So I’m sitting on the plane home from Cairns while I write this. I’ve probably got about an hour left on what has honestly been one of the best experiences of my life. When I got to Cairns, I was a little nervous. My friend Yoo Yuong (or Yooie) picked me up with her friends Laura (German foreign exchange student) and Ken (an Australian) but I hadn’t seen Yooie since I met her and we hung out for like 4 days in Sydney at the start of my semester in Australia. The first bit I felt a little awkward, was slightly shy around her friends on the car drive home but I realized I was definitely with some cool people when Ken was making u-turns all over to try to avoid passing a car that had something special about it in terms of the game he was playing with Laura just so that she wouldn’t get points for something that she had called before we had passed the car.
We got to their accommodation and it is just so Vastly different from mine in Adelaide. For one, they are a good half hour or so outside the city and it’s much more like a college dorm. They called it The Lodge. They have a meal plan/dining hall and get free unlimited internet. The internet is terrible, so I’m not sure if paying for mine is a better or worse situation. At least mine works semi-consistently. The thing that was most surprising to me about Cairns was just how GREEN it was. I’m constantly reminded in Adelaide that I’m living in the driest state in the driest continent in the world. They almost ran out of water recently and came very close to putting the entire state on bottled water, for Everything. Luckily, this winter has been good for them rain wise and although that much rain isn’t really my style, I’m kind of glad they got it. The threat of literally having no water isn’t something I’d wish on anyone. Anyway. I digress. Flying into Cairns there were just rolling hills of green. I was confused. THAT’S NOT WHAT MY AUSTRALIA LOOKS LIKE! But it sure was gorgeous. And The Lodge was like a little rainforest itself. There was green all around and brightly colored birds and we saw a toad one night and there was a gecko in the air con (also, fun fact, geckos make noise) and apparently the birds get super noisy around 5 am and 5 pm. It was a pretty cool place. I got to sleep on the Most comfortable couch ever. It was heaps like the couches that we bought for the quad and I slept on it for 4 nights without so much as a single neck crick (okay, maybe there was one the first night, but I put that down to the like 8 hours I spend flying and sleeping in odd places on my way over).
Back to the story! That night, someone wanted to go roller skating and of course I’m up for that. It turns out it was the Halloween party at the rink but none of us were dressed up. That’s where I met Amanda (foreign exchange, goes to school on Long Island) and Justin (another Aussie). Justin drove and it was Amanda, Yooie, Laura, and I who went with him. We got a little lost but we got ther,”e eventually. It was really fun. I was still a little awkward and shy but by the end of the night I was pretty comfortable with everyone. We were driving the coat/skate guy nuts because Yooie and I weren’t sure of our Aus shoe sizes (okay, so maybe I knew my size but saying that you’re a 2.5 is kind of lame sounding and I wasn’t sure what size convention they used and… ya, I’m mostly just awkward and Yooie had no idea what her size was. Turns out we’re the same size.) and we kept asking for our bags to get random things out of them and Amanda thought she’d brought a bag in that she hadn’t so they were panicking looking for that. Anyway, music was played, skating was done, they had aerial silks up in one corner they were put up so you couldn’t play on them for obvious reasons but I Really wanted to go play on them! This was also where I found out that Amanda takes pictures with signs that say “____,” “Was,” and “Here” for the people she wants with her/would like the place/etc I’m not really sure but I thought that was a pretty cool idea. We had tons of fun rolling around, trying to dance while skating, making conga lines (albeit short ones), and taking silly pictures. I taught myself to roll around with one skate doing toe and the other doing heel only. I’m rather impressed with myself. And I don’t think I ever even fell trying to learn how to do it. It’s also notable that Amanda let Yooie and I borrow socks from her that were tall about halfway through when our legs started getting rubbed really badly by the skates. I got the ballet slipper ones, Yooie got the ruby red slipper ones, and Amanda was wearing a pair that looked like converse with a pair of socks. We have a great picture of us all together in our socks. After skating we went home and everyone watched Paranormal Activity (4?3? I dunno.) while Yooie and I watched Beauty and the Beast. I forgot how good classic Disney is. Really. We were both completely enthralled. And then we both passed out. Good day.
