Australia: Day One!

 We went to Australia!  Our friend K wanted to take a trip after her deployment, and we eagerly volunteered to accompany her.  We confined our visit to the city of Cairns (pronounced "Kenz" by the locals) in northern Queensland state.

It is an ideal place to visit from Guam.  Same time zone, only a four hour direct flight.  We talked to a nice man from Melbourne who said it took him longer to get to Cairns than us!  Tropical paradise-ish like Guam- but so much better!  I can't say enough about how beautiful the weather was for the week we were there.  Warm in the day, but no trace of the muggy oppressiveness that is constantly on our little island.  And the nights!  Fresh and just on the perfect side of cool.

 Now, I've never really planned international travel before, so not really knowing what I was doing, I booked this package thing from this site. 

We arrived at midnight on Sunday night, and were taken directly to our hostel.  (More on that later...)

 Monday was our day on the Great Barrier Reef.

 

The marina at Cairns.

 The boat photographer ("Righty-O," and "No Worries"- I love Aussie vocabulary!)

 Filling out diving forms on the boat.  B and K went diving.  I am most definitely NOT a diver, so I enjoyed snorkeling.

 Fitzroy Island.  Someday I would love to spend a week just here.

 B and I while the boat let passengers on and off at Fitzroy.

 And K.  Notice how lovely and not red I am in these two pictures...  After the boat left Fitzroy Island, I decided to chance sea sickness (I've never been on a boat before, and was told to stay indoors in the middle to avoid getting queasy) and get some fresh air up on the bow.  I LOVED it!  I loved the boat bouncing in the waves, and having the wind in my face.  However... I got totally toasted from standing out there for two hours.  It takes two hours to get to the reef in Australia!  Isn't that crazy?  In Guam you just walk off the beach and it's right there.

 A note about these next pictures:  We had some issues with our GoPro, and it spent our Australia vacation in a box somewhere between Guam, California, Utah, and Guam.  (Gotta love shipping to our little kind-of-America-but-not-quite island...)  So I bought some cheapo film underwater cameras, and yeah, you get what you pay for.  These photos do no justice to the colors of this reef.  It was BEAUTIFUL!  I thought the fish were just as nice here in Guam, but the coral was definitely more colorful on the GBR.  B said he thought the diving better in Guam. 

 That's me.  They made us wear wetsuits, because the water was "cold".  I mean, it's no Jackson Lake in the Tetons by any stretch, but compared to the warm bath temp of Guam water, I was ok with having a wet suit...

 B and I. 

 Lots of tunnels and canyons in the reefs.

B, upside down...

This picture (above) makes me so sad...  That group of fish was posing in a bright ray of sunlight, and they sparkled blue and yellow and turquoise, and were just the prettiest thing I've ever seen.  I thought this photo was going up on my wall forever, but no...  Curse you Guam post office for not accepting my camera!!!

 Just kicking around in the Great Barrier Reef...

 That's our boat.  Interesting.  I did get extremely sick, and came so close to throwing up, but only each of the two times I got out of the water and in to the boat.  Going up those few stairs just did me in for some reason. 
We enjoyed our long ride back to Cairns, I had a nice long talk with a man from Melbourne.  Almost without exception, I found the Australian people we met to be the most friendly, easy-going people.  It was great!  (The exception, sadly, was in church, where no one seemed very friendly.)

 When we got back to Cairns, we walked all around town (looking for, shall we say, different accommodations...)

 This is the Esplanade Lagoon.  The Esplanade is a lovely park and walk that goes for miles along the water front.  The girls would have loved this pool, and there is also the hugest playground I've ever seen, called Muddy's Playground. 

 More Aussie vocab...

 While we were walking, we couldn't help but hear an enormous racket.  Turns out it came from these fruit bats!  Flying foxes, they're called here.  Roosting in these huge mango trees.  It was cool.

 I really liked how these palms looked in the Esplanade lights...

 The lagoon at night, and K playing with a gun.

We watched an incredible moonrise over the mountains, and then, since our hostel room was the only place available in the city (although we looked absolutely everywhere else- Australia was on their spring break...) we went to Woolworths and got B some ear plugs and went back to our room!