Cairns

For our first free weekend based from Brisbane Blake, Emily, Mallory, Nikki, and I traveled to Cairns. Cairns (pronounced “cans” by the Aussies who have no concept of the letter “r”) is a tropical town in North Queensland. It is the most popular place from which to start a trip to the Great Barrier Reef.

This is the five of us doing our squinty-eyed Calypso backpacker’s hostel pose. The hostel was pretty fun and included a pool, bar, and grill.

We arrived early Friday morning which happened to be Saint Patrick’s Day. We spent the afternoon souvenir shopping and then had dinner and went out to celebrate Irish tradition. This is Blake and I enjoying our pints of Guinness. The night was also filled with Irish car bombs, River Dance, and terrible Irish accents. We spent the majority of the night at an Irish pub called Shenannigans.

Saturday was our trip to the Great Barrier Reef. We took a two hour boat ride out to a place where the reef almost reached the surface so it was perfect for snorkeling. We were also near a steep drop off from the reef so it was a good place to scuba dive as well. None of us were certified divers so we all signed up for a half hour introductory dive where the guide took four of us at a time and took care of everything for us. We rented an underwater camera to get pictures of the reef. They are sending us a CD of all the photos and I will post some of them when I get it. It will probably be my last post I make for the whole study abroad.

Sunday we went to Cape Tribulation about two hours north of Cairns. It is one of the few places in the world where the ocean and the rainforest meet. This is Mallory and Nikki walking the rainforest boardwalk. I enjoyed the visit even though it wasn’t quite the Amazon jungle I was hoping for.

We were scheduled to go back to Brisbane at 6 AM on Monday morning, but Cyclone Larry shut down the airport. My parents told me that it actually made big news in America too. It was a category five cyclone, but luckily there was no loss of life. We went inland about an hour to a mountain town to be safe, and this was the picture from our hotel room. There were trees, street signs, and power lines down all over the place. Despite Larry’s inconvenience, the trip was one of my favorites and we were able to make it back to Brisbane late that night. I only have one more weekend trip before it is time to go home. Luckily it should be one of the best; we're going sailing in the Whitsunday Islands. After that it is back to reality with class, finals, and the long flight back to Wyoming.