Kuranda Koalas

Checklist for today:
1) Hold a Koala
2)Feed a Kangaroo
3)See Alexa

I met up with Eva and Andreana to head to the Kuranda, a rainforest just outside of Cairns to a Koala wildlife zoo type thing. I got to hold a Koala (which is illegal in Melbourne and Sydney) and then got to feed some Kangaroos and Wallabies, but see some other pretty cool wildlife inbetween. Then it was back to Cairns. It was a pain in the butt, but i then got a bus out to Lindsey's apartment (about a 35 minute bus ride) to pick up my bags. Lindsey got a kidney infection and wasn't feeling too hot so I told her alexa and I would stay in a hostel to give her some space. Then i had to take the stupid bus 35 minutes back into town to meet Alexa.

Keep in mind I haven't seen her in just about 7 months, let alone half way around the world. I was pretty psyched. We meet up, did a quick catch up but then had to find a place to stay for the night. We did eventually find a hostel to stay right in the middle of town. However, we did share our 4 bedroom room with a guy and a girl who met while working a carnival....they turned out to be incredibly "interesting" roommates to say the least.

Scuba Diving the Great Barrier!

Our group (from the left John, Georgie, Me, Paul and a
 french couple that only did 2 dives with us)

Kind of hard to tell, but the reef from the boat

Bright and Early the next day I was at the dive shop. The company has two boats, one of which is the day boat which I boarded in the morning then took a 1 and a half hour ride to get to the outer reef. Then I met my instructor Paul, a Belgian guy, and the two other people getting certified John, a Brit who’s working for a year as a travel agent at a hostel in town and Georgie, a Norwegian guy who just finished a couple of months of farm work somewhere in Australia to support his travels. I was INCREDIBLE relieved to hear they were staying overnight too so I would not be completely alone on the other boat. We did first dive on a place called Norman Reef  and then had an amazing lunch, keep in mind though that I have been eating mostly Peanut Butter and sandwiches or cheap Fish and Chip Takeaways so my standards weren’t too high. Then we took our second certification dive, seeing the reef in the process. It was beautiful! Later the day boat parked next to the overnight boat, Oceanquest, to unload supplies and swap the overnight passengers. It wasn’t nearly as intimidating as I expected. I met a bunch of people of people on board, crew and passengers. The boat holds around 40 but they were sitting at about 22 people that night so in a matter of hours you basically knew everybody. Plus my roommate Maria was great. She was a Spanish girl, who quit her job and bought a round the world plane ticket, and has been travelling for 4 months so far with just her backpack.

Over night boat, Oceanquest

Anyway, we did 1 more dive off the overnight boat before dinner (which was even better than lunch!). Once sun set, there was an option for a night dive. Sadly since none of my group was certified we could go. Instead John and I joined one of the crew on the top of the boat. His job was to keep watch of the divers, but from the top you could see the different groups of divers swim around by the glows of their lights underwater, plus you could see all of the sharks swimming in the boats spot light. Needless to say, one of my major life goals is a night dive now, I even considered staying another night on the boat to be able to do one. The night was pretty chill, most of the dive instructors and some crew plus a few passengers just sat around with a few drinks, swapping stories and talking.

Day boat, Reefquest

The next day, our group had our last certification dive, which was really just exploring the reef more. And finally we were done with our course. Plus we got one “fun” dive before we got back on the day boat. So John, Georgie and I went out without our instructor. It took some getting used to, mostly because we just followed Paul to the best spots on the reef but now we had to find them on our own. We did find a tunnel through the coral which was the goal of our dive.  Sadly after a few hours of diving, sun bathing , and reading, it was time to go back to Cairns. Besides missing the night dive I wasn’t too sad, mostly because Alexa, my friend from highschool was coming the next day!

Good-bye Sydney, Hello Cairns

WAY too early for a Sunday morning, Wally picked me up and I was headed to the airport headed to Cairns! Cairns is an unusual little place. I love it though! It's definitely a back packers destination with a different hostel every 5 feet. Which in turn means tons of bars and young travelers through out town. It’s also known for being the best access too the Great Barrier reef, so I was picturing it as a beachy diving town, but the entire town doesn’t even have a beach, the nearest one is about 30 minutes away! To make up for it the city built a lagoon on there water front (and by waterfront its more of mud field.) And as a result of all the backpackers, the lagoon is usually filled with hungover 20 something year olds  sleeping in the sun. There’s a ridiculous amount of things to do in the area. I stayed for a week and could have easily stay another or two and never have been bored.  Another friend of mine from Colorado, Lindsay (not the same Lindsey from Sydney….I know….VERY confusing) is doing her exchange at a uni right outside of the town so I was going to staying with her.