The next day was explore Cairns day! We woke up fairly early and Yooie went to church while I stayed at home to do some work I needed to do (Read: Skyped with James for an hour or so). Then we went out with Amanda into the city. We wandered around, got our underwater camera rented for the next day, and I bought a didgeridoo for James (he wired me money because he wanted an authentic Australian didgeridoo, I can’t describe much more since he has asked me not to tell him anything about it until it gets to him and I know he has this link and in a moment of extreme procrastination it is possible he could read this) which was a really fun thing to shop for. After that we went to check out the lagoon. It’s right by the edge of the beach and is half pool, half ocean. It was kind of cool. Then we took a walk down the Esplanade and found Muddy’s playground and sketchily played on all the play equipment with the small children and took tons of ridiculous pictures. We wandered some more after that and found some cute little souvenir shops which were perfect for me since Adelaide doesn’t really have tourism so we don’t have shops where I can get stereotypical Aussie trinkets to bring back. We went to Rusty’s market which is like a farmer’s market where they have non-food things for sale as well and I got an awesome thing there. Then we walked back and swam in the lagoon for a bit. By the time we were done and it had started to get “cold” (i.e. not super nice laying in the sun anymore but still shorts and tank top weather) the night markets were open! Hallelujah! Things open later than 5 pm! Which was just kind of more tourist shops but they had some cool stuff! I really wanted to get James this awesome coat but it was a bit pricey at $180… At this point, I was about to fall over and so we headed back to the Lodge and crashed early since we had to be up at 5:30 am the next day to go dive the GREAT BARRIER REEF!!! 😀
Fast forward and it’s the next morning. Somehow getting up that early to cross several things off your bucket list and see one of the seven natural wonders of the world doesn’t seem quite as bad as getting up that early for morning practice. Only Yooie and I went on this adventure. We got to the boat just on time and were told as we were getting on the boat that we should just take our shoes off since we wouldn’t need them for the rest of the day. I decided right then that I liked this place. The crew was super cool and funny and nice. After we both signed our lives away and paid a small fortune we were ready to go. A large number of passengers that were just being ferried to Fitzroy Island (absolutely beautiful place, at least from what we were able to see and Yooie said all the locals like that island best) and a house/dive boat where people could stay for multiple days while exploring the reef. By the time we had dropped everyone off, we pretty much had the boat to ourselves. There were maybe 15 people on the boat, plus crew. We had found this fantastic little spot on the top deck where we could hang our feet off the side of the boat and enjoy the view as we rode out towards deeper water. There was this fantastic moment where Yooie was freaking out about the color of the water. I was like ya, it’s pretty, but I don’t see the huge deal. I’ll be excited anyway. Then I took off my sunglasses and I almost died. Really. The water was Amazing. Just the bluest, most impossible blue that I have ever seen in my life. A picture almost captures it but not quite. We decided that the best description was that the water looked like someone had just taken a ridiculous amount of sapphires and melted them down. I wish you could see it.
At some point it started to rain on us a bit and rather than going inside, we find a spot on the top deck where we were protected, right by the little cabin on top which is where we first really talked to our dive instructor/guide/dude/guy. His name is Dan. Dan, Dan, the scuba dive man. Or maybe Scuba Dive Man Dan. Of course we didn’t actually get his name until after our second dive… After we passed through the little storm, the weather cleared up and got gorgeous. Beautiful bright sun and like I said, the water. When we pulled up to the first dive spot (after picking up some food and dropping off the people at the dive boat) the water was even more beautiful. Just layers and layers of different shades of blue. Colors that I would describe as the definition of turquoise. Really, you just need to see it for yourself.
