Great Barrier Reef!

On our first day in Cairns, the city closest to the Great Barrier, we did an all day snorkel trip. It was a 9am - 4pm trip that included two different sites and of course lunch in between! We had the option (of course for additional costs) to scuba dive as well. A few decided to do that, but we figured and were told that most of what you want to see is right on the surface anyways. On our first dive out we saw a sea turtle right away! SO COOL! Everything we saw really did just remind us of Finding Nemo. This picture looks exactly him in anemone. Even the sea turtles were great!

I am so thankful I had the underwater camera - the colors were amazing. And since the reef is only estimated to be around for another 10 years - well worth the investment. All of these pictures were taken by my camera - and as you can tell - the underwater portion is much more exciting and has much higher quality. We had to be super careful while snorkeling over the sites because coral only grows 1-2 cm a year. 

These two look like they are straight out of a postcard :)

The reef was a blast and we saw all we could. It was so beautiful and would go back in the drop of a hat if I could! Meanwhile, the bar crawls and nightlife was a great time as always. We felt like we were in Cancun, with every bar having dance contests, jelly wrestling and other crazy things. I decided to enter a challenge where girls had to get down and string a piece of wrapped bubble gum up a gentlemen's pant leg and down the other. The first one to do that and then blow a bubble with the piece of gum won a trip to a getaway island. The nice fellow running the pub crawl gave me two since I told him I wasn't traveling alone. The tickets are for some castaway island in which you are flown in a little private plane and basically left to camp on your own. You can collect oysters, enjoy the sun, snorkel, kayak, fish etc. They have a community kitchen areas and basically little porta potties. Another boy from our group one the same thing the night before so we might take a trip out there, but it is still a ways north and we would have to fly north just to get to the port to get us there. It would definitely be an experience though. 

This is a picture of our group plus the many mates we met in our hostel. The hostel was like one big dorm room with 3 sets of bunk beds, a balcony, and a bathroom/shower. It was a bit strange to be living with complete strangers but since the area is common for dive trips and things like sky diving and bungy jumping, nobody was there except to shower and sleep. We met a few germans, and actually met a boy (on the left) from Texas who works as a summer counselor in a camp in Michigan (right outside of Kalamazoo). He is backpacking Australia then off to Europe. What a small world. This is considered one of the crazier hostels so majority of everybody is 30 or younger and enjoys the nightlife. The bar area was right on the first level of the hotel and is free entry to those that are guests there. Below is a picture of the group that made it to Cairns! The one on the right is from Boston, and the one with the snorkel on is from Indiana. The small petite girl is from Chicago, and Steven next to her is from Michigan (as well as Julie my roommate). They all attend Marquette in Milwaukee so we have a little bit in common from being in the mid-west! Travis of course is from Colorado but he fits in too!

Of course the next and best part was the bungy jumping.. Still cannot believe I did it - but it happened. Here is the professional video for those of you that haven't seen it. I had a minor freak out and wouldn't let go of the poor blokes shorts. There were different dives you could choose from and I chose to do what is called the titanic. I knew I would not jump on my own once I stepped onto that platform. So (even though you cant tell because I was so ungraceful and scared) it would mean that I would stand out onto the platform and have the middle of my feet resting on the edge with my toes pointed down. The man would be holding my harness from the back and I would not know when he would let go. I was supposed to have my arms out, as Rose did in the movie.. but thats not how it went.. 

But you know what.. I did it. There are a few other versions and was going to post the video of Grant doing the actual titanic form but for some reason there's an error for the rest of the uploads. I will try to get them up soon. 

The Great Barrier was such a blast and the bungy jump was quite the experience. I am glad I did it though! Not sure if I could ever get myself to do it again, but that's another story! I will be slowly updating this trying to catch up on all the activities so check back soon :) 

<3 Kali

The Best of the Rest (Gold Coast Part 2)

(Surfers Paradise)

Well the nightlife was amazing, lots of clubs and (stripclubs) in the area. Many irish pubs as well, which was kind of a surprise to see. We saved lots of money by making our own dinners so we were able to splurge on some beer! So great, and so nice to get away from the boxed wine for a bit. 

We did get a solid few hours at the beach one day! But then of course the wind picked up and buried our beer so we got out pretty quickly. A few of the danish men that were with our camping friends tried to go skydiving and had to cancel 3 times because of the wind so it was kind of a damper for everyone.. but we fought through!

On the last day, we decided to make something of the bad rainy weather so we all rented a car (which is so amazingly cheap in this country) and drove about 40 minutes out to a great waterfall we read about. This is the view from the top, and it was a 45 minute hike down.

