~ May 14th we split up into different groups to do activities a few did the Zorb, which is where you are strapped in and roll down a hill in a huge ball (wet or dry), some did indoor skydiving, or bungee jumping, or I did a thing called the Schweeb, which is like a see through cylinder thing with petals and you race around the track. It was awesome, but my legs were DEFINITELY burning when I was done.
~ After everybody was done we drove to the Luge. This is kind of like the Alpine slide, but better. You ride in a Gondola up to the top, get your helmet on and get on this little cart thing. You sit on it and when you pull the handles towards you it brakes, there were 3 courses you could choose from. It was a lot of fun! Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera in so I don't have any pictures on my camera....
~ After the Luge we drove to Mt. Maunganui....mind you these things are not very close together so we ended up driving in the vans a lot! It was fine though I love traveling and there was some serious bonding time on those trips. haha I love everybody on this study abroad. We were supposed to hike, but it was already too late when we got there so we got out and walked on the beach for a bit and then got back in the car to drive to our campsite.
The beach by Mt. Maunganui
~ May 15th Today we just drove around to a few look out points, stopped at the beach, and ultimately ended up at hot water beach. This is the coolest thing. I'm not sure if it is the sand or water, but in certain spots during low tide you can dig down and create your own hot tub! Seriously amazing! New Zealand was pretty cold, so it was fun to try and dig a hot tub.
~ May 17th We boarded a plane to Australia super early in the morning. The plane was awesome once again. Nice spacious seats, my own TV screen. I definitely watched HSM 3 on the flight. hahah don't worry I had to find it in the kids section...it was listed anywhere else. :) the flight was about 5 1/2 hours. We landed in Australia and it was BEAUTIFUL!! The weather was incredible and we were all so excited to be here.
The entrance to the serpent hostel
~ We picked up the vans and headed to our hostel called The Serpent in Cairns. The hostel has a fun atmosphere, a pool, and kitched, but overall pretty gross :) Em had left her suit at hot water beach so we went into town to look around the shops since we were leaving for our dive boat early the next morning. The town was so fun! Cute little street shops right next to the beach! AHHH incredible.
City bldg being weird around town haha for some reason this picture went blurry
~ May 18th we boarded our dive boat. Wow was this amazing!! I unfortunately got sick and threw up on the way out to the reef, so that wasn't a good start, but don't worry I was fine the rest of the time. The next 2 days were spent diving at the Great Barrier Reef. There were a total of 7 dives we could have done, but I think I only did 5. The reef is AMAZING!! We moved to a few different spots over the course of the 2 days and saw tons of amazing things. The last dive was my favorite it was like Finding Nemo in real life. Super colorful and so fun! Alex and Brad have underwater cameras so I will have to add pictures later of us underwater. Also the dive boat was so fun, very organized, really good food, and a really fun dive crew.
Me, Brad, and Patti about to go down for our last dive
the gorgeous sunset on the dive deck (Natalie, me, Kylie)
~May 20th We checked out of the serpent and drove up to Cape Tribulation. It is so beautiful. A huge rainforest with tons of bugs and animals :) Apparently some of the most poisonous spiders and snakes live in the Australian rainforest. Not to mention the crocs! We got there pretty late so we just set up our tents, ate dinner and kind of hung out. The place we stayed was called PK's and it was a really fun environment. There were some cabins, but we were camping. They also had a kitchen and bar area and then a little grocery store and then beach was about a 2 min walk down a path right behind our tents.
gorgeous rainforest (Hillary, me, Steph(obsessed with her))
~May 21 We had the options of going jungle surfing on ziplines, horseback riding on the beach, or just hanging out at the beach. As it turned out I talked myself out of the 2 things that cost money and just hung out at the beach. There was a good group of us and it was a lot of fun! We had met some fun people the night before a couple english guys and 2 Americans on vacation that we were hanging out with. We had a sand sculpting contest (we made a crocodile) and then just played in the water. Everybody was afraid of crocodiles, but we haven't seen any yet. That night we went down to the beach and looked at the stars. They are so incredible! So weird to think that we are looking at different stars...and the milky way is SO BRIGHT!!
