Well…she arrived in Sydney last Saturday morning at 6:20. I don’t know about you guys, but 6:20 is really early for me…hence I was late picking her up from the airport. Whoops. We spend that entire first day walking all around Sydney. I felt like such a local slash tour guide! I basically spent the day showing her why Sydney is my favorite city in the whole world, spitting back every piece of information that I’ve learned about it since my arrival. We piled up about 13 miles of walking that first day.
Sunday was yet another early day…4:45 AM! And I thought 6:00 was bad…pshh! Yeah right. We had an early flight out of Sydney to head up to Cairns. Thank God we had a flight to catch; otherwise there was a good chance I would not have woken up. We arrived in Cairns in the early afternoon and Sarah’s first words were, “We are in Jurassic Park.” Honestly, I don’t blame her for being confused, even though I knew better ;). It really looked like we were in Jurassic Park. Cairns is a smaller tourist city that is literally surrounded by the mountain range called the Great Dividing Range. This mountain range separates the green part of the east coast from essentially the outback and it is beautiful! The mountains completely surround the city and they are entirely covered in trees and rainforests. Cairns is also the home to over 400 crocodiles. Soooo, with the huge valleys and green mountains mixed with today’s modern dinosaur…I see how Sarah got confused!
On Tuesday, we hopped on a big sailboat and headed out to the Great Barrier Reef. I’m sure you’ve all heard the rumors of this magical piece of earth: it’s a location of clear blue water as warm as bath water, full of frolicking colorful fish, slow but relaxed sea turtles, scary but sane sharks, and breathtaking coral. Well…it’s all true! The Great Barrier Reef is as gorgeous as anyone can picture it. TV shows and movies DO NOT do this place justice. Its beauty can seriously only be really appreciated in real life. Fortunately, Sarah and I had this opportunity and we took full advantage. Our sailboat took us to two different locations; one on the inner reef and one on the outer reef. We first went to the inner reef which is supposed to be abundant in colorful fish and sea turtles. We had to wear "stinger suits" which were full body suits that would protect us from jellyfish. We looked pretty sweet in them...definitely could pass as a dolphin trainer for Sea World! I was super pumped to see some sea turtles. That was my goal of the day, to see at least ONE sea turtle, so I was really excited to go to the inner reef first. All the fish mixed with all the vibrant coral was incredible. Unfortunately, I saw no sea turtles and I’m not going to lie…this really disappointed me. But I got over it and looked forward to snorkeling in the outer reef which is supposed to be even more beautiful. We grabbed a quick lunch on the boat (which was much needed…my empty stomach was starting to make me feel a little queasy) and headed out to the outer reef. Sarah and I, along with about 20 other people, jumped right in and went to work taking pictures of the reef. All of a sudden, Sarah was grabbing my leg. She scared the crap out of me! I have a huge fear of sharks and I was thinking Jaws was coming to get me or something! But I looked over and there was a SEA TURTLE! Score!! I threw my swimming floatie over to Sarah and dove under to get a better look. It was better than I’d hoped…I was on cloud 9 after that! We headed back to the boat after probably an hour of snorkeling and started to head back in to the harbor. On our way back, the crew let the sails out and we got to sail home which was really cool. Overall, the day on the reef was quite a success! Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of the reef from our underwater cameras. But I promise you will all get to see them as soon as I get home!
Another activity we did was travel up to Cape Tribulation, which is about 2 hours north of Cairns. Cape Tribulation is home to the world’s oldest rainforest…the Daintree Rainforest. This rainforest is two times older than the Amazon Rainforest…and it is gorgeous! The drive up there was fantastic. We had great views of the coast and the mountains. Cape Tribulation is actually referred to the place where the rainforest meets the reef. The rainforest literally goes all the way to the coast and the reef comes in super shallow, so it is a spectacular view. We drove up there with a tour van and our guide was awesome. His name was Roddick (aka Roddy) and he was hilarious. This guy was probably in his late 20s and had a near death experience probably every year of his life. He was full of hilarious stories and heaps of information!
First, we got to hop in a boat that took us down the Daintree River to look for crocodiles! I’m sure you’ve all heard rumors about crocodiles: huge, prehistoric man-eaters with death-grip powerful jaws and razor sharp teeth that can move extremely fast in either the water or on land. Well…it’s all true! We saw 3 of them…one of them being Scarface. Scarface is a 4.5 meter long croc that has no teeth (haha). He was HUGE and had no teeth because he lost a battle against Fat Albert. Fat Albert is another huge croc that is about 5 meters long and weighs 1,300 pounds. He is not only huge, but is actually fat. FORTUNATELY, we did not run into him. We saw Scarface, a smaller female and a little 2 year old croc.
After our crocodile adventures, we got to walk through a small part of the rainforest. Now I’m sure you have all heard rumors about rainforests as well: trees reaching up to the clouds with huge canopies hanging over them, ferns and small plants growing on all these trees with vines hanging down every branch…beautiful birds chirping everywhere. Well…once again it’s all true! The rainforest was beautiful. The trees are super tall and thousands of years old. The vines wrap around all the trunks and hang down from branches. Ferns grow from the trees but not on the ground. Sarah loved the rainforest! We saw a Rainforest Dragon (a little lizard) which was pretty cool. After frolicking in the forest for awhile, we got some lunch and then headed to the Mossman Gorge. The gorge was awesome. It was a spring water creek that we got to swim in. The water was so clean that we could drink it if we wanted. It was also crocodile free which was my selling point! We swam there for awhile before we started to head back to Cairns.