I wrote this bit way later:
The water was so warm that honestly we didn’t need wet suits at all. Although we did put some on for a picture J When we dove though, it was just in our suits. We had so much gear on us when we went down and the air tank was surprisingly heavy on land. But we got into the water, held onto a rope on going down to the bottom and Dan tested us on our dive skills to make sure we weren’t going to kill ourselves. We practiced things like clearing our mask and just getting comfortable breathing with the SCUBA. I was totally fine with everything, although my mask kept leaking on the first dive so I got really good at clearing it. The first dive was really fun (we found Nemo! And a shark! And held sea cucumbers! And took tons and tons of pictures) and then we got out, snorkeled (took even More pictures and saw this Amazing neon animal print fish), had lunch, and moved dive sites. At first we weren’t planning on doing a second dive but Dan convinced us. $30 for as long as we had air at the second dive site? I mean, we were already there, we may as well pay the extra $30 and get as much as we could out of it! So we put on all our gear again (and caught a video of me being Darth Vadar with the SCUBA although we only actually managed to get a video of the like second half of it) and headed back down.
I am So glad that we took that second dive. It was amazing. We saw two sea turtles and got to swim right up next to them. They were so awesome! And just chill and I LOVE TURTLES SO MUCH! So that was pretty sweet. This dive site was a lot deeper than the other so I was really glad that we paid to dive. It had that really cool look of the drop off like you see in Finding Nemo, where you have all this color and all these fish and stuff and then suddenly, there’s just nothing. It’s crazy. It just fades off and everything is gone. It gives you an idea of just how Huge the ocean is which I don’t feel like I’ve ever been able to understand even remotely before. On our way back to the boat, we saw a barracuda and a huge school of fish under the boat which was pretty cool. And I lost my snorkel. Oops. Dan dove down but couldn’t find it. But oh well. By this point my ears were pretty wrecked haha. I had gotten so much water in them and pressurized them so many times that they were just dead. But it was so worth it. After that, I laid down on the hot top deck with my ear to the ground to try to get the water out and promptly passed out from total exhaustion. We saw the shadow of another sea turtle next to the boat when we were stopped at an island on the way back in. And we talked with the crew and they tried to tell me that something was shark eggs and that they would hatch, I forget what exactly I asked but it was pretty funny. It was amazing. Actually though it was just such a fantastic day.
When we got back, I picked up a didgeridoo for one James McConnaughey which I had bought the day before and RAN all the way back to the post office to see if they could send it for cheaper than the didgeridoo place. Have you ever tried to run with a didgeridoo? Not easy. Especially not when you’re tired from laying out in the sun and scuba diving all day (yes, I know my life is so hard). And we got there, waited not-so-patiently in line while people stared at us, only to find out that they couldn’t even send it because it was taller than a meter. So we walked it back to the didgeridoo shop and had them send it. It was quite the adventure. J And now I can say that I have run probably a half mile while carrying a didgeridoo and wearing a swim suit.
I really wish I had written this all earlier so I could remember all the little details (not that you really want to read them, but it would be nice to be able to go back over and remember). But the next thing I really remember is getting back to the house and watching How to Train Your Dragon with Yooie and her mates before passing out into a sound sleep. Or maybe that was the next night. I know I did that at some point… hahaha We definitely went to Stoney Creek the next day though. Ken drove us and I got to jump off the rope swing, sit in a water fall, have a sword fight with some sticks, swing on vines, get annoyed by flies, and jump off a huge rock. I got terrified by a spider that was the size of my hand (yes actually, and it was waved at me on the end of a stick by a Ken dressed as Tarzan complete with fern leaves stuck in his underwear waistband and mud smeared all over as war paint). It was a great last adventure with that group. I think maybe we watched the movie that night… And I hopped after a toad. Apparently they hate Cane Toads up there, they are foreign and everywhere and just a total pest. So they do things like hit them with golf clubs and put rocks in a can attached to them and put them on their neighbors’ roofs to annoy their neighbors (again, Ken). But they’re also poisonous so I’m not sure how that second one happened without contact…
The next day they all took me to the airport. It was really nice, Ken and Amanda both woke up with Yooie and I to take me to the airport and since it’s Aus they went behind security with me and saw me off at the gate. It was so nice to see them off like that. American security is such a pain, I would love it if we could do that kind of thing here. The flight back was direct so I got to look down on the huge red desert that is the Australian Outback and that was so neat. I loved it. That’s the only place I haven’t managed to go yet. But I’ll be back. Don’t even worry about that.
Moral of the story: Cairns is awesome. Go! Dive! Buy a didgeridoo or two for a friend!