Of course being with boys, we had to hike on down and into the bottom of the waterfall! A little nervous in flip flops, but well worth it! The rain didn't seem so bad after being down there.. 

Here's a picture of us all at the top before the hike. The leeches on the path got a little annoying because for some reason they suckered between the toes and went unnoticed for a little while until they got bigger.. ayyye that was a fiasco! 

Being the adventurers that we were that day, the path to go underneath the waterfall was gated off but the boys of course had to climb around. So I'm not staying behind. We ran underneath it and it was a bit scary because of my clumsiness combined with the lack of friction from my flip flops.. But I did it! 

And here are just a few of the amazing views from the top of the mountain on the drive up as well :)

Beginning of the Gold Coast

Where do I even start? This has been the most amazing few weeks! Well to begin, we took a flight from Sydney to the Gold Coast early wednesday (the 17th of April) morning and arrived in Surfers Paradise by 9am. Not realizing we couldn't check in until 2pm, we took our hangovers straight to the beach to sleep them off. Unfortunately we didn't catch the best weather while we were there. Still warm weather but lots of rain and wind so the beach was quite a sand storm at the time. After checking into our place, we were so relieved because we had such a great setup! We had a full kitchen, a bed, a pull out couch, and even another little loveseat. For 5 people - it was perfect! We were able to get the grocery shopping out of the way and then quickly walked down the beach to meet some friends that road tripped up the coast and were camping nearby. Here's a picture of part of the group! Yeahh me and a lot of boys I suppose.

After a few attempts to go to the beach and getting covered in sand, we realized to cut back the day drinking and looked into buying passes for the Seaworld and waterpark that was nearby! We went to seaworld and it was amazing! I have never seen penguins before, which must have been the most entertaining for sure. This little guy just kept running in little circles in and out of the water.

Then there were some pelicans. And of course a sealion show which was phenomenal! 

Then there was of course the underground aquarium view which was really really cool! 

Of course the last one looks like Dori for those of you familiar with finding nemo! :) Then we used the same passes to go to a huge water park the next day. These rides were unlike any waterpark I've ever been to. The one behind us in this picture was so crazy. They gave you a back protector since you ride on your back the whole way down. You step into this capsule that feels like a personal space shuttle that counts you down. The platform drops from under you and you soar straight down and gain enough momentum to soar all the way around and down. I was only able to do it once. The boys took a second go at it. 

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! Sunday was a good night! After a rough but fun saturday night Julie and I had to trek into the city super early sunday morning to pick up her friend who is visiting for the next few weeks! We came home and took some naps then a few of the boys and I headed into the city to go to an Easter mass. We went to the St. Mary Cathedral in downtown Sydney. It has its own block it is soo big! We unfortunately didn't take pictures because it was pouring rain outside. But here are some I picked off of Google for you to see! So big and beautiful! Hard to believe how full it was plus the numerous groups that couldn't even get seats so there were many standing around the sides. 

After the evening service we decided to get a nice dinner finally! There are so many little cafe's the size of coffee shops but they have full menus and full bars! We sat down at one of those and got some great burgers and chips (french fries). For a sunday night the city was quite loud. I guess many aussies have Easter Monday off of work so its a pretty good bar night. We stayed in for a few drinks but came back so we could sleep in and enjoy the sun the next day! We stayed by the pool all day today trying to get our base tans for break. We keep wanting to call it our spring break but its their fall here so everyone teases us because we can't get out of the habit of calling it spring break. A group of us are going up to the Gold Coast for a week (up north = warmer! ) and then heading up even more north to snorkel the great barrier reef! We are going bungy jumping, which doesn't even compare to skydiving or the ripcord at cedar point! I'm so excited!! This is a picture of what they call surfers paradise because it is just miles and miles of perfect coast line! 

We booked a super cheap hotel room, which didn't seem to matter to us because we will barely be in the rooms with a beach like that across the street. After booking it, we read some of the reviews so find some not so great stories about the conditions of the rooms so it might be interesting.. But we are all ready to laugh it off at the same time. Our flight leaves Wednesday at 6am and trains from our location don't start until 5am so it looks like we might be heading into the city for a night on the town before we get to the airport. We can catch 430 trains from the city that way and it is only a 20 minute train ride too. We are excited for our trip to the reef too! The hostel is a super fun one with great night life too! This is a picture of it:

We just planned one snorkeling trip which is all day (8am - 5) and takes us to 2 different locations. We then booked the bungy jumping so you can watch this in curiosity. Hopefully I will be able to post one of me in a few weeks! Love you all and talk to you in a few weeks!