My New Adventure

So last week, I stepped on a plane and about 36 hours and 3 other planes I stepped off into my next new adventure: Australia. Yup, I'm in Australia. I know, I know, it was very last minute which just adds to the fun of it. My cousin Aimee and I went to visit my other cousin/her brother, Nathan. It's been pretty good. We have seen the opera house and the bridge that are often shown in movies numerous times, gone to the beach (in the winter!), walked around Darlin Habour, and gone to the Taronga Zoo.

Then, this past weekend Nathan, Aimee, and I went up to Cairns. Yeah, we took another flight to go up north and enjoy the sun. That sounds weird that we had to go up north to get the warmth and the sun, when usually back home its the other way around. Anyways, we spent about five days in Cairns that we packed full.

We arrived Friday afternoon and after we checked in to our hotel, we walked down to the pier and the lagoon, which was actually an oversized pool because you couldn't swim in the ocean. We walked along the waterfront on the boardwalk, had lunch there, and figured out what we were going to do for the next couple of days. Once all that was figured out, we walked back to the hotel taking the long way back.

Saturday morning we got up nice and early and headed up to the rainforest. We went on a tour and walked through a couple of different rainforests in the Daintree, went through Port Douglas, saw 4 mile beach, which was used as a landing strip during the war, went on a water cruise, looking for crocodiles and snakes. We saw a couple of tree snakes and one baby crocodile, but I only saw the head/eye. It was still pretty cool. We also went to an insect museum (yes, tons of fun), fed some fish, eels, and turtles. We did a lot of other stuff as well. It was a long day, but fun.

Sunday was our day of rest, and then we walked to the Botanic Gardens, where we walked through some more rainforests and saw a lot of trees and flowers.

Monday was an early morning again as we walked down to the pier and walked onto a boat that would take us out the to Great Barrier Reef. We went out to the furthest part of the reef that we were able to do in a day trip and snorkeled for about 5 hours at two different parts of the reef. It was really cool. Lots of fish, so many colours, and all so close to us. I could almost touch them. Plus, we saw a Nemo so I was happy :)

Tuesday after we checked out of the hotel we went up to a beach that was swimable and laid in the sun and swam for a few hours before our flight. It was nice and relaxing - and we all got a little burnt, but in a good way ;)

Needless to say, we were all pretty tired by the time we got back to Sydney. Pictures to come...