I also had 2 days until Alexa got to Cairns! She studying at a university in Brisbane but has never been to Cairns so she was going to fly up and see me. In the mean time I had to get scuba diving certified. So the day I arrived my first stop was the 24 hour cairns medical clinic to get a scuba diving form filled out. Then I went to the dive shop to sort out my certification. I decided to do a 2 day 1 night deal on the reef and by the end of it I would be certified! I was a little hesitant because 1) I have never been diving in the sea and 2) I would be on a boat for 2 days and a night where I don’t know anybody. Regardless it was an awesome experience!

Downtown Sydney

Tours on top of the bridge

Opera House

Trying to rid myself of a hangover caused by a Friday night in Sydney, I definitely got a late start to the day. But it was my last day in Sydney and I still needed to see the sights, so I dragged my butt out of bed (and by bed I mean the couch cushions laid out on Lindseys bedroom floor). I headed back into town for a ferry ride around the bay with Eva and Andreana (it awesome being able to meet up with people who needed to see all the tourist sites too). We ended up taking the ferry up to Manly Beach and back, basically just a 1 ferry ride through the harbor. There were great views of the bridge and the opera house and the different sections of Sydney. We headed to the opera house, which as far as I could tell was just a mecca for asian tourists. We couldn’t really go in but we walked around the entire thing, and waited for the sun to set behind the bridge. It was really interesting seeing all the tours climbing the bridge trying to make it to the top before sunset. Leaving Eva and Andreana to walk around the city, I went to meet up with my friend Wally to catch up (he did his exchange in Colorado but lives in Sydney). There was the last rugby game of the tri nations tournament on and it was NZ vs. Australia so we went to a pub for dinner and to see some of the game, sadly NZ lost :(.

Sydney Beaches

Looking back at Coogee beach

View from the Path

Today was a much needed lazy day. Linsdey didn’t have class so she took me on the Coogee beach to Bondi Beach walk. It was about a 4 km path along the ocean front. Gorgeous views! Pretty comparable to the Great Ocean Road just on  a smaller scale. At Bondi, a kilometer (.6 mis) long beach filled with surfers, we just sat for most of the day just watching surfers and laying in the sand. Apparently it was one of the first warm gorgeous days they had in a while so everybody just flocked.  

Overlooking Bondi Beach

Blue Mountains

Giant Staircase, 1000 steps to the valley floor

Eucalyptis Tree...It's oils give the mountains their blue hue

View of some of the blue mountains

After a late start, and a slight misinterpretation of the Sydney bus schedule I ended up sprinting through the city for the railway station (which draws quite alot of attention seeing as a can barely run). I was meeting back up with andreana and Eva who had also arrived in Sydney the other day. We were taking a trip to the blue mountains, about 2 hours out of the city. They were amazing. I could have easily spent a few days there. A lot of Sydney resident go there for climbing, trekking, repelling and all that. Since we had one day and had to stick to the stupid train schedule we did the touristy hike, which was awesome none the less. At the end of the day we hike for a couple hours, climbed the 1000 stairs, saw katoomba falls, and hiked around the 3 sisters. And then like the typical Americans that we are we stop for a lunch at subway before heading back into the city.

Katoomba Falls

The 3 sisters

Sydney!

Wasn't  a bad place to chill for an afternoon

I am horrible with making busses or trains on time,  and am notorious for reading the time table wrong or getting lost on the way to the stop, so naturally I  left room for error to get to the airport to go to Sydney. So I wake up at 5:30 in order to catch my bus to get to the airport. However, the one time everything goes perfect and I ended up sitting at theairport for two hours when I could have easily been sleeping in my hostel (I was quite angry with myself). But Sydney was an awesome city, I could definitely see myself living there at some point. It was pretty bustling western city, but it still maintained the laid back aussie vibe. I loved that it has the huge business buildings filled with suits and ties and then surfers in wet suits right down the street. I stayed Linsdey, a friend of mine from back in Colorado. It was definitely a nice change of pace to see someone from back home. She lives in an apartment in Coogee beach. A beautiful little beach town about a 30 minute bus ride from central Sydney. When I first got there I had to kill about 2 hours until Lindsey finished class so I just got lunch and sat by the harbor. I had a view of the bridge, the harbor and the opera house from my chair, I could have stayed there for hours. After meeting Lindsey we walked around coogee beach and made dinner at one of her mates houses. Great intro to Sydney!