Spring Break '09

I'm Baaaaaaaaaaack!

Just got back from the best spring break ever! I went up to Northern Queensland to a town called Cairns (pronounced- cans). This town is in the heart of the Great Barrier Reef! My friend Mel and I flew up there on Tuesday and stayed until Sunday. I'll go through the trip day by day for you all (don't want to miss ANY of the details):

Tuesday-
Flew into Cairns. Arrived at our hostel called Cairns Beach House (We only paid 12 dollars a night, so we were kinda scared as to how this hostel was going to look, smell, be in general but it actually turned out great! We loved this place and met so many awesome people here!) It was raining on and off this whole day so we headed into town and went shopping and become accustomed to the town! It is a really touristy town but we had fun none the less. We called it an early night because we had been up for literally 24 hours prior (We didn't sleep the night before our flight because we were both scared we would sleep through our alarms and miss the plane!)

Wednesday-
Woke up super early to catch our bus up to Cape Tribulation. Cape Trib is a town up in the Daintree Rainforest. The daintree rainforest is the oldest known rainforest in the world, it is also the only rainforest in the world that runs right into a reef in the ocean. (As the locals call it "Where the rainforest meets the reef".) It's about an 1.5 hr trip up there so on the way up we stopped and did some fun things. First stop was a crocodile river tour. We stopped on the Daintree River and went on a boat cruise in search of crocodiles. We SAW huge crocodiles. One was named SCARFACE. The crazy part about this is that it's a freshwater river and because the river runs right into the ocean; the crocodiles can swim up the river and live here. Soo creepy. Ahh they were crazy. Later that day we got to our hostel in Cape Trib called PK's Jungle Resort. It was so cute. We stayed in cabins in the rainforest. They have spiders here the size of dinner plates. I will post one later (the funny thing is the locals told us that the spiders actually were smaller than usual this season; haha wait until you see the size of these suckers.) Jenny (my sister) would have been peeing her pants at these creatures. We walked to this swimming hole later in the day. There was a rope tied to a tree and we could swing into the water- so much fun! There were huge fish in the water too that nibbled at your toes...hilarious! Once again Jenny would have peed her pants! LOL. That night we got to know our roommate Mario who is from England. He was soooooo funny. One of the funniest people I've met up to date on this trip. He literally had me crying at points I was laughing so hard, we had a good night with him!

Thursday-
Woke up extra early again today for our Reef Tour. We were taken to this Sailboat called the Rum Runner where we spent the day out of the Great Barrier Reef!! It was the most beautiful day and the clarity of the water was insane. We snorkeled in two areas of the outer reef and so some amazing things. Stingrays, sharks, sea turtles, sea stars, nemos, colorful coral, soo many fishies, and jellyfish. One man actually got stung by a jellyfish in the face so the rest of the day Mel and I were very cautious! haha. Some interesting facts about the great barrier reef: It was declared a national park in the 1980's, oldest known reef to mankind, some of the coral has been growing for over 300 years, they have certain fish that are known as "cleaners" which their main job is to go in the mouths/gills of bigger fish and clean it all out (as if they were going to the dentist)--> we got to see this in action while snorkeling! We had a great day in the water and on the way home we were able to relax and sunbathe on the sundeck of the sailboat! Such a wonderful time!

Friday-
Layed out on the beach all morning. You aren't allowed to swim in a lot of the beaches in Cairns because of the massive amounts of jellyfish and crocodiles that live so close to the shore. They have signs everywhere advising people to avoid the water for these such dangers. We decided to just hangout on the beach. Haha. Ohh another fun fact: Coconuts kill more people in Cairns than anything else. It's the #1 killer to Cairns locals. This is because the size of the coconuts are so big that when they fall out of the trees, the can crack skulls! How crazy is that! Mel and I were constantly covering our heads when we walked through the rainforests haha! Later that day we took our bus back down the Cairns. Along the way we stopped at Mt. Alexandria Lookout and were able to see the whole town of Cape Tribulation from up above-absolutely beautiful! We also stopped at Port Douglas which is this really rich, famous people kinda place. A lot of acclaimed famous and movie star people have beach houses here! While we didn't see any of these people (gosh darnit) we did see pictures of Bill Clinton and his family at their beach house. They come down here once or twice a year locals said, how cool! Our last stop was at Mosman Gorge where we were able to go for a swim in the gorget and jump off cliffs into the water (haha I did this!!) When we finally returnd to Cairns later that evening, Mel and I decided to see the nightlife in Cairns and went out. Had a great time on a pub crawl and met so many people!

Saturday-
Actually were able to sleep in today. When we finally woke up we went to town to walk around and grab lunch. That afternoon we went White Water Rafting! Our tour guide from Cape Tribulation actually hooked us up with a great deal and was our rafting guide for the day as well! It was a lot of fun because we all already knew eachother so we had some laughs together! Rafting was CRAZY...I cannot tell you how many times Mel and I came so close to falling out of our raft (of course we were the two girls put in the front of the raft). We had a good time! That evening Mel and I were craving mexican food (yes, I like mexican food now). We found this cute little mexican restaurant in town! It was called Montezumas and we had yummy sangria and burritos....ohhh soo good! They have this thing in Cairns called "night markets" where all these sellers get together and have their shops open at nighttime from 6-11pm. We had a good time walking around and shopping.

Sunday-
We woke early once again for our scuba diving tour! We went on this GINORMOUS boat that took us out on the Great Barrier Reef again! We were able to scuba dive twice this day and went down to about 45ft. We got to hold sea cucumbers as well as kiss a sea turtle! I had an underwater camera for this dive so I hope all those pictures turn out!! We had a great day and met some pretty awesome people. This one girl Alicia was from the states and had been living in New Zealand for the past 6 months. This was her last stop before heading back home. We really got to know her and had tons of fun together! Later that night we met up with Jason who was also in Cairns for Spring Break. The three of us got food and some drinks together--> great night! We were all sad to head home from such a great week but all missed Brisbane so much! Brisbane has become a home away from homes for all of us and it's nice to have somewhere to settle down into. It was so fun reuniting with everyone and seeing everyone's face again. We all stayed up super late telling stories and catching up with one another! I missed my friends and it's so awesome that I feel so close with them that we were all giving eachother hugs and such because eventhough it was only a week, we are all so used to being together! I love that feeling of being a part of something so much bigger than you realize until it's gone for awhile. Love my brizzie friends!

Long Week-
After such an awesome week in Cairns I had to come back to reality with school. I gave a presentation on Monday about Unoffical at U of I, which was hilarious. All of the aussies were so interested in learning about what we do at Unofficial. They all were like "Oh I want to experience an Unofficial" so I invited them all out next year haha! I also had a 2000 word essay due and a midterm! Long week but soo glad it's over with now! The weekend is here again!

ANZAC DAY-
Today is Anzac day, which is like the Australian fourth of july day. Anzac stands for the Australian soldier/warrior who fought for the country during times of war. There are festivals/parades and such today. We are heading to the beach for some festivities! It's SUPER hot today (30 degrees celsius) which is like 90 back home! We are gonna have a fun day.

Well I've written my face off. Hope you are all doing good! Miss you and love you!

-Manda