Brisbane to Cairns
The trip of my dreams! Nine days spent on Australian beaches
for the most part. It did not disappoint at all!
The night I got to Brisbane, made some quick friends and got
a tour of the city by locals! I met the extreme adventure crew (44 kids and two
tour guides) the next morning!
The first stop on our tour was the Australian Zoo. It was
opened as a wildlife park by Steve and Terri Irwin in the 80s and has been
growing ever since. I had an amazing time here and there was so much to see!
first Australian kangaroo sighting
Koala
Red Panda
This croc and bird show was specular, these birds were
better trained than most Labrador retrievers! One flew to an audience member
that was holding out $5 and took it! He gave it to the trainer then on command
back to the audience member! One of the birds was released from across the zoo
and flew to the auditorium where the show was! It was the coolest thing ever!
We left the zoo and went to Rainbow beach. Rainbow beach is
famous for this giant sand dune, certain times of day the sand looks rainbow colored
and that’s where it got its name. We walked to the sand dune for sunset. When
we got to the sand dune everyone went for the water opposite to where the sun
was going to set soon and about eight of us went to launch ourselves off the
side of the dune!
That night at the hostel was Karaoke night. No, I didn’t
duet a Ke$ha song with Rachel.. (I did)
The next day we went to Fraser Island. This place was pretty
neat, worth a wiki read. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraser_Island
But basically, it has super special sand and super special trees. It is the
largest sand Island in the world and has a big freshwater lake in the middle of
it. This lake competes with the Whitsunday Islands for the whitest sand in
Australia.
That night we all got on the bus for a 10 hour ride to
Airlie Beach. It was like 7 a.m. when we got our destination. We got on a crazy
boat and had a high speed, slightly scary ride to snorkel some parts of the
reef. Then we went to our island which was basically occupied by just our tour
group. It was beautiful. We were here
for two nights and had a great time just relaxing and having some island
parties!
The Whitsundays are breathtaking! This is the third most photographed place in all of Australia.
tip of the crazy boat
They made us leave the Whitsundays after a few nights, but
we did so in style. We got on a million dollar sail boat/ yacht. We made a stop
for snorkeling (beautiful) and after a few hours we were back at Airlie Beach!
We got back on our bus and drove like six hours to Mission Beach. We basically
just slept here although we were in more of a hotel instead of a hostel which
was kind of nice! No bunk beds!
Early the next morning we went to the Tully river for white
water river rafting! It was amazing! So much fun! We had tons of safety
briefings and they drilled into us what to do if we fell out of the raft, me
being the pessimist I am, assumed they had to tell us those things and was
expecting to paddle around a lake for a few hours. Oh, no. We almost died.. I
am actually not sure if everyone made it I think they stopped doing head counts
after this excursion! There were serious rapids and waterfalls and even points
where we had to look for crocs! Four of our group of six went overboard, all at
the same time! It was nuts! Also, I was always told never to marry a farmer but
the river guides make farmers look like princes! Ours was basically a sailor
with an inflatable boat!
That night we were off to our finial destination, Cairns,
portal to the Great Barrier Reef! I will have to post reef pictures later
because I don’t have a waterproof camera so I will have to steal them from
someone else on the tour who was better prepared. The Reef is everything you’ve
ever heard! Like it was beautiful, beyond that! I wish I could better explain
it but the pictures that you’ve seen don’t even do it justice. It seriously was
breathtaking! Everything was right below you and the fishes just swam all
around us like it was nothing! The fishes were like colorful patterned and all
kinds of stuff! I can’t put it into words!
So in Cairns we has bungee jumping lined up with the tour
and a skydiving option! I didn’t really tell my parents or anyone at home that
I was going to skydive! I didn’t think the extra worry was necessary! (Sorry
y’all) But I knew from the beginning that I was going to do it! This was the
first day in Cairns, we had the morning off and that night was when we were
bungeeing! Ok, three of us in our room were skydiving and from waking up that
morning nerves were on edge! I paced around the room for a solid hour and was
almost sick to my stomach! I had already paid so not jumping out of a plane
want an option… Oh goodness. We went to the skydiving place about an hour
before to do paperwork and stuff. (I opted out of the $30 dollar insurance that
would give my family $50,000 in the event of my death) They gave us a safety
briefing.. We were about to have 60 seconds of free falling! Oh my goodness!!
About an hour later I was climbing onto a plane the size of a VW van with a guy
that I had known for 10 minutes who was going to strap himself to me and jump
out of the plane. OH MY GOODNESS!
Ok y’all, the plane was taking off and it took about 20
minutes to get to 14,000 feet (the height for jumping) in this 20 minutes my
thoughts were about like this. What if
this guy hasn’t ever even flown a plane before? Can he even fly it right? Did
he put fuel in it? What if there is a storm up there? Can we do this in
lightening? What if we hit a rock and are unconscious? What if my instructor
hasn’t done this? Is this his first jump too? How do you fold up the parachute?
Did he do it right? WHAT IF HE ACCIDENTLY PUT A BRICK ON TOP OF THE PARACHURE?
Oh my goodness get me off this plane! Can I ask the pilot to take me back? I
don’t want to do this. Mom and Dad are going to kill me… What if I throw up
when we jump out! Oh goodness don’t let them see you crying. Adri its ok just
JUMP OUT OF THIS PERFECTLY GOOD PLANE! NOOOOOOO
It was the worst thing n the world! The view was beautiful
too I wish I would have been able to see it!
We reached 14 freaking thousand feet and the first guy
jumped out. HE DISSAPEARD! GONE! WHERE DID HE GO? Oh ya he JUMPED OUT OF THE
PLANE! I was last so I watched 10 people disappear! I was so scared but when it
was my turn it wasn’t an option my instructor just jumped! In half a second I
was flying through the air! For the first 10 seconds I regretted BEING BORN! It
was so scary! I couldn’t breath and I couldn’t stop and it was so scary! But
then I realized IT WAS FREAKING AWESOME! We spun around and went through clouds
and didn’t even throw up! Free falling through the air is pretty cool. When the
parachute was deployed I got to panic a little again but I lived! I have a
video of it that I can show y’all when I get home! You can see sheer fear in my
eyes the entire time pretty much! But it was amazing! I am so glad that I did
it!
We got back to town and immediately got on a bus to go
bungee jumping! A lot in one day I know! My bucket list was even intimidated!
164 foot bungee! It was along walk to the top! And when it comes time you put
on a harness (I put it on wrong and was corrected) and then they wrab a BATH
TOWEL around your ankles and some straps! I was scared all over again! I hopped
to the edge and wouldn’t let of the rail for a few seconds while the strappers
were encouraging me! I finally did it and it was awesome! I will bungee again
for sure! I don’t know about skydiving though! I really thought bungee would
give me whiplash and neck damage but it didn’t at all! There wasn’t a jerk at
all! After the bungee we got into groups of three for a 120 mph jungle swing!
It was pretty fun as well!
After the swing
This day goes down in history as the craziest day that
ANYONE ON EARTH has ever experienced! Don’t even challenge it!
It was the next day that we went to the reef and I will try
to post pictures of that soon!
The last day in Cairns we went to the rainforest and swam
around a couple waterfalls! It was seriously our of a magazine! It was amazing!
That night we had a big goodbye party!
The trip was seriously amazing! I would do it over and over
again!
Love y’all!
rainforest in Cairns
