I have just spent the last two weeks travelling in Australia and I had such a good time. My friend Dave and I flew straight to Sydney and actually enjoyed two great airplane meals and free wine. Once we got there a family friend, Marousa, picked us up from the airport, let us stay with her and her family for the night, and brought us straight back to the airport in the morning. We then flew to Cairns, a warm tourist town near the Great Barrier Reef. We arrived our first day, found a backpackers to stay in and walked around town to check everything out. We ended up trying a tourist trap called the Ultimate Party. Basically it was pub crawl that gave us a way to meet a bunch of other travellers. Gaining admission to the first bar we received a ‘free’ dinner and a metal bolt when we walked through the door. Then all the girls participating got to carrying around a metal nut. The object was to see if we could find a match then we would be able to win a prize. Besides being a silly game, attempting to ‘screw’ each other, it was a great time meeting people from different cultures. I was surprised to find out that tons of Irish, English, German, and Asian travellers love to visit Australia, while barely any Australians actually live in Cairns.
We spent the next day riding out on a boat to the Great Barrier Reef to go snorkelling and scuba diving. Well, my buddy Dave is a certified diver, but since I’m diabetic they would only let me snorkel. It was fine though and I actually spent most my time being seasick any way. Although I spent the day throwing up and making friends with another sick Swedish couple, I did get some really cool photos when I was in the water. After a long day we finally made back to shore and went out for some free pizza and beer with some of the workers on the boat. We spent the next day hanging out and met some really fun travellers from our hostel. It was a ton of fun to see how other people around the world live and experience life. If I have the chance to travel again like this I would definitely do it.
With no car and limited option, Dave and took an early bus the next morning south to one of the smallest towns in Australia. We bought almost everything in this tiny convenient store so we would enough food for two nights of camping. We then walked down the road in search of a national park entrance that would lead us to the tallest mountain in Queensland, the north-eastern region of Australia. Then we ended up hitch hiking and making it to the trailhead with enough time to hike a few miles back into the rainforest with everything we owned on our backs. We had heard about leaches, snakes, deadly and painful plants, and angry charging flightless birds that we may encounter. Although our trip was relatively easy going the rain and leaches were our main problems. It seemed like we would hike fifty feet and then have to pick tiny leaches off from our shoes and legs. Those little bastards were tough to get rid of. If you let them latch on then pull them off, you would bleed for a while, but didn’t harm you otherwise. More scary or at least unfamiliar at first, but by time we hiked out we had them all over, in Dave’s beard or on my neck. Burning them off also was quit amusing. Any way, we camped for only one night, ditched our packed in the bushes in our bivy bags to help keep them dry, and hiked to the top of the mountain that morning. Not really planning on hiking, I ended up destroying a useless poncho, being completely soaked but still warm, and doing a number on my nice little tennis shoes. It took a few hours to reach the top, climbing up one of the steepest and slickest trails I’ve ever been on. It was great to see how the climate changed through our whole day, but a bummer to still be in the clouds once we reached the summit. Then we ran back down, got our bags, hiked out, and hitched hiked back to the wonderful little town Winanewi. Got ride of all our leaches, had a nice shower and a great dinner. We woke up early and got a ride back to Cairns from a nice man who turned out to be a kayaker as well. Just hung out and relaxed that day until we ran into some Irish friends we had met earlier in our trip. They had rented a camper van, were heading down the coast that next morning, and had invited us along.
So the next day we crammed into the van and drove a little over six hours to a place called Townsville. We then bought tickets for a ferry ride to Magnetic Island and something called the Full Moon Party. Once we road the ferry over, we checked into another backpackers and walked down the Island to find another tourist party. We had a great time staying out late and sleeping in the next day. The island we had travelled to turned out to be mostly a national park, with a few different bays to visit, little to no stores or restaurants, and plenty of beaches. So that day we took a bus all along the island, got something to eat, and hung out at one bay to watch the sun go down at the beach. Again relaxing and not sure what to do for the next day we ended up swimming in the ocean and then going on a little nature walk to look for some wild koalas. It was a lot fun walking through the forest, taking some great pictures, and finally seeing an active koala. We then caught the ferry back and stayed the night in Townsville.
The following morning we hoped back in the camper van and on our way down the coast to Airlie Beach, we stopped off at an animal farm to see crocodiles, kangaroos, and some more koalas. Then we were back on the road for another few hours before we reached Airlier beach late that evening. For the next few days we spent most our time relaxing, eating, drinking, hiding from some rain, and touring some of the other nearing by islands. Dave and I both really enjoyed the company of our four new Irish friends, but we decided to say goodbye to one hilarious man and three wonderful girls. So our last day there we took a boat ride to three different islands to go snorkelling again, to lounge on the finest white sand I’ve every see, and to enjoy another ocean boat ride experience. Thankfully, I didn’t get sick this time and had a great day. Once we got back we packed our bags and jumped on a late bus to a nearby town to fly back to Sydney.
Once again, we arrived late in the evening and Marousa was there to pick us up. We slept in very comfortable beds and felt super clean after a good shower. Since our trip was coming to an end we wanted to tour around Sydney before we left, so we were dropped off at the train station and walked around the city for the day. Since APEC (Asian-Pacific Economic Corporation) was holding a meeting about Global Warming in the Opera House, and the wonderful and amazing public speaker president Bush was there, everything was closed down and gated off. We spent a great deal of time walking along blocked and fenced off areas of the city trying to get a good view of the Opera House. We were even hassled by the cops thinking we were taking photos for information as they thought we were suspected protesters. Now I don’t think anyone was necessarily protesting Global Warming (Ha!), but protesting Bush’s presence in Australia. It was interesting to walk through a central park with more police present than protestors. Everything was pretty calm when we were there, but on I guess people were started to get a little rowdy and were arrested once we left. So after all of that, getting lunch, and walking through Sydney’s botanical gardens we ended up seeing a movie and stopping off at a few pubs before coming home. Aside from the rain and Bush’s security closing the Opera House down, we got to see a good majority of the city. The next morning we enjoyed hanging out with Marousa’s family for a while, went for a drive over the Bay Harbour Bridge and then hopped onto another subway train to a town 1.5 hours south called Woollongong. We met up with a friend that had studied in the states for a semester and now we went to see the town she lived in. We visited the beach, had a great dinner, and then went out for a friends birthday. It was cool to see another place in Australia, but the next day we relaxed a little in the morning before we had to travel back to New Zealand that evening.
