over the years. Famous people and celebrities often pick this as their vacation spot in Australia. Bill Clinton and his wife were actually in Port Douglas on the day of 9/11 and they flew back to the states the next day.

Day 6: This was my last day in Cairns. We had a laid back day filled of walking around the town and shopping. Our flight was around 4pm and we were all sad to leave. We definitely accomplished a lot in the 5 days that we were there. Once again, I've made great memories with friends that will last a very long time!