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Published: December 20th 2011
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So I’m back from Australia. I will be posting about it over the next week or two at the request of my family. If for some reason you are still getting emails about the blog and you don’t care about me anymore and don’t want to know what I’m up to, then by all means please ignore them. For the rest please enjoy.
I left for Australia, my 5th continent and 24ish country, on NOV 28, I thought I was leaving on the 29
th and long story short I ended up having 20 minutes to turn in my weapon, pack, and meet the bus. Well I was out of breath and my clothes were not folded but I made it. From Camp Buehring I went to an airforce base for the night, to get a flight and processes out. Out of about 400 guys that were going on R&R (from all over Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan) there were only 8 of us who were not going back to the states. So they took us to the Kuwait City airport and dropped us off. From there I flew to Dubai, where I saw the tallest building in the world.
Then from there it was a 14 hour flight to Aus, yeah it took forever and I was too excited to sleep. I got into Sydney around 8am Dec. 1st local time. The first day I just walked around the city saw the bridge and opera house. So everyone thinks the opera house is such a beautiful building, but on closer inspection all it is, is concrete and tile, almost like bathroom tile. It was still impressive. I was a bit jet lagged so I crashed around 3pm. The next morning I had a 6am flight to Cairns, so I had to catch a 4:30 train to the airport. The weather in Sydney was nice around 70, but when I landed in Cairns it was about 85 and super humid. Many people don’t know, but there is a rainforest in northeast Australia and the area has a tropical climate. I spent the day chillaxing and walking about the town. The next day I got to go scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef. I was able to see some stingrays (the friendly kind), a sea turtle, Nemo, sea cucumbers, and a ton of fish and coral. This is one of
the coolest things I have done. I was under water for an hour total but it felt like 5 minutes.
That night I rented a car and headed north. I stayed in Port Douglas which is a nice little resort town about an hour away. I was a little nervous about driving on the left side of the road but it wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be. On the way I had a beautiful view of the Coral Sea on my right and forest covered mountain to my left. The next morning I went for a horse ride through the rainforest and then for a run on the beach. It had been nearly a year since I had ridden a horse and it was so much fun running on the beach. That afternoon I headed north to Cooktown which it way up north. I will continue in the next post. Stay tuned!
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Melissa
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incredible!
The underwater pictures are VERY cool! Can't wait to see more.