Cairns, Australia

I've completely been slacking with the updates, so I decided it was time to finally write about my amazing adventures in Cairns, Australia a few weeks ago. We flew out of Sydney on Thursday morning and arrived in Cairns in the afternoon. We were greeted by beautiful weather, so we grabbed our luggage eager to get to the resort. We got there, unpacked and spent the day laying by the pool. Friday we were out up and early to head to the Great Barrier Reef for a day of snorkeling. It was AMAZING! First of all, the boat ride alone was hysterical. We took a catamaran and decided it would be fun to sit in the nets on the front, so my friends and I left our stuff inside and headed out to sit in the sun. The entire ride there we continually got drenched by waves that we would hit that would splash through the nets. It was so funny, even though by the end of the ride half the boat was throwing up from sea sickness, but that's besides the point. We got to the first location, put on our stinger suits and jumped in the water all ready to snorkle :) Unfortunately due to bad weather that they had been having previously, the bottom of the water had been stirred up a little which made it a little foggy, but nonetheless it was so beautiful. There were turtles, stingrays, and even reef sharks (even though we didn't run into those thank god). We boarded the boat to eat lunch and head to the second location which was nowhere near shore. We jumped into the water and were led around by guides who described all of the different types of coral that we could see. At the end of our tour we got back on the boat, took off our snorkeling gear, and jumped back in the water to go swimming-- it was a perfect day. We got home that night, walked into downtown Cairns to look around. We went to The Woolshed for dinner which turned out to be THE best meal of my time here thus far. It was a vegetarian meal, words can't describe how good it was.. needless to say we went back again before we left. Saturday we were up bright and early SO excited to go skydiving... fail. The weather was too bad to go up :( So we were scheduled to do it Monday instead.. therefore we went back to bed for a bit before we left to go bungy jumping. At about noon we were picked up to go to AJ Hacketts to go bungy jumping. Tracy, Rachael and I got there, checked in, and walked up the tower to get ready to jump. 164 feet above the ground, Tracy and Rachael stood there wondering exactly what they were thinking when they signed up for it.. I on the other hand had never been so excited :) When it was finally my turn to go, I put my toes over the ledge and felt my heart pounding in my chest haha. I heard my count down, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, BUNGY! And that was that.. it was the greatest feeling I've ever had before and I just dangled around upside-down wishing that I could do it again. When I was finally right-side-up and ready to leave, I picked up my pictures and DVD and walked back out to the van, wishing I could jump again. We got in the van to go to the site for White Water Rafting, where we met up with Kacie. Our tour guide was awesome! And even though the river was decently calm, it was deceiving. He let us get off of the raft and swim down some of the final rapids and it was scary. I felt like I was drowning, I got sucked under for a decent amount of time and was flailing in my lifejacket, helmet and awful water shoes they made us wear (now that's an image). When I finally surfaced I looked around to see Tracy and Kacie struggling too, so we all just started cracking up haha. When we got to the bottom we were greeted with tea and coffee, which was perfect. Talk about the most action packed day ever haha, I wish I could go back and do it again, if only every Saturday was like that. Sunday we got up to do a hike through the rain forrest which was beautiful! and then we went on a crocodile watch boat. We saw crocodiles just relaxing on the bank, ya know, normal haha. It was crazy to see them up close and personal with no cage or glass separating us from them. After the croc boat we took our 3 hour bus ride home which was less than comfortable, but beautiful. The sights were incredible. That night we went back to the Woolshed to get some more of the incredible food, shared a table with 3 guys from Europe who were traveling the world for the year.. it was so cool to hear some of their stories, and share ours with them as well. That night I slept like a baby, so excited to skydive the next morning. We woke up to overcast skies and strong winds :( nervous that we wouldn't be able to jump again. The company came to pick us up, which was a step further than we had made it the first time. We got to the company headquarters, filled out our paperwork, bought our photos and dvd's and sat on standby because we had been delayed due to weather. 4 hours later, we lost hope.. no skydiving in Cairns :( We went back to grab our bags, depressed, and boarded the bus for the airport to head back home.. I mean, to Sydney.. weird. We got home late Monday night, feeling so accomplished. By far one of the best weekends of my life <3