Kuranda

After a short break from blogging, I realized that I left my readers (if they are still there) hanging. So without further ado, we continue on our holiday! After the diving trip, we decided to sleep in and figure out what to do the next day after we got up.

Last minute, we decided to take the skyrail to Kuranda, which is a small town within a rainforest. Here we are climbing into our 6 person gondola.


As we climbed up to the mountain tops, there was an amazing view behind us. Doesn't this photo look fake? It was not photoshopped at all!!


Unfortunately, there side was not as exciting as ours. At least they were the ones who got to enjoy the great view behind us!


Elaine and Sophia were trying to get as close to the window as possible.


Along the way to Kuranda, the gondola has 2 stops that you can get out of. The first one, we got to walk around and learn about the rainforest. We found a vine hanging out over the boardwalk, so we acted like monkeys. First, there was Eddie trying to swing around.


Elaine got some pretty good high onto the vine.


After learning about the rainforest, we went to the next station. David was leading the way for us.


The second station was the Barron Falls. Unfortunately, it was hard for us to take a photo with people and the massive falls.


There was a little information center where we studied about rainforest creatures and food.


Elaine used the microscope to observe the veins in leaves and other random objects.


After our sky ride, we reached Kuranda! The cassowary was here to welcome us.


After walking around the town in the heat, we found this fun mural and acted like little kids.


Eddie practiced his didgeridoo playing skills.


We finished exploring the town in time to catch the train back to the city!


Even though we had assigned seats, we all took turns squatting in the aisle and looking out the windows.


We got to see some more falls on the way back as well as all different views of the rainforest and eventually the coast line.


The most irritating part of the trip was the girl who had a window seat and slept for the entire trip. GRRR!!!


Since it was our last night in Cairns, we decided to go all out and had a fancy dinner. We sampled kangaroo as well as emu. Everyone seemed to enjoy both meats and wished they had been more experimental earlier in the trip!

The next stop in our journey was Ayers Rock.

Overnight Dive Trip!

The next morning, we took a small boat to our overnight dive boat. After a short briefing of the boat and lunch, we were then off in the water on our first dive. It was pretty amazing the different things we got to see and also touch. We touched different sea cucumbers and the inside of large clams. Our first dive was a little bit scary since I was getting close to running out of air! I indicated to our guide that I was low and at the time, it seemed as if we weren't getting ready to go up. I was a bit worried, but ended up being okay.

Sophia and I are on our dive deck after our first dive!


Our gear was all lined up next to each other.


After we got out of the water and dried off a bit, the boat would move to a new location before we would dive again. Eddie's ready to go out again!


Our 2nd dive of the day, the group of us volunteered to be videotaped by a guy. It was great because we got a free guide and later in the evening, we got to see us in the water touching things. We ended up buying a copy of the DVD and I can't wait to see it!

After the 2nd dive, we had dinner and then had to get ready for our night dive! David, Adam, Brandon and I had signed up for an adventure diver course. This meant we had an instructor us showing us around for 3 of the 6 dives we were going to be going on. The first class was for the night dive.

David and I are helping each other get ready.


After all the gear is on, don't forget your buddy check!


We're all ready to go!


Adam and Brandon are ready to jump in!


The night dive was one of the scariest things I have ever done in my life. While we were going down, I was super nervous. As we swam around the ocean, it was hard to look around for signs of any creatures. We did see a crustacean and lots of red bass, who use our flashlights to hunt for other fish.

After going to bed early, we were woken up at 5:30 am for a 6:00 am dive. We went off with our class again and did a deep dive. We dove to 28 m! It was crazy deep, but very interesting. Afterwards, our instructor showed us around the best dive site of the trip. There were coral and fish everywhere! We also swam through a small swim through in between the coral.

After our deep dive, we had breakfast and then it was time to get ready for the next dive already. This time, our class was to learn how to navigate underwater. We were sent off in our buddy pairs to do some manuevers underwater before exploring the site alone. The goal was to explore and then surface near the boat. David and I ended up doing pretty fine even though we didn't go where we expected. At least, we made it by the boat!

As we were hanging out with Sophia and Eddie, we realized that Adam and Brandon still hadn't returned. All of a sudden, we heard the signal for any divers to surface in case of emergency. We went to check it out and of course, Chaos were missing. That means the boat was looking for Chaos. They eventually surfaced 100 m away from the boat and had to be brought back through a dingy. The only reason they surfaced was because they were low on air. They were so far away that they didn't hear the signals! Obviously, they had failed the navigation part of our class, but were still considered as passing.

For our last dive of our trip, David and I finally got to dive with Sophia and Eddie! Eddie was our psuedo guide. I was very impressed with his navigation skills. We finished exploring our last reef and were able to spend the rest of the afternoon lounging on the deck.




I definitely want to go back to the Great Barrier Reef again! Hopefully we'll go again before we leave!

After we returned from the dive, we had to spend a day in Cairns before flying. Our day of relaxation/rainforest is next...

Cairns Tropical Zoo

On Thursday, we all headed to Cairns in our own ways. David and I flew from Sydney on a different flight from Adam and Brandon, who were also leaving from Sydney. Sophia and Eddie flew directly to Cairns through Melbourne, while Elaine and Jim connected through Sydney (but were still on a different flight from any of us coming out of Sydney). Amazingly we all landed in the same airport about 1 hour apart from each other.

