Okay! This took longer than expected, but I’m getting there. School’s been taking over quite a bit this past week, particularly finance, yuck. But it’s cinco de mayo so tonight should be fun! Last night was good too, a few of us went into town for dinner and a movie, Spiderman 3. It was a great movie, and nice to have an evening on the town sort of. Now revert back about three weeks and I’ll continue my exciting story of break!
I left you hanging in suspense for more details from my day on the reef! I’m excited to tell you more, it was perhaps the most incredible event in my life. Our first activity was the glass bottom boat, that was our first view of the reef. It was pretty awesome and we saw tons of fish. The water was a perfect turquoise color. The “guide” told us all about what we were seeing as well, which was nice. Her name was Alissa and she later helped Mom out a lot to get her snorkelling. So we got back from the boat ride and lunch was ready for us. It was delicious, a buffet with some hot entrees and fruit and meats and cheeses and such, very yummy. Snorkelling was the best. You really can’t imagine it, it’s different but more amazing than expected. The coral was pretty awesome, it’s a living creature just sittin there. The fish are definitely unimaginable. They were such vibrant colors, some even neon. Some of them were almost translucent too. Not only were their colors brilliant, but most of them had many different brilliant colors! The male parrot fish was the prettiest I thought. They do this to attract the females I guess, it would work for me! The parrot fish have a beak sort of, like a parrot, and they’d scrape the coral with their peak to get food of whatever particles are on the coral. I could hear them doing this which was amazing. It was so quiet under the water but you could hear some noises every once in awhile by the fish, and they were my favorite, hearing them eating. Then, I saw something that I thought was incredible, I got to see the parrot fish poop out sand basically. They eat the particles off the coral and I guess they digest it and it comes out as new coral sand, what an amazing recycling process in nature!! I thought that was pretty cool, even if that’s a little weird. I saw some other fish that I can’t remember the name, but they live as one couple their entire lives, and never with any other fish even if their partner dies. How sweet is that, kinda cute to see them swimming around together. We got to snorkel for quite awhile, I explored the whole area we had available to us. Mom had a little more trouble getting further out, so she just stayed close to the beach, but she got the hang of it pretty good. I absolutely loved it out there. The water was fairly warm, the sights were gorgeous both above and below the water, and I actually didn’t have a problem with snorkelling this time at all like I did with the dolphins. We came back to the boat because it was about time to go. Our way back in was nice, I sat out in front just basking in the sun for awhile. When we got close to land, though, a storm rolled in. It was super windy and all of a sudden it was pouring. That was cool to see out on the ocean, and nice since it didn’t last too long and there was a good rainbow to finish it off. We got some more bubbly to enjoy on the ride back in. I can’t quite remember what we did that evening. I think we just took showers and went out for dinner at the place next door. That was a great dinner. And as usual called it an early night, but it had been a pretty long day.
Friday was the 13th! Luckily, it didn’t feel much like it. We spent the day in the rainforest, another amazing day! We had to get up early and head to this old train station where the coach picked us up. We were supposed to go up the mountain via that train, but there was a landslide and they were working on it so we couldn’t. So we drove up the mountain in the coach, it was still pretty nice as the road went through the forest the whole time. The top of the mountain was the village of Kuranda, it’s actually a little town, people do live there. Mostly it’s a tourist attraction though. When we got up there we did get to take that old train, it was just about a 3 minute ride though. It was neat because it was 100 years old and whatnot, but it took us to Barron Falls! That was spectacular. There wasn’t a whole lot of water, so it wasn’t as awesome as it could’ve been, but still a nice waterfall. We were a little ways away from it, too, but nonetheless it was gorgeous situated right in the rainforest. It was really tall, is that how you describe falls, tall? Anyway, it was, and the rocks just went straight down pretty much, but the trees all grew along the sides. So we admired the falls, took a few pictures and it was all aboard for the 3 minute train ride back to Kuranda. From there we walked up the hill into the village. Our first stop was lunch! We found this nice little café restaurant that was really tasty and a great atmosphere. It rained while we were in there, it was a bit of a rainy day really, off and on. After that we headed to the Koala Gardens by the market area. Mom and I went in there so I could hold my koala and go home happy! Queensland is the only state you can actually hold a koala, and it’s always been something I’ve dreamed of since I was a little one, so I had to! The place also had crocodiles, kangaroos and wallabies, and other reptiles. It was pretty good. Of course the best part was holding the little koala! I got Sienna, a baby girl just 2 years old, but kind of heavy! She was pretty adorable. She was really calm and relaxed, and very soft. The trainer told me how to hold her, I thought it looked and felt a little awkward, but whatever, I guess they have to make sure you have her secure. Then they snapped my picture and let Mom take a bunch with my camera, and even got one of me and mom with my camera! That was really nice of them. There wasn’t a line at all when I was there so I got to hold her for a few minutes. She just sat there, pretty cute. I totally enjoyed that and feel like I can check something off my to do before I die list. I seem to be checking off a lot of those things while I’m here! Then I got to feed all the wallabies, they were excited and so was I! I had a lot of food, so it took awhile and it sprinkled some too, but it was good fun. We perused the market a little afterwards, and walked around the whole village, stopping to get some homemade ice cream. After awhile we decided to go on a trail through the rainforest, since that’s the reason we went up there in the first place! The trail led us back to the train station where we had to be by a certain time to catch the SkyRail down to the bottom of the mountain. We walked through the rainforest on this trail and only came across a couple more people, so it was really nice. I can’t believe how quiet and calm and relaxing and peaceful it is in there. I loved it. Nature!! Everything was so incredibly green and it just felt like there was so much life around you, even though the only wildlife we saw or heard were birds. We did see a kookaburra though! The trail went through the forest and down to the river where we followed it for awhile and got really muddy. That led back to where we needed to be, and we got to the SkyRail just in time to catch it with our tickets down to the bottom. That part was fun, it’s the longest one anywhere maybe? I can’t remember, but it’s long, and at some points is very high, it takes you over the canopy of the rainforest all the way down! So where we were walking down in the middle of it, we went over the top, way above. There were some pretty amazing views from up there. We stopped off at one of the two places you could get out and look around. There were more lookouts for the Barron Falls, but from the opposite side we saw in the morning, so that was good. A lady from Sydney got on with us after that stop for the rest of the way down, she was nice. We had to wait for more people on our bus when we got down to the bottom, but then we were headed back to Palm Cove for the evening. We changed and got ready and went to the bottle shop to get a drink, so we had a drink real fast back at our little apartment. Then we went to walk along the Esplanade searching for dinner, and then walked along the beach awhile while the sun went down. We came back and settled on a nice Italian restaurant, it was tasty.
