Life Down Undaaah.: Cairns, March 3-5

So Amy & I decided to be adventurous one weekend and travel by ourselves.

...we quickly learned it might be better to stay with people that we knew.

It wasn't all that bad. We did get to check several things off our list of things-to-do-and-see in Australia. We booked a trip up to Cairns to check out the town and see the Great Barrier Reef. I really don't understand why Cairns is on a map at all...there's about four streets there, total. Nonetheless, it was a good location to dock boats to see the reef.

We arrived Friday afternoon, checked into our hostel, Gilligan's, and explored a bit - until it started pouring and didn't stop. Apparently, it's wet season north of the Tropic of Capricorn...wish someone told us that one.

After booking our day-on-the-reef tour for Saturday, we spent the rest of the night exploring (which took a total of 20minutes), eating, and making bracelets...really. It was our Friday night, and part of our Saturday day.

We spent about 4hrs here...and most of our money.

So we finally went back to our hostel to meet our (random) roommates: two from England, one from Scotland, and one from Canada. They went out while Amy & I passed out at 10pm from a long day of traveling...until 3am when I was woken up by the Scottish guy claiming I was sleeping in his bed, and continued to complain about it for 20min - all the while, there's an open bed next to me.

We woke up at 6.00am to get ready for our day on the water snorkeling the reef. It was about a 2hr ride out there, but well worth it. We met two really nice people, Andy & Don...engaged from England. They told us a lot about the area & the Gold Coast. The boat offered an introductory dive, which I jumped at considering my Dad had been telling me how amazing it was. After almost panicking and adjusting to the pressure, it was unreal the things that we saw only 30ft deep. Amy was slightly sea-sick, so she passed out...in the sun...Cairns is about 15S-latitude of the equator...needless to say, we had to stop at the pharmacy on the way back to pick up some aloe.

Boats :)

On the Dock

Our Boat

Hangin' on the boat ... Snorkelers on the Reef

Down Undaaah.

We took a submarine ride ... Smell kinda made us nauseous, but it was pretty fun.

A little sight-seeing down under.

Would you not like this to be your life?

View of the rainforest ... What happens when you don't use sunscreen :p

Saturday night was slightly more adventurous, and we found ourselves in the Cairns Casino - until Amy won $80 and I won $25, and we called it a night. We also found ourselves debating skydiving for Sunday morning. After an hour of going back&forth, we signed up...only to get rained out the next day.