After we checked in, we tried to go to the Cairns Tropical Zoo as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, due to bad taxi service, it took us about an hour to even get transportation. Luckily for us, we still had time at the zoo to see plenty of the shows and tour the whole zoo.

As soon as we entered, there was a bird waiting for Eddie to play with him.


We headed over to the wombat exhibit to hear a talk about koalas. After learning about the koalas and wombats, the lady brought the koala around so we could pet him.




BUT we didn't go to the zoo to just pet the koala, we went to the zoo to CUDDLE one! Besides the standard photo that they gave us, they allowed us to take our own photos as well. Here's a group shot. Lucky Sophia got to be the one holding her.


In the koala exhibit, there was mommy with her joey.


We also got to hang out with a sleeping wombat. Sophia and Eddie practiced their chilling skills with him.


Then, I got to wrestle with a saltwater crocodile. The zoo people made sure that I held onto him tight so he wouldn't get away. I felt like I was going to hurt him.


Like almost all the zoos in Australia, there was a petting/feeding area for the kangaroos. Unlike the one in Tasmania, these kangaroos weren't scared of anything. They let Jim chill out with them.


I was able to feed one out of my hand.


Our final show of the day was the free flight bird show. They had all these trained birds swooping around the top of our heads. There was this really pretty pink cockatoo.


This white cockatoo was super trained. He could respond to simple commands as well as jump around on a rock pretending to be a kangaroo.


As the zoo person was discussing about the barn owl, he appeared out of his hole in the tree. It was like magic. Later, we discovered there was a small box holding the owl and at the right time, the box was opened so the owl would appear.


The final exhibit of the show was an eagle! It almost took the head off of a little kid, but it was pretty amazing to see it up close.


Even though all the girls were the only ones who paid to cuddle a koala, we made sure to get a photo of Eddie with his koala. =)


After the zoo closed, we went into Cairns center and walked around. After dinner, we headed back to our accommodations to get some rest before waking up early to go DIVING!

Day 2 in Sydney with the Gang

After everyone woke up at 7am, I finally strolled back into our apartment around 8am. David and I had decided to crash at our friend's place since trying to fit 6 people in our little place was not ideal. Since it was gorgeous outside, we decided that it would be a beach day. We took the ferry over and sat in the front row outside.

See how we could get photos without anyone's head in our way...


Elaine and Jim are enjoying the sun!


Since we wanted to meet up with Chaos, who were already in the city, we decided to head to Darling Harbour to walk around before heading to Bondi. We stopped by Town Hall and took a photo before continuing on our journey.


Of course, we wanted to get a group photo in front of the Real World house.


Finally, we arrived at Bondi Beach. After fulfilling everyone's desire of fish and chips, we settled into the sand. The amazing parts about this beach is that there are very few fat people (maybe none), there are lots of men in speedos and there are lots of topless women. I think almost everyone (except me) decided to leave their mark in the ocean since they were too lazy to find a real bathroom.


Even though we weren't that hungry, we decided to get a snack at Bite Me. The mini burger hit the spot!


Since it was St. Patty's day, we felt like we had to drink something. I brought them to Kings Cross and we went to a bar called the Goldfish Bowl. We asked if they could make Irish Car Bombs, but apparently, it's not a popular drink in Australia. The bartender had to figure out how much he was going to charge us for them. Here we are drinking as fast as possible. Look how Eddie is basically done and I've just started.

By stopping in Kings Cross, I was really dragging them to eat at Pie Face. Even though there are lots of locations of Pie Face, I can only remember to drag people to the one in King Cross. At least it's also a good tourist point.


The next day, Elaine, Sophia, Jim and Eddie headed off to Melbourne for 2 days, and we were going to meet up with them in Cairns. I spent those 2 days working and having dinner with Adam and Brandon. We watched a decent amount of tv and had more fish and chips.

Next stop in our journey: Cairns (Great Barrier Reef)

Reunion! - Day 1

After Steph left me alone, 2 of my favorite girls came to Australia with their boys. The Chaos also came at the exact same time. We went from a couple of guests to having 6!

After uniting in Circular Quay, we went straight to the markets for some shopping and food tastes!


Of course, I had another kangaroo race. No video this time, but I think I lost again!


Jim hoisted Elaine up on her shoulders despite her protests. Luckily, she still smiles for photos regardless.


We gave our cameras to some other people to get a group photo. Unfortunately, the tourist didn't understand the concept of the zoom feature.


As we walked to the Opera House, we were lured into this street performer. By the time she fit herself into this box, half of our group managed to burn their feet.


Finally a GOOD group photo with the bridge.


After giving the tour of the Opera House, we headed to the Botanial Gardens. We ended up hanging out with some rocks and eating doritos.


Elaine tried to jump from one to the other.


Then, Adam tried to do a handstand on a tall rock.

Which propelled Jim to try to do one on a shorter rock. He didn't quite make it up straight.


Dave was looking all GQ.


Since it was getting close to dusk, the bats are were starting to fly around. We stood their watching the bats for a relatively long time before we decided it was time to eat.


After our long day in Sydney, we went back to Manly and convinced Charlie and Lily to throw a BBQ for us and our friends. The jetlagged crew barely made it to dinner before they ended up passing out. But don't worry, the jet lag caused them to wake up at 7am the next day!

Sorry for the delay in photos/posts! With the guests and work, we've barely had time to relax at home. I'm finally getting back into a routine. =)