From the 20th to the 25th we were in Cairns, Australia. For those that don’t know, Jason won us the foundation of this trip in a raffle. The original trip he won was for 3 days, including round trip airfare for 2 people as well as a hotel room. We added 2 days, 1 round trip ticket, upgraded the hotel room to a one bedroom apartment, and included a 2 tank dive trip and a 4X4 eco trip through the rain forest for all for and additional ~$2000USD. How is that for a deal!
We got there late on the 20th with me forgetting to bring my sneakers (no one was really surprised by that for some reason
).. so we just went to sleep. On the 21st we went sightseeing of the tourist area eating our way up and down the streets (excellant backeries and pastry shops along the way). Unfortunately the weather wasn’t the best - rainy and kinda cool but since we were just shopping it was no big deal. We then walked to a large shopping mall on the edge of the tourist section where Jason and I both bought some new sneakers as well as a few other things. Basically we shopped until we dropped.
On the 22nd we dove the great barrier reef. Again the weather wasn’t the best - but it was warmer and drier then the day before. We rode the boat (there were ~15 people on the boat) for about 2 hours to get to Hastings Reef. I had problems sinking - probably because of the wetsuit’s extra bouyency (we normally dive in just our swim suits and a rash guard shirt). I added 6 more pounds and still had to swim down and control my breathing to stay down. We unfortunately didn’t stay down as long as we would have liked… I was sucking air hard and my tank seemed to be a short fill - Kayla did way better then me. After that the boat took us to our second dive site (Turtle haven) . There we had lunch and our second dive. I forgot to grab another weight so I again had to swim down and control my breathing but I did much better with my air consumption - so we stayed down quite a bit longer then the last one. We have plenty of pictures from the dives and I will be posting them later. Anyway - after the dive we rode the boat back in to Cairns, ate dinner and passed out. It was a good day.
On the 23rd we originally were scheduled to go on the 4X4 Eco tour of the rain forest. Unfortunately the tour guide became sick and rescheduled the trip for the 24th. So since we found ourselves with a free day we explored some more of the area. It was cool since we managed to find a number of smaller shopping areas tucked away that we missed the first time as well as a farmer’s market that was really cool to walk through. Jason found a wonderful bakery in it. Wondering and exploring took up the morning and early afternoon and we all managed to find souveniors for ourselves. The later afternoon was spent in the hotel swimming pool and taking a nap. Nice and relaxing.
The 24th we spent the whole day on the 4X4 tour of the rain forest. We went up and down and all around in the rain forest. Our tour included driving on restricted access roads that the tour company is the only one to have access to. It was really cool seeing the white cockatoos in the wild, climbing around a creek worrying about leaches, seeing how big the termite mounds really are, checking out animal tracks on the road and trails, and seeing the shear cliffs and overlooks on the side of the road. Kayla saw a kangaroo but was so overwhelmed by it - it took her a while to articulate it… and by then it was gone for the rest of us. Again we have lots of pictures that will be posted later - though our battery started yelling at us 3/4 of the way through and ran out before we made it all the way back. Got back to the hotel room ~6PM. Which was nice since our flight was scheduled to leave at ten after midnight. So we had time for dinner and organization of our stuff.
We go back to Guam at ~5AM on the 25th, went out to grab some breakfast since we were starving, and then back home. And just to make sure we never forget our trip - we came home to find that someone had stolen the tailgate from Jason’s Jeep while we were gone. So we spent our first hours home making a police report for it.
All I can say is that it was well worth it. The whole trip was incredable and allowed us to take off a couple of items in our “life’s TODO list”.