Cairns: Adventure Capital of Australia! And The Great Barrier Reef Itself!

I am literally less than 24 hours from leaving Australia and boarding a plane to New Zealand, so here's a wrap-up of my last big Australian trip!! (As mostly told in photos... more words to be added once I get my feet back on American soil!)

Day One: White Water Rafting on the Tully River (Grade 4+ Rapids...yikes!)

Let me preface this by saying that I had never before gone white water rafting before this trip. So I was in for a treat...

We look like a cross between retard children and UN Peacekeepers. Sah-weet!

Some parts of the river were calm and beautiful.... others were not!

Taking a break from rafting... to jump right into the rapids! Very "King of the Rock" a la Mulan.

We hit the rapids!

My friend Anna loves this picture of me because she says I look like a "warrior."

The rapids at some parts got so intense that two of the girls in our raft were thrown out and flushed all the way down two series of intensely flowing and VERY sharp and rocky rapids. They were scared SHITLESS and so traumatized that they refused to get back in the raft after lunch. They described the experience as "feeling like we were drowning and certain to die." That's how intense the rapids were! Anna and I were holding on for DEAR LIFE. At one point, I turned to look at her as we were being sucked into a rapid and I could see my fear reflected in Anna's eyes!!! It was horrifyingly and deliciously fun.

Day Two: Exploration of The Great Barrier Reef aboard Passions (the name of our boat!)

The deck of our tiny-ass and VERY rocky boat, Passions. Perhaps they named it Passions because the boat ride is so rough and rocky? Eh?

Sunbathing for a few last minutes before we get to the reef. The bottoms of our sting suits are on already. We were given sting suits for snorkeling and diving so that jellyfish wouldn't be able to sting our skin! Australia is full of crazy deadly animals...

And once we got to the reef, the snorkeling began. I've only been snorkeling once in Cozumel? and it was beautiful but NOTHING compares to the Great Barrier Reef itself!!

Check out the zebrafish towards the back! If you can't see because the photo is too small, click on it and it'll enlarge. There are some beautiful colors on display here.

Me and my snorkeling gear!

Schools of fish. What kind? Who knows! The coral beneath them is especially beautiful though... (Ok I swear when I get home I am doing some research on the coral and fish that I saw! Promise!)

After snorkeling, we suited up for scuba diving. I can't express how anxious I was to scuba dive for the first time-- I'm mildly claustrophobic and the thought of depending solely upon oxygen in a tank was scary to me. But I sucked it up and suited up.

We are sassy and ready to have the time of our lives! (Sidenote: What surprised me was how heavy the tank and equipment were! The weight was almost reassuring though... with this much equipment, I knew I wouldn't run out of air or drown! Or at least I hoped...)

Scuba diving brought us a lot closer to the reef and we saw more diversity in coral. Uttler breathtaking in real life. This picture does it NO JUSTICE!

At the very bottom of the reef we found a sea cucumber. The instructor snatched the camera off my wrist and took a picture of me with it. And I'm so glad he did because this photo is beyond words. (FYI for those who are curious: The sea cucumber felt really slimy and squishy and I was afraid I would squeeze too hard!)

A brightly colored parrot fish. We saw tons of these just nipping at the coral and destroying it!

After scuba diving, we went to another reef around Michaelmas Cay, a tiny but famous bird sanctuary island. The island was literally only a few hundred feet wide and had a tiny beach that we snorkeled off of.

The reef at Michaelmas Cay was much closer to the surface than the previous Paradise Reef. Swimming on top of the water, I was always worried I would kick a piece of coral and kill it! Especially with those huge gangly flippers of mine. You can tell in the picture how close the reef is to my body, and this was just floating on top of the water!

The reef was overall so amazing and stunning. At Michaelmas Cay the coral and fish were only a few inches away at all times--we got over an hour to hang around the waving, cascading, and sensuous coral.

Final photo of the scuba diving equipment before we left the boat:

A quick photo of the lagoon in Cairns. Because the water immediately surrounding Cairns is FILLED with treacherous jellyfish (known as "stingers" in Oz), there is a manmade but incredibly lush and picturesque "lagoon" near the harbour. Of course, its artificial beauty was no match to the wild reef.

Day Three: Biking in the rainforests of Cairns.

We didn't think anything could top the experiences of white water rafting or seeing the Great Barrier Reef in person, but day three was equally as fun...although in a different way.

We went for a bike tour around the rainforests of Cairns, and it was the most relaxing and wholesome fun I've had in Australia. There was an Australian family of four on the trip with us, and their kids were so cute. It was definitely the perfect way to end our Cairns vacation. And it made me miss The General so much! (My super-chic robin's egg blue road bike that's currently lonesome in Boston without me.)

Cairn's infamous sugar cane fields with a background Cairn's distinctive mountains, the "Misty Mountains."

The bike rack attached to the back of our van. I was the only one of my friends who had to wear a safety vest. It was sooo dorky that it was COOL.

The four of us with the two kids from the trip! Notice how they too are also wearing safety vests.... hah.

The place is really called "Devil Pool Lookout" but some wise guy scratched off the letters so now it's "evil Poo Lookout." I got a HUGE kick out of this, as you can probably tell.

Okay so probably no one but Andrei and my parents and Thao have read this entire post, so I'll sneak in one story here that I hope most people won't bother to read:

We were scubadiving for over thirty minutes at the first reef and I had no problem with breathing or swimming... until we neared the surface. Earlier I had had a problem with weighing myself down, i.e. sinking, so my instructor placed some extra weight stones in my belt when we got halfway down. Then when we got down, I was sinking TOO much, so he pressed a button to inflate my vest a bit so that I would float.

Well, then I started floating TOO much, and I reached the surface before my friends and the instructor did. I just started floating away from them (they didn't notice!) and rose towards the surface, and surprisingly I didn't panick a bit. However, when I got to the surface the water was incredibly choppy and rough. The waves battered me around and soon enough I felt the saliva build up in my mouth. Within minutes, I was vomiting my breakfast out into the wide open ocean (I had reached the surface at this point and taken out the mouth tube... so no I didn't not vomit into the equipment!)

As is the case when I vomit, I felt immediately better and was ready to calm myself and get back under the water, when suddenly my instructor emerges and asks me if I'm okay and starts inspecting me all over. I signal to him that I'm okay, just feeling a little bit nauseous and TOTALLY embarassed at this point (my instructor was seriously HOTT and here I was with bits of vom all over me...). Luckily, he just laughed and told me that it was no big deal... and that THE FISH LOVE IT WHEN THIS HAPPENS! I started laughing at the thought of fish congregating around me to eat my vomit. It was both really gross and really funny.

And... on that note, that's the end of this post!
I am seriously behind in packing and ready to head out to New Zealand! My internet access will probably be even more dismal in New Zealand than it's been in Australia, but keep on the lookout for a short post or two. (I am staying for a few days with my cousin in Hamilton, and I will definitely be posting pictures of his baby, my 8-month-old second cousin! She is the first baby in our family since my brother was a baby, and that was 13 years ago!)

Much Love from Down Under (for the next few hours at least),
Xu