Cairns + Sydney + Bye Australia!!

For our last leg of the trip, we drove from Airlie Beach up to Cairns. We took a break in Townsville at the library for a bit, then had to pass out in a rest area for the night before actually making it up there. When we did get to Cairns, it was so hot and tropical so we headed up a little further into the Daintree forest for some shade. We ended up going to the Mossman Gorge and going for a short hike in the rainforest and a dip in one of the creeks (no crocs woohoo!). They definitely don't call it the "wet tropics" for nothing... there was always a shower seeping though, nice and refreshing when it was super hot out. The city itself is really cute, lots of nice shops and markets. We ended up driving up a bit further and sleeping in a rest stop right next to the beach... soo hot and hard to sleep whew!

Got up early the next morning because Glen was going on a scuba diving day trip that day. I ended up going to the outlets and to the mall haha... but the scuba diving trip sounded amazing and I wish I went but I backed out:( I'm lame. He saw nemos and sharks and got to pet a giant fish... he said it was the highlight of his Australia trip. So! If you come to Australia... Cairns is the place to go diving. I'll let you know which company he went with. I met him at the lagoon (another public swimming pool down by the beach... so nice!) and we went for dinner at The Green Ant Cantina for some Mexican food... it was yum but a bit pricey, but they have 2-for-1 days during the week so those are deffs the days to go. We had to return our rental car so we didn't have a place to stay that night and didn't want to get a hostel/hotel since our flight was leaving at 6:30am to go back down to Sydney sooo we slept at the airport. It was actually pretty nice, the arrivals area had a shower and there were some other people sleeping there too, but I probably only slept a couple of hours then hopped on the plane!

Met up with Stew and his girlfriend Hayley at the airport in Sydney and went to the "Rock n Roll" Markets at a local lawn bowling club. Lots of cool accessories and clothes, and of course cheap beer haha! They had a band too and food... it was awesome. Hope Vancouver gets into the market thing... I love them!!! Later that night, we went to Stew's friend Arif's place for a legit Aussie Barbie (finally!) and we ate kangaroo! It was so delicious I was surprised! Mmmmm... stayed over at Stew's apartment in the city where I am now... our flight leaves at 6pm for New Zealand. I'm so sad to leave Australia! It's been so awesome and lots of beautiful weather. Hard to believe a month has passed... we've done so much since we've been here! But I'll be back for sure... here's a list of my favourite things while traveling from Melbourne all the way up to Cairns:

• The Blue Mountains (about 90 mins for Sydney). Awesome hiking and beautiful sights! Stop at the Jenolan Caves too but don't bother doing a tour... you see lots of cool stuff for free anyways.
• The City of Melbourne! Go to the Victoria Markets for lots of awesome food, and take the free tourist bus that goes all around the city... fo free! If you have a bike, cycle the Yarra River and trails. And go down Brunswick Street for awesome food like pizza at Bilbo's or vege burritos at The Vege Bar.

Whitsunday Islands

After our trip to Fraser Island, we had one and a half days to get up to Airlie Beach for our Whitsunday Sailing trip... about an 8 hour drive. We stopped at Noosa for the day since everyone had been talking about it and we didn't want to miss it. Sounds like it used to be a quaint surfy hippie town like Byron, but now it looks pretty expensive and a vacationing/retirement spot for the wealthy. Lots of nice bars, restaurants and designer shops. The beach looked really nice too. From here, we drove to Rockhampton to take a break from driving and try out some of Australia's best beef. It's a cool little town that is kind of like the Alberta of Australia... they have rodeos and cowboy bars and lots of cows. One place in town, The Great Western, has rodeo practice on Wednesdays and Fridays and a cheap food menu so that's a big tourist stop in town. Sadly, we were there on a Monday. If you have to use the computer while in Rockhampton, go to the library... one of the nicest I've ever seen! And the internet is fast hehe... We finally got our beef after waiting a while for the dinner menu to come up, and it was alright, I don't think we went to the right place though, we ended up at an Irish bar. Oh well.

We drove for a bit longer into the night until we almost ran out of gas and decided to sleep overnight at a gas station that was closed to wait til it opened in the morning so that we could actually make it to Airlie Beach. The next morning, we got a phone call from the sailing company saying that our boat had broken down and that we would be taking another boat... that left in 45 minutes. So, we had to race down to the dock and get everything packed while we were still driving, but we ended up making it there on time thankfully! Recognized some people from our Fraser Trip, there was about 23 people in total with 3 workers, and we set out on the Avatar... a catamaran instead of a sailboat.

The weather wasn't looking too good when we set sail, and indeed it started to downpour. It only lasted a little while (thankfully!) and we were able to make it to our first snorkelling spot without rain. Saw lots of different colored corals, lots of different fish and Glen spotted a turtle sitting down between the coral. On this trip, the food was made for us which was really nice... sailed for a bit longer then set anchor and drank more goon.

The next day we set sail for Whitehaven Beach, which was named "The World's Best Beach" and "Top Eco Friendly Beach". Our deck hand drove us in on a little tinny to a trailhead that you could walk up to a viewpoint or down to the beach. The viewpoint was amazing! The sand is so white and created these cool patterns against the bright blue water... really cool. When we got down to the beach, the water was so clear that you could see little sharks and the sand was so fine... unlike any sand I've ever seen/felt before. We spent a couple of hours here then set out for another snorkel... didn't see much this time. There was one more snorkel I didn't end up doing (but Glen did) and he said it was a bit better... but he didn't find any Nemos. Ended up putting down the anchor at the snorkel spot and had a relaxing evening playing cards with peeps and dying of fullness after eating a huge dinner.

The final morning, we set sail early in order to get back to the marina by 9:30am. Got onto the mainland and headed to the Lagoon... a public pool area where you can swim without stinger suits woohoo! Had a quick dip before getting on the road again to drive up to our final destination on our trip: Cairns.

** For our sailing trip, we went with the company Oz Sail. It was $290 + $60 fees for two nights and 2 days. If you go on a Whitsunday sailing trip, I suggest you bring:

• sea sickness pills hahaha... I didn't actually get sick but I felt like I was going to... it was really rocky in the beginning.
• your own snorkel/mask/flippers since the ones on board were pretty ghetto.