After another couple days in Sydney, which included a harbour cruise to finish off the trip, we traveled to Cairns. The flight was three hours and it was a lot farther away than most of us actually thought it would be. Compared to Sydney, it is an entirely different atmosphere. Sydney is a huge, busy city and Cairns is almost like a small, vacation city in Florida, without the beach; the closest one is about a ten minute bus ride. The weather here is also a little different than Sydney; it’s wet-season, so it storms sporadically about every day for about an hour. Luckily we haven't had as much rain as normal for this time of year. The temperature is also MUCH hotter.. it’s been in the mid-nineties and about 75 to 85 percent humidity.
We are staying at Gilligan's, which is a hostel for backpackers. The rooms aren’t nearly as spectacular as the five-star apartments that we had in Sydney, but they’re fine for the trip! The rooms have a bathroom and three sets of bunk beds and that’s about it. The hostel itself though is actually awesome. There is a lagoon shaped pool out back with an outdoor bar right next to it. Gilligans also happens to be a nightclub, so right across the outdoor walkway there is a pretty big club. It’s very convenient to have everything we need right out our backdoor!!
Our first big trip was white-water rafting down the Tully River!! I would recommend rafting to everyone because it was incredibly thrilling and a complete blast. We traveled about 14km down the river and hit three or four grade rapids. The Australian system only goes to grade five rapids and the American system goes to grade six, so technically at home we would have been in four or five grade rapids. (Basically, they were huge haha.) It was so much fun and our guide was awesome!
Something that kind of shocked me was the drive to get to rafting; it took two hours to get there and we traveled right through the city of Tully, where the cyclone hit the worst. It was incredible to see the damage that the winds did -- there were sides of building that were wiped off, while some others were just flattened, fields and fields of crops were destroyed, and parts of the rainforest looked like they belonged in our freezing winters because all of the leaves and green was destroyed by the wind. Remarkably, even though it was as big as Katrina, there were very few lives lost in the storm. It was scary to see all of the damage that occurred and how long it will take to return to normal.
The day after rafting, we went on a boat trip and snorkeled and scuba-dived the Great Barrier Reef. I am such a “water” person so I absolutely loved this trip!! We took about an hour and a half boat ride out to the reef and then visited two different spots. One thing that sort of freaked everyone out at first was the amount of jellyfish in the water; I got stung three times, but they weren’t that bad. (There weren’t any of the deadly ones, so it really only hurt for a little bit and then they just itched.) I have snorkeled many times before, but never in a place like this. The colors were amazing and the place was HUGE. I had to keep pinching myself every time I turned my head!
It also happened to be my first time scuba diving. As much as I love snorkeling, I would scuba dive ALL THE TIME. It was so peaceful being underwater the whole time without having to come up for air. We had a ten-minute introductory dive at the first spot on the reef, and at the second we were under for a half hour. We went down about 40 feet and I got to do a back flip on the bottom of the ocean! We were grouped in fours, and our guide was awesome; he showed us a couple Nemos, let us touch different coral, and made sure we had a blast with a bunch of underwater pictures. There were so many interesting fish and types of coral that I have never seen before. The whole trip was picturesque; it’s hard to believe a place that amazing exists in the world!!
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