The Next Few Days - Cairns, Great Barrier Reef, Skyrail

I don’t really remember too much after I last wrote as we just spent the past 3 days up north in Cairns. It was amazing. It was such a stark contrast from the city life of Melbourne. Immediately upon stepping off the plane the air was a lot more humid and clean, and it rained hard for a short period of time. We arrived in the tropical north of Australia, Far North Queensland.

The landscape was just completely different. The central business district (CBD) is about a quarter of the size of Melbourne’s and there are trees EVERYWHERE, parrots flying around, and insects buzzing around too. We went into the dome zoo in the middle of the city on top of a casino. Saw some pretty awesome animals just flying around really close to you. Witnessed them feed a four meter long saltwater crocodile, “Goliath”. Just pretty sweet in general. Also, the ticket was valid for four days after you initially purchase it so whenever we had some free time we would go back and see the animals again, and it was different every single time.

Then of course the GBR (Great Barrier Reef) was AMAZING. HOLY CRAP. It was so awesome. It was like snorkeling/swimming in an aquarium. The fish are so close and you can just be floating around and you’ll find yourself in the middle of a school of fish. I also went on guided snorkel tours with the marine biologist on board and he would free dive 20m to the bottom and just pick up stuff for us to see. Basically we got to see a lot more things swimming around with him than if we were just blindly bumbling around the reef, even though that was amazing as well. I think I pretty much saw everything the reef had to offer, minus the friendly large fish Frank. I saw sharks, turtles, jellyfish, tons of shiny and colorful fish, starfish, sting ray, sea cucumber, and hands down the best part, a puffer fish.

Our marine biologist found and caught a puffer fish, made it puff and we passed it around. It was so cute, soft, and cuddly all puffed up. I’d always imagined them to be hard and pointy when puffed up but it’s the exact opposite.

I could write all day about all the amazing things I saw at the GBR but that’d be kinda boring for you guys. All said and done I will never forget the things I saw and experienced at the reef but I did get sun-burned moderately on my shoulder and calves. But that’s what I get for over-estimating my Asian skin.

The next day we took a ride on Skyrail, which is a 7.5 km lift over the canopy of the forest to Kuranda, the village in the rainforest. That was also pretty sweet, a stark contrast from seas of blue to seas of green which are both pretty different than seas of grey/buildings here in Melbourne. Now we’re back in Melbourne and everyone else is arriving on site in two days. And tomorrow I can finally stop spending ridiculous amounts of money on food as we get to move into our campus housing and I can buy groceries, which also cost a lot more but are still much cheaper than eating out every meal, and cook my own food.

GBR was amazing…

PEACE