Time to put on my tourist pants

Saturday, before I headed over to the airport here in Sydney, I decided to do a few things around the city that I've been meaning to do. After a nice breakfast of bacon and eggs with Joey, I walked down to the Observatory. They have various exhibits set up showing the different telescopes and equipment that have been used over the years. They also had a bunch of displays of the southern sky, showing the constellations and things that you can see down here. On the top of the building is this thing called the Time Ball. Before the Observatory was built, there was no standard time in Sydney... so the Observatory measured the time by the movement of the stars, and this ball still raises and falls at 1 pm every day. cool. After that, I decided that I really wanted to walk across the Harbor Bridge. It seems like such an easy thing to do, but I've been putting it off and putting it off. I hear that it's one of the big touristy things that a lot of tourists don't get around to doing while the are in Sydney. Well, not me... I've walked across! It was nice, and gave a great view of the Harbor. You can pay lots of money to actually climb the bridge, but I didn't really see the need for that, and had plenty of fun just walking across.

I got to the airport extra early, as this was the first time I've ever had to go to an airport all by myself for a trip. I wanted to make sure that I got there in plenty of time to catch my plane. This meant I had checked in and was all set nearly two hours before my flight took off. Haha, at least I got some more good reading time. My flight was nice, nothing special, and took about three hours to get up to Cairns. The hostel I was staying at provides airport transfers, which was great. I stood out at the curb waiting for my ride. While I was waiting, vans from a bunch of other hostels showed up, all nicely decorated, clearly announcing which hostel they were from, with friendly drives and all. Then, this little rickity white unmarked van pulls up, and the driver jumps out yelling 'Nomads Esplanade!' That's me... Unfortunately the trunk of the van wouldn't open, so me and the other two girls (From Ireland) had to carry our bags in our laps. Haha, nice start. When I finally made it to the hostel, it was between 8 and 9 pm. I headed out and got some dinner, watched a little football on the TV at the restaurant, then made my way back to the hostel. I stayed in an 8 bunk room, and there were other kids from all over the world in my room. I find hostels a little bit sketchy, but really... everyone is in the same position. Everyone who stays at hostels is traveling around, and looking for a nice, cheap place to stay. Whenever I left the hostel, I made sure to keep any important paperwork and ID stuff with me, but it never seemed to be a problem to leave my bags and stuff. In all of the hostels that I stayed in in Europe last summer, there was at least one person who snored really loudly. I was lucky this time around, and was not awoken once in my whole stay by a snorer. Hopefully I wasn't that one snorer.

Sunday I woke up around 6:45. Ew. I had to get ready and set to go for my Great Barrier Reef trip. After getting ready, I headed down to the Reef Fleet Terminal to meet my boat at 7:30. I went out with a company called the Passions of Paradise. When we first got on the boat, we had to fill out a little paperwork, just informing the company of any medical conditions we had, etc. etc etc... They also provided a morning coffee and biscuits. As I was filling out my form, a girl entered the boat and set her form down on the same table as me, then went to get some coffee. As she was gone, another girl came, sat down, and accidentally started filling out the other girls form. (I didn't notice at the time.) When the first girl came back, she was like, 'you're filling out my form!' ... 'No I'm not, this is mine.' ... blah blah blah, it turned out they were both named Rachel, and Rachel No.2 accidentally started filling out Rachel No.1's form. Haha, I just sat by laughing the whole time. Instant friends. Rachel No.1 is from Canada, while Rachel No.2 is from England. We spent the rest of the trip together, good fun. Let me just say, that the Great Barrier Reef is amazing! There are so many colorful corals, fishes, etc... I even got the chance to see a turtle and a sting ray. The boat also offered the chance to do some dives for a little extra money, but I decided to just do the snorkeling. Most of the other people who were snorkeling, and even most of the divers didn't get to see a turtle or ray, so I felt pretty lucky to have seen both:) We stopped at two different dive sites, and had a great lunch in between. Despite my multiple re-applications of sunscreen, I ended up getting probably the worst sunburn of my life all over my back. It's still a bit painful, but I'll get over it. Thankfully I went out that night to get some Aloe, which has really helped make it feel better. After getting back into the Terminal a little after 5pm, the Rachels and I decided to meet a bit later for some dinner. A couple of the other girls staying the same room as Canada Rachel came along, a number of whom were German. I spoke a bit of very broken German with them, and they seemed very excited to hear anything I could say, even though I really can't carry a conversation in German. It was great fun, and got me really excited to start taking German classes again this coming semester. One of the other guys who came along with us was from France, and has been in Australia for about 10 months doing a big circle trip around Australia, taking various breaks to work here and there for a bit of extra money. He bought a car when he got here, and has just been sleeping in it the whole time to save on accommodation. What fun. Such amazing people and stories you hear when you're traveling like this. I headed back to the hostel a bit after midnight as I knew I had an early morning ahead of me.