Something Roddy taught us on our guide was that basically, anything can kill you in Australia, and we believed him since he has pretty much lived through all of the following. If the crocs don’t get you, the jelly fish will. But if you survive the jelly fish, a shark is surely going to kill you. However, if you survive the shark, you will most likely die from a snake bite since seven of the top ten deadliest snakes in the world are native to Australia. On the other hand, if you’re lucky enough to live through the snakes, you better keep your eye out for spiders! Alternatively, if you can outrun the spiders, than you will most likely get bitten by a mosquito carrying Dengue fever and die. Nevertheless, if you can somehow live through Dengue fever, a coconut will fall on your head and kill you. Then again, if you are lucky and are wearing a helmet when the coconut hits you, you will get hit in the face by a drunken bird and die (true story!) So, basically, I learned that if I survive this trip, I’m considered one of the lucky ones. Ha! Better keep my eyes peeled for those killer coconuts and wasted birds!
After our fun escapades up in Cairns, Sarah and I headed back to Sydney for her last 2 days. We got to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Saturday night. I really didn’t realize how afraid of heights Sarah is!! Granted, it was dark, chilly, and windy. I suppose many people would be freaked out, but regardless, I made her go in front of me. I had to make sure she wouldn’t run off! Plus, the bridge climb really doesn’t intimidate me and I’m sure she didn’t want to see me skipping up the bridge while she kept a death grip on the rail. Once we got to the top of the bridge, we got to see all of Sydney completely lit up and let me tell you, it was gorgeous. Sydney is a beautiful city in the daylight, but it is 10 times better at night. All of the lights from downtown reflect off of the surrounding water and you can see the city stretch on for miles. It really is quite the site.
Snorkeling on the reef, hiking through the rainforest, and climbing the bridge were our big activities of the week. When we weren’t basically risking our lives, we were laying out in the sun, walking around Cairns/Sydney, and doing some shopping. We ate like kings while she was here. Thankfully, I have been saving up for this trip or else we would have been eating McDonalds the whole time. We had a different menu every night and all the food was fantastic. Not one bad meal. One day we got to cuddle with a koala bear which was pretty cool. He was so cute! We kept ourselves really busy all day and most nights, we would be in bed by 7:30. We had to TRY to stay awake until at least 9:00, which was very difficult since Sarah kept waking me up at dawn!! She sure did screw up my sleep schedule…I keep waking up at 7:30 every morning now!! ;) But, it was all definitely worth it!
Now life is going to seem a little boring. I’m running out of ideas of things to do while I’m here! I have to go through my checklist again:
Skydiving – check
Horseback riding – check
Camping out in the bush – check
Climb Sydney Harbour Bridge – check (twice)
See Opera House – check
Climb the Blue Mountains – check (in two weeks)
Snorkel in Great Barrier Reef – check
Hike in the rainforest – check
See a sea turtle – check
Find out if P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney exists – check
Hold a koala bear – check
See a wild crocodile – check
Survive this trip – check (so far!)
There are some things that I still would like to accomplish while I’m here though:
See the outback
Play with a kangaroo
Bungee Jump
Climb Ayers Rock
Visit the Australia Zoo (Steve Irwin’s Zoo in Brisbane)
Plus visit 7 other cities while I’m here!!!
The picture of Australia that I have on here has a bunch of cities on it. It will give you all an idea of where I’ve been and where I want to go. The green star is Newcastle, my home of course. The pink stars are places that I have been (and cities around them) and the blue stars are all the places I want to visit before I leave. Fortunately, I found out that I’m done with school about 2 and a half weeks before I come home. I’m planning a huge backpacking trip for those couple of weeks. I’d like to start in the south, visiting Canberra (Australia’s Capital), Melbourne, and Adelaide. From Adelaide, I’d like to fly over to Perth and check out Western Australia, and eventually hit up Alice Springs, Darwin, and Brisbane. Ahh! So much to do in so little time! (and with so little money!)
Well…I basically just wrote you all an essay. I’m looking at the word count right now and this is the length that my final paper is supposed to be for my history class…sheesh! You think I could turn this in and call it a day?? Probably not…darn. One thing Sarah brought with her which I did not like was my long lost friend Mr. Homesickness. Crap…I thought I got rid of him years ago! Guess not…to think I couldn’t even survive a sleepover across the street and now I haven’t seen any of you for at least 2 full months!! I certainly miss all of you very much! But, these past couple months FLEW and I know the next couple months are going to go even faster. Basically, I’ll be home before you know it…lucky you! :)
Alrighty, well I hope you all enjoyed reading about my adventures with my sister and I’ll be back to tell more soon!!
Mindy
Coast in Cairns...that looks like STAR LAKE!!! Is that KODY in the weeds I see?
ReplyDeleteSkipping up the bridge! I hope you are beinging more careful. If you can do all of this, I'm sure I can get you up on SKIS this summer!
ReplyDeleteLove, Dad-e-O