~May 22 Don't worry we did a hardcore hike on this day. We were told it would be pretty intense, but I don't think anybody realized what we were getting ourselves into. hahah it was like hiking straight up the mountain for like 2 hours! The view was okay when we got to the top, but not incredible. I actually kind of liked the hike...I would relate it to Angel's Landing only the different is we were hiking on an unpaved trail through tons of trees. I managed to get a huge thorn in one finger and then on the way down grabbed a vine, but didn't realize the other side had thorns all up and down it and got like 15 thorns in my hand.....5 of which are still in there cause I didn't notice and now have to dig them out with a pin :) so fun!
~ After the hike we went to this little waterfall pond thing and cliff jumped for a min, but it gets dark around like 5:00 here so we couldn't stay long.
~ May 23 We packed up our tents and drove down to Kuranda and went to an Aboriginal village. It was really cool. They showed us how to throw a spear, play the dijiridoo, and throw a boomeragn then they let us throw one. They had show of dance from their culturea and then our tour guide Tom took us on a walk to see the animals. AHHH so great! We saw a HUGE crocodile named the Jack the Ripper because he has already killed at least 12 other crocodiles...he said we could likely see some like that in the outback (which is where we are going in 2 days) they can crush you in one bite! We also saw a couple small ones, a koala, this beautiful rainbow lorakeet, a snake, and get this......we got to feed the kangaroos and wallaby's!!!!!! I know pretty much amazing! I held one in my lap while it ate out of my hand!! I like couldn't even believe it! Then after we were done seeing the animals I got to hold a koala for a min! Pah! best day ever!!! (Try not to be too jealous) :)
me feeding and playing with the kangaroos
~After the aboriginal village we drove to our hostel....wow super sketch. It looked like a house out of a horror film! and and before that don't worry one of my favorite ppl Natalie was driving the big 12 passenger van and didn't swing wide enough going out of our parking space and scraped against some car's guard rail thing...did nothing to their car, but completely dented and scratched all down the side of the van.....so sad! Needless to say, now I'm driving. So we get to the hostel, set up our stuff in the sketch bedrooms with like 5 bunk beds and went and did a face painting activity. It was so fun! We got some sweet pictures...once again not on my camera cause the battery was dead... :(
~ The guy that owns the hostel told us about this city dance slash live band thing going on last night and Patti actually said we could go. So a group of us walked over to it and it was a blast! A really good live band playing with a little dance floor! We were all obsessed and danced for like 3 hours. The locals were so nice and came and talked to us and thanked us for coming....and they only offered us alcohol a few times ;) haha.
If there is one thing that has been different to get used to is there is alcohol everywhere and you can drink at age 18 so we are always getting offered drinks.
~ This morning we woke up early and packed up our stuff so we could come down to church in Cairns. It was so fun. We like quadrupuled their branch, but they LOVED having us there. They were all so nice and welcoming and it was fun to be in at a real church. We are now back at the Serpeant hostel. We're here for a couple days and then off to the outback (Darwin) hopefully we all come back alive :) apparently there are lots of huge crocodiles. I'm pretty excited though, we are renting jeeps this time and camping shouldn't be too bad.
Rachel, me, and Steph down by the beach in Cairns at our BBQ today
Lexie, me, Candice, Hillary, Lisa, Rachel, and Steph
Calub, me, and Hayden (Patti's twin boys)
WOW! Holy longest blog post ever! Sorry I will try and update more often so it isn't a novel every time. Hopefully this has been semi-interesting....or at least informative. Love you all!
Well friends there were going to be more pictures, but I have officially wasted $20 and about 5 hours today trying to get all of these loaded so sorry the last 5 aren't going to make this post. Maybe next time! :) Hopefully you enjoy what pictures did post. Love you all!