Monday morning, my alarm clock woke me at a nice early 6:15 am... Ouch. After getting ready, I made my way down to the bus stop to be picked up at 7am. Today was my day on the Billy Tea Bush Safari! After a nice drive up the coast, we got to take a boat trip up the Daintree River, spotting quite a few crocodiles. Crocs are very territorial, so the guides can pretty nearly predict which ones are going to be in approximate locations. First we saw the one they call Elizabeth, our guides favorite on the river. She was a beauty. After a few more, we got to see Scarface. This guy was about 4 meters long! Whew. Just sitting up on the bank of the river sunbathing. He got his name from all of the fighting with other crocs in the river. Like I said, they are very territorial. We then got to do a nice trek through the World Heritage Rainforest. Among various birds and plants to be pointed out, we even got a glimpse of a cassowary. This funny looking flightless bird, (kind of like an emu) is not very commonly spotted on these tours, so we were pretty lucky to see it. After an amazing lunch, I got to hand feed some Kangaroos and wallaby's, (being kept for care because of previous injuries in the wild.) A bit later in the day, we stopped out at this nice little creek in the woods. The guides encouraged us to go for a swim in the river, though I was the only one brave enough to do so. Then they cut up some fresh exotic fruits for us, which were delicious, and made us some Billy Tea. As we were leaving this site, a bit down the river, we noticed a sign that was warning about crocodiles in the river! Ah, and I had just gone for a swim! The guides said that the place where we were was perfectly safe, as it was much clearer water, and the crocs stay far away from that area. The warning is just for people out on their own who don't know what to look out for, and where to expect crocs. Still, if I had seen that sign before, I don't know how eager I would have been to jump in the creek, haha. After we arrived back in Cairns a bit after 6 pm, I met up with the Irish girls I had met on my way from the airport to the hostel (Emma and Beatrice.) We went out to get some dinner, and then went window shopping and got some ice cream.

Tuesday, I walked a bit away from the main city area I was staying in to go do some hiking. There were a few really nice trails set up just outside of town. I spent probably 4 or 5 hours in the morning/afternoon following these trails and hiking a mountain. When I got to the top, I met this German guy, and shortly after he arrived, these two Australian women made it to the top. It turned out that one of them was turning 50 years old that day. So, the four of us sat down and had a little birthday party for her. Haha. They had even brought some cupcakes up and shared them with us. When it started getting a bit later, I headed back, and met up with Emma and Beatrice again, (who I had talked into going to see the Tjapukai dancers with me.) We got picked up by the bus around 6:30pm, and made it out to the Cultural Park around 7pm. They started with painting our faces, then did a fire ceremony. They sang some songs, and included the audience in the whole experience. After walking us back inside, they served an amazing buffet dinner, and performed a bunch of dances up on stage. It was a very touristy event, but really enjoyable as well. It gave me a chance to realize, even if Aboriginal culture is very varied around Australia, there are lots of similarities as well. I noticed that many of their dances were very similar to those I've seen in Sydney, and a lot of the themes matched up as well. This is something I will look for further confirmation on when I head up to the Northern Territory.

Wednesday, I took a bus out to Trinity Beach, and basically spent the entire morning/afternoon basking in the wonderful sun, swimming in the ocean, and walking up and down the beach. Everyone around Cairns said that this week was probably the best weather they've had in nearly a month, as they just got over an odd spell of rainy weather (this is supposed to be the dry season.) It was around 80 degrees Fahrenheit every day, and stayed very comfortable at night. Finally some of the real summer weather that I'm missing out on from home. Probably the best part of it was that the sun stayed up until nearly 6:30, where back here in Sydney it doesn't last much longer than 5. After I was satisfied with soaking in plenty of sun (after being sure to cover myself many times with sunscreen) I made it back over to the airport to catch my flight back to Sydney. So sad to leave the nice warm weather :( However, I was just heading back to Sydney, so I really can't complain.















(Left) Out on the Passions of Paradise with Michaelmas Cay in the background. The darker water is the reef.
(Right) From left: Ashke from the Netherlands, Rachel from Canada, Me! and Rachel from England.















(Left) A couple fish viewed from the surface. I didn't end up getting an underwater camera, but one of the other guys on the boat did, and is supposed to be sending me some photos. Hopefully I'll be able to show some underwater photos later.
(Right) Our safari guide, Brad, checking out the banks of the Daintree river trying to spot crocodiles and other wildlife.















(Left) Scarface basking in the sun on the banks of the Daintree.
(Right) A little view into the rainforest.















(Left) Feeding a nice little kangaroo. I also got to feed and pet some wallabys!
(Right) Me and Beatrice after we got our faces painted for the Tjapukai show.
















(Left) The Tjapukai Dancers performing their fire ceremony.
(Right) A nice view down the Trinity Beach.



Back to work in Sydney. The plan for this weekend is to head out and do some hiking in the Blue Mountains. I will be staying at Michaels house, who is one of the other Music Ed. professors in at the Conservatorium. More adventures to follow!

Thanks for reading, sorry this post was so long, but even so, I'm sure I left some things out.

Ciao for now.
Luke