Advertisement
Published: February 13th 2008
My last weekend in Melbourne (before flying to Cairns) was heaps fun!!! The Friday after classes got out Sam and I went to Melbourne's Brighton Beach which is famous for their bright, colorful "beach boxes" that people own with views of downtown Melbourne. If and when they go for sale you can purchase this little square box for about $250,000! That night we met up with some of my friends I met through Young Life and went to the sold out Australia vs. India cricket game! It was a big deal with fireworks and all and apparently was a fast game because Australia beat them so quick (still a long enough game for me...It might take me a few more games to completely understand everything that was going on). After that we all went and hung out at one couple's house which involved beer (thats just what Australians do I guess) and talking and hanging out til about 3 in the morning, fun times. The next morning we went to breakfast at this cute, old fire station where I had banana pancakes. Then we went up into the mountains to a park that looks over all of Melbourne and to this
Too excited for words
YUMMM!! Crepes...best ones I've ever, ever had...and I've had many, everywhere I go! :)cute, old Tea House where we had yet, another breakfast meal for lunch!! I also bought a cute mug that says "Coffee + Dessert = the main course" because I strongly agree with that! 😊 All of my friends here, even the guys, seriously cannot believe how much sweets I eat...every pastry place we go buy I'm like oh yesss! If you know me...you know I could live off of sweats like pastrys, crepes, waffles, and COFFEE as you'll see in some of the pictures I'm uploading with this blog! 😊 Saturday night my nice friends Mato & BJ dropped us off at the airport after showing us around and taking us to do fun stuff all morning and we headed to Cairns!
Cairns is in Queensland, which is the Northeast state of Australia. It is very tropical and humid and a huge tourist destination because of its beautiful white, sandy beaches and the Great Barrier Reef, which you can reach in an hour by boat. The bummer about the beautiful beaches is that you cannot swim in a lot of them because of the marine stingers or box jellyfish that are found in the shallow water all summer!
...lovin the beach life!
Sam and I...nappin at the beach! We were in Cairns during their wet monsoon season but ended up having pretty much all sunshine and clear days...even out on the reef, yay! We spent a few nights at a hostel in Cairns and enjoyed the town: swimming and laying out at the lagoon that was built a few years ago looking out over the ocean. One morning we left at 7am for Cape Tribulation, "The Daintree Cape Tribulation coast is where the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree rainforest meet, the only place on earth where two World Heritage areas exist side by side." We stopped and walked through a rainforest on the way there. It was beautiful, bright green all around. I saw plenty of HUGE, nasty spiders and even licked the butt of a green ant, which apparently gives you your daily intake of Vitamin C for the day...definitely a unique experience (see the picture 😊! Our hostel was very simple. It had a great pool in the middle of tall, green trees and was on a beach...that you couldnt swim in. I did go feel the water and I could not believe how hot it was, I wanted to swim so bad...but decided not
Cricket
the packed Australia vs. India game! to risk dieing from a jellyfish sting! We went on a hike through the rainforest looking for some swimming hole in a river that I was beginning to think did not exist...after getting stuck on a few bushes and weird plants on the way there, we finally made it. It was pretty neat spot back in the rainforest in the middle of the river that eventually flowed down into where crocodiles are! My friend and I found a spot you could climb up and jump off about 25 feet down into the river; that was fun!
Our other two day, one night adventure was spending the night out on a boat on the reef! And that was AWESOME!! For those of you that don't know...I'm a little weird about fish and sharks and everything and was a little scared to just jump into the middle of the ocean, especially after I heard there was a big possibility that we would see sharks! We got on a boat in Cairns and the water was not very blue or pretty looking and I began to wonder if I really was going to snorkel...!?! Two hours later that boat dropped us off
YUMMM!!
Sam -- ready for the picture...I apparently thought something was funny! at our big boat that we slept on, which was way out on the reef where the water was all kinds of beautiful turquoise and blues! I jumped in right away to snorkel and I of course, loooveed it! I was amazed that we were out in the middle of the ocean and right underneath us is shallow, huge, corral reefs with tons of different crazy looking fish everywhere; it was amazing! There was even waves out there crashing into us because of how shallow it is there and the water going different ways! After thinking about it for quite some time I decided that even though it was expensive I definitely had to try to scuba dive, at least once...since I was on the Great Barrier Reef! It was so weird getting used to the huge tank on my back, all the cords, and breathing out of whatever that thing is that goes on your mouth while also "equalizing" my ears every few feet so they didn't explode...after about 10 minutes of that, I was used to it, feeling confident and ready to explore. It was an awesome experience and I'm so glad I did it. I loved it
so much that I thought about doing the night dive later that day...which was after dinner, when its dark...you go with torches! But I decided to save $70 and opted out. That sounded so crazy to me, scuba diving with torches...hopefully next time!?!? Some of the cool things I saw were well, all the fish, a sting ray, two SHARKs (just about 3.5 ft. long), huge beautiful clams, and a sea turtle! Oh, we also saw dolphins on the first boat when we were on our way out to the reef. The guy working on the boat told us we were lucky because in the last 3 and a half months he had only seen dolphins once. I had literally just walked outside to the front of the boat and they went swimming by, right underneath me...I had a great view! Spending the night on the boat was great: I went up and laid by myself for a bit on the top deck while I listened to my ipod and watched the lightening storm that was off in the distance as well as the clear sky of stars (where I eventually saw a shooting star, yay, haha). I went with
the Lagoon
Lagoon we swam and layed out at in Cairns 8 other people from our group and had a lot of fun with most of them...getting to know everyone even more since we were living with them and sharing life in the hostels. It's fun that all of them are from Washington because I will definitely hangout with them when I get back!
We flew 4.5 hrs. out of Cairns Friday night landing in Melbourne at midnight, and getting to our hostel at about 1am. We slept for a few hours but then flew straightaway to Auckland! Flying to Auckland Saturday I realized I had kind of lost my voice and was starting to sound/feel sick. Good thing Chris got me some Airborne before I left because I think it saved me from getting sick, yay!
Well that closes my 6 weeks in Australia...I loved every minute of it...getting to know people, living in the city, traveling the places I went to, etc. and am definitely sad to be leaving! I really liked it there and would love to go back some day! I'm excited to see all that New Zealand has to offer...And, wanting to hear what's new with my friends and family at home!? 😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.105s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 11; qc: 55; dbt: 0.0566s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
K diz
non-member comment
Lacey everything is just so amazing!!! What an experience!! I can't believe you licked that nasty ant, I would have felt like it was going to turn around and bite me if I licked its butt!!! wow! I will make sure to get on skype more and especially when I am not wearing glasses and feeling totally out of it!! Can't wait to hear about Fiji!!! Take lots of pictures, it is supposed to be amazing, that was our second choice for a honeymoon!!!! lucky girl.