So much to say, so little time. Basically...the last week has quite possibly been the best of my life (minus writing a paper until 7 am this morning, but that's just how my life goes...ahah)
Last Sunday I went to Coogee beach for the first time and had a sandwich that was in the top 5 meals I’ve eaten since I’ve been here. Then Allison, Liz, Carla, my new-ish friend Luke and I walked from Coogee all the way to Bondi Beach. You would think I'd be used to the beauty that is the ocean blue...postcard-like pictures to come, I promise. Monday night was pretty chill...we stayed in, pretended to pack, and we watched Point Break....a surfer/bank heist movie w/Keanu Reaves and Patrick Swayze that our surf instructors told us to watch forever ago...it was quite possibly one of the most ridiculous movies I’ve ever seen. it's impossible to explain why until you see it...
For some reason, I decided to pull an all-nighter cuz Liz and I watched Nip/Tuck until 3 am, and I had to finish packing/cleaning my flat so the cleaning ladies would actually clean it when we were gone...we had to leave for our flight at 5 am so I guess I figured no sleep was better than 20 minutes…
Right so, in Cairns Tuesday we just chilled by the “Lagoon” which is just a huge man-made pool-ish thing where everyone goes to lay out and get some sun because the nearest beaches are 20 min away. We checked out the mall which was right across the street from the hostel we stayed at on the first night. We were all obviously exhausted and had to be up really early again the next morning so we decided to go see Fame (pretty good…I feel like it was rushed, but still entertaining) in the theater at the mall then go to bed. O YEA!! I also bought Office Space, Men In Black, and Green Street Hooligans…a store had a 3 for $25 sale, how could I pass it up? There were tons more I wanted but I wouldn’t have room in my bags ahaha.
Wednesday we went a tour up to Cape Tribulation. First we stopped at the “Rainforest Habitat Wildlife Sanctuary” where we chilled w/all the usual Aussie creatures like koalas, kangaroos, crocs, snakes, cassowary (a huge emu looking thing but prettyier) and fed some wallabies (again, I promise I have pics to prove it)
Then we went up to Mossman gorge which is basically just a river…w/a bunch of boulders in it…but of course it’s really pretty/scenic. We went “swimming”…aka only put our legs in cuz the water was “fresh” as they like to say when they actually mean “really freakin cold”
Next we went on a Daintree “river cruise”. This is when we got to see at least 4 wild salt water crocs…ranging from a couple months old (like the one I pet at the sanctuary place) to I don’t even know how old…but it was over 4 meters (13 feet) long. I wanna say they told us he was 50 or 60 years old. Albert was one huge beast. Luckily I only saw his tail. It really is horribly eerie how they swim through the water w/o disturbing the surface in the least bit…(I have a video of his tail…) Also, Elizabeth (a female croc, not my friend liz from the program…ha ha) was smaller, but still really cool because I got to see her pretty close up. She was swimming a long the shore/edges, and she was apparently eating a large crab (I never saw the actual crab, but I believe our tour guide…I did see/hear her crunching some something…you can too when I get my videos up)
After that we stopped at “Alexandra Lookout” on or way up to Cape Tribulation Beach. We were only there for a few minutes, but again, the scenery is breathtaking. Cape Tribulation beach is probably my favorite beach in Oz so far…it was small and not terribly exciting, but the water was so warm and perfect. The sand literally sparkled. It looked like some toddler spilled a couple tons of glitter all over the beach. There were also these tiny little balls of sand in firework-like patterns (I guess you just need to see the pic) Allison and I were trying to figure out where they came from, but we still have no idea. Yay for nature’s mysteries lol. We only got to spend an hour or so there before we took the 3 hour bus trip back. Luckily I was able to pass out for the majority of it.
That night at the hostel there was a free “fire-show.” The “dancers” had ropes/strings with some sort of ball-like thing soaked in gasoline so when lit, they could spin them around and make really awesome looking patterns in time with the music. My favorites were to Pink’s “So What” and Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody” Again we went to bed early because we had to check out of our hostel and walk 20 or so minuets to the pier so we could catch our boat out to the reef by 7am.
I’ll tell y’all about the reef trip in the next post…just thinking about writing about that part of the trip is making me exhausted.
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