Saturday was an absolutely beautiful day. I took us out to eat for a small breakfast at the local supermarket, it was quite tasty though. We did our shopping there to buy some breakfast the previous days, it was nice. We had to check out of the hotel awhile before the shuttle came to take us to the airport. So Mom and I took a nice walk along the beach quite a ways down. There was a Rolls Royce parked outside the hotel next door, that was pretty cool to see. It was sad to say goodbye to the dog that just sat outside on the porch of our hotel, she was pretty cute! We had to wait awhile before boarding our flight, so we got some Hungry Jack’s (Burger King). On the flight we watched Pursuit of Happyness, I had really wanted to see it so that was great! We got lunch as well, I was set! My ears really bothered me though on all our flights. Going up didn’t bother me at all, but every time coming down just killed! I hate that. Anyway, we got into Sydney and found our ride right away to take us to our hotel. We checked in and went up and changed real fast before heading out to walk down to the pier. We tried to go on this harbour cruise, but it wasn’t running, so we looked for a different one and just found the ferry, so we got tickets for that. It’s the one people actually use for transportation, not just a tourist thing, so it was nice. We got to see all of the harbour, from right by the Opera House, over to Darling Harbour where the Maritime Museum was and some other tourist attractions. We made a few stops along the way but it was alright, that gave me a chance to get a bit of a steadier picture. It was dark so it was really pretty with the lights of the city, but very difficult to get a good picture while the boat was moving! The Opera House and Bridge really were quite gorgeous. When we got back from the cruise we walked over the Opera House to get a closer look and take some photos. I was quite impressed with the architecture and everything, it was pretty. There was this weird guy who asked us to take his photo and then tried to talk to us for awhile but we just kind of walked away. Anyway, then we walked along and found a nice little place for dinner not too far away on the harbour. And of course we called it an early night again for our last evening. It was good though. It was a long week, and although quite wonderful, quite tiring.
We had to get up really early in the morning for the shuttle to the airport. I had to say a quick goodbye to Mom, that was tough to do again after I just did it a couple months ago and will be another few months before I see her again! But it was alright, then I went on my way to check in for the domestic flights. I could check in there and then they had a shuttle for us to go over to the domestic terminal, so that was nice. It was really cool to go out on the tarmac(is that right?) and see all the planes. We saw a bunch getting worked on in the hangars too! Just that little ride was pretty exciting to me! I liked the little sign the best, yield to planes, with a picture of a plane, haha. I had to wait a few hours for my flight then, but I occupied myself. If I can handle about 12 hours in LAX, I could handle a few there. I didn’t even have a gate at first, so I went to the book store and read a little bit of a couple books, then perused the souvenir shop and got a couple postcards. I got a muffin and by then had a gate so I could go sit down for the rest of the waiting time. The plane ride was great, I had the window seat in the first row! I watched some TV and listened to some interesting music, it was only about an hour and a half flight so it was pretty easy to stay entertained. When I landed and got my luggage, I still had to wait about an hour for the Gull bus back into Geelong. Then when it dropped us off I just missed the bus nearby, so I had to get a taxi back to campus, but it was nice, I had a good conversation with the guy. I was exhausted! When I got back I did a lot with all my photos and had to get started on my homework right away, as it was due the next night! But I got that done alright and did a good job. Whew! That’s all of my vacation right there! Hope you enjoyed it! I’m sure it was much more enjoyable for me than you, but you know, I’m trying to help you out a little! It was an amazing vacation, and so wonderful to see my lovely mom! Now I have seeing my dad to look forward to in a few weeks!!!
Hopefully you’ve enjoyed all these posts, it really does take a lot of time and effort on my part to put these together. I try to make them interesting so it’s not so boring to read if you actually do get around to it! I’m not sure how else to say this, but leave me comments please! I want to hear from you, honestly, just anything. I would love it! I’ll come up with another post with some more random things that have happened between then and now and more thoughts and observations. Even in this slow paced, relaxed, no worries place, life still moves pretty fast and keeps on going no matter how you feel or what you need to do! I’ve done way too much finance homework lately! Finals are starting to come into view now, that’s a bit frightening! Who cares, I’m in Australia and that’s incredible, right!? Okay, well, have a wonderful weekend. I miss you heaps and can’t wait to hear from you. Don’t forget to smile and remember I care about you! I’ll leave you with these:
The human heart feels things the eyes cannot see, and knows what the mind cannot understand. ~Robert Vallett
Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don't leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory. ~Alan Alda
Love, Alissa
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