Australia

Australia, Australia where to begin. First and foremost a week is not enough time to explore Cairns let alone the country of Australia. But I will recap on my trip and of course provide you with lots of pictures!

So I went to Australia with Yoko. We left after we had finished our course in Mo'orea. We left Papeete at 2 am November 19 and arrived in Australia at 12 pm on November 20. It was a weird time warp we went through, but one well worth it.

We arrived at our hostel, Caravella's Backpacking Hostel in Cairns (awesome place, I would recommend it to any one not just in Aus to party). We unpacked our bags and then hit the streets of Cairns. It is a very fun city. We were walking around, hitting cafe's walking the esplanade that runs along the mud flats. It is a beautiful place. While we were walking we all of a sudden stop dead in our tracks and look up, FLYING FOXES. They were just chilling in the trees. They are everywhere! These guys can be in trouble though. A species of tick can paralyze the mothers and make them drop their babies (oh no's!). So at these maternity colonies they have signs about what to do if you find a baby flying fox.

Look at the cuteness!

After our day in Cairns we decided to go on some tours so we went to the hostels main office and planned to our little hearts desires! The first thing we did was UNCLE BRIAN'S Antheron Tablelands Waterfall tour or awesomeness in a van. This tour to date was the most fun I have had. We started out by going to the Babinda Boulders. They literally look like they could be from another planet! The creek that runs through them is called Devil's creek. Legend has it the was a beautiful woman who went into the water with a man seeing it. The man then jumped in the water after the woman and died. There are tunnels under all the boulders so you can get dragged and not make it. Apparently all the people who have died since have been young attractive men. Who knows!

Devils creek and the babinda boulders

Very dangerous water, but very beautiful.

Babinda means wet place in the aboriginal language, and this town currently posesses something called the Golden Gumboot. This boot is awarded to the town that gets the most rain every year. Babinda gets over SEVEN METERS of rain per year...the gumboot is well deserved.

The Golden Gumboot

On our way out we found a Amethyst Python (Morelia amethistina), the largest snake in Australia. It had just had something to eat, it looked like a duck from what I could tell.

Look at that gut!

purty snake, probably about 3 m long

Next we went Josephine Falls. This was a three tiered waterfall with a natural water slide. It was so fun you have no idea! Natural water slides rock (har har har)!

As usual pictures do not do it justice.

We also found this crazy fruit on our way out, I still don't know what it is

We stopped at a banana field. They cover them with bags to help the bunches ripen at the same time,

the lucky recepient will get a brianna and yoko with their bunch of bananas

Next stop was onto the Antheron Tablelands...BEAUTIFUL. It reminded me a bit of California with its rolling hills.



Next was onto Milla Milla Falls...BEAUTIFUL.

When you swim underneath the falls it is like the greatest back massage ever

Again with the pictures that don't do the place justice!

Next stop on our tour was a Volcanic Marr. These thing are CRAZY. They in theory are able to be called giant puddles of water. There is no river system or anything all the water is there from past rainfalls. The water is super warm and the Marrs insanely deep like 80 meters!

Volcanic Marr

The final stop on our tour was by far my favorite. We went to a river to find ourselves a platypus!! I saw two. They are so cute and adorable and a lot smaller than I thought they would be. So I couldn't get any pictures but I will put some anyway, because how could I deny you the cuteness? But first, some information on them. The duckbill platypus is one of two monotremes alive today, the other being an echida, which is also found in Australia. A monotreme is an egg-laying mammal. They are rare and a bit off but oh so adorable.

Look at the cuteness...(image from nat geo)

echidna, the only other monotreme.

That ended out Uncle Brian's tour, which was AMAZING. The next day Yoko and I went to the Great Barrier reef for some SCUBA diving. I cannot even begin to tell you about it. We went out to the escape reef, right at the continental shelf. Literally a coral wall straight down. I would be swimming and be about 25 m down and then be 5m and have followed ONE coral head all the way up. There were literally mountains of coral, no adjectives adequately describe it!! There were coral caves and it just was phanomenol. GO DIVING FOLKS!!!

After our diving day we went on an overnight excursion to Cape Tribulation. This took us up to the Daintree rainforest, only the oldest rainforest in the world. How cool is that?? It was around during anICEAGE...craziness! First though we went to an animal sanctuary. We saw a wide range of critters. The cassowary (a big, mean, flightless bird) was pretty crazy looking. And of course we got to see a wallaby and some pretty cute crocs.

Cassowary!

Wallaby!!!

Crocodile, so cute!

Next stop was our hostel. It was amazing the rain forest literally went straight to the beach.

See, beach, rainforest and yoko and I in heaven!

The next day we went zip lining through the rainforest. The company is a sustainable, ecofriendly crew too. All of the stands are held up by suspension. Some of the stands were 20 m up! IT was impressive. They also did not cut any trees down, the zip lines ran along a stream bed. It was SO much fun. If you are even in Australia I recommend it.

yes that is me, isn't the helmet adorable?

On the way home I found a pretty flower at the hostel. There was also a sign that amused me about cassowaries. And then we saw a tree called a strangler fig, which is a parasitic tree that grows around another tree and kills it eventaully and leaves an amazing hallow tree. Apparently aborigines used to put the bones of their fallen into the nooks of the tree, which is why when the explores came they thought the aborigines were all cannibals. They aren't.

Slow down for Cassowaries folks!

Strangler Fig.

That was our last stop in Northern Queensland. We then hoped on a plane and headed down to Sydney for a six hour layover before heading back to good old San Francisco. While in Sydney we did not have time to do much but we took the train out to the harbor and went to the opera house and walked around the bridge and got fish and chips one last time.. I

That's me on those stairs!!

such a nice view

Sydney is a beautiful city, I hope I get to explore it more. After that we went back to states and had to end our semester adventure.

I want to go back!!!