I've only posted a few of my favourite pics. There were too many photos to post, so you can find them all here:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=soqaq08.6lxbkyjs&x=0&y=-psevbh&localeid=en_US
I warn you in advance, this is going to be a long entry. So many wonderful, crazy, hilarious, and unexpected things happened along the way on my friend Siobhan and my 3-week adventure up the east coast, I don’t want to leave anything out! I hope I’m able to share these stories in a way that draws you closer to our experiences. Now pull up a chair….
I started the trip by flying from Sydney to Byron Bay to meet up with Siobhan there. She and I met last year on my trip to New Zealand and have been friends ever since, so we decided to do the east coast together back in February since we knew we both wanted to do the same things. In Byron we stayed at a hostel called the Arts Factory, which we were told was a great place. Little did we know that we’d practically be sleeping outside in their so called “Surf Shacks” and be awoken no later than 5am by the annoying Cockatoos, Kookaburra’s, and crazy brush-turkeys chasing each other on the aluminum roof of our “shack”.
The following day we decided to take a day trip on the Hippie Bus from Byron to Nimbin, a little hippie town about an hour west of Byron Bay known as the “alternative village” where most backpackers go to get some “special cookies” or “special grass”. Ok… enough with the “quotations”. Anyway, Siobhan and I did try one of the special cookies, and we were specifically warned not to eat too much too fast, so we practically ate crumbs in 30 minute intervals cause we were worried about what it might do to us. Both of us can admit now it made us a little lethargic, but were adamant then that it wasn’t working. After our little Nimbin tour, we stopped at this random dude Paul’s house where we had a tour of his property and a little snack. He lives on this beautiful piece of land just outside Nimbin, but has NO electricity and makes crazy art pieces out of junk. Still not sure why that stop was part of the tour, but it was interesting to say the least. I think the funniest part of this day tour was how hyper and excited everyone was on the bus ride there, and how quiet and mellow everyone was on the way back. Must’ve had something to do with the cookies.
After 2 nights of little sleep due to the crazy birds as well as dancing the night away at Cheeky Monkeys, and 2 days chillin’ on the beach and checking out Nimbin, we headed north to Surfers Paradise. The only way I can describe Surfers is that it’s a cross between Disney World, Niagara Falls, and Las Vegas. Siobhan and I went to the Movie World theme park where we went on every single ride and even rode the Scooby Doo roller coaster twice! Oh yeah, good times! Other than the theme parks and one big long beach, Surfers didn’t have too much to offer, so we moved on to Brisbane.
We met up with Siobhan’s friend Brian and his friend Dave our first night there to watch the Rugby game between QLD and NSW. Have I told you how big sports are here in Australia? You could almost say Australians worship their sports above anything else. Even the newscasts dedicate more time to sports than to local and world news combined! Anyway, point being that this match was a must see and the bar was packed with crazy sports fanatics. It was great fun as a one-off, but not an everyday thing for me. Since Brisbane is quite small, we took a day trip to Moreton Island, one of the largest sand islands in the world. Once there we snorkeled around the shipwrecks and went sandboarding/tobogganing in the sand dunes which was quite fun and amusing, except for all that sand getting in every possible place you could think of! That evening we met up with Brian and Dave again for our last night in Brisbane.
After only 3 hours sleep, Siobhan and I forced ourselves out of bed, packed up our things and caught a train to take us to Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo. We spent most of the day walking around like zombies because of how tired we were, but we did see a few animals as well as the crocodile show, which was pretty freaky. We also saw Steve’s wife Terri Irwin walking around, which was kinda cool. We then jumped on a courtesy bus that took us up to a small town called Noosa.
Noosa was beautiful and I wish we had been able to spend more time there, but we were on a very tight schedule. We spent 1 day there checking out the beaches and catching a bit of a surfing competition on Sunshine Beach. Then it was off again, this time to Harvey Bay where we were to start our Fraser Island tour.
For those who don’t know, Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world, stretching over 123 kilometers long and with an area of 184,000 hectares. We were put into a group of 7 – Siobhan, myself, and 5 other people we didn’t know. They gave us a 4WD truck, loaded us up with all the camping gear we needed for 3 days, gave us a crappy little map, and sent us on our way. No guide, just 7 of us whom knew nothing about each other, 6 of which had never even been camping before! What the heck were we thinking??? As it turned out as well, we only had 2 people that could even drive the truck since it was stick shift, and driving on sand isn’t as easy as some may think. I actually feared for my life at some points when we were driving around the inner parts of the island. The “road” was so bumpy and steep at parts, I thought we were going to roll over! The first day we spent some time chillin’ at Lake MacKenzie, a beautiful fresh water lake right in the middle of the island. Then we went to the SS Maheno ship wreck and then set up camp. This was real camping mind you where we just picked a spot up from the beach and pitched our tents there. No toilets, no showers, couldn’t even make a fire, and only 2 people in the group had headlights. We saw quite a few wild dingos on our first day, one of which even came to visit us on our camp site. Very cool!
On our second day we went for a little hike up to Indian Head where we were able to see a Manta Ray swimming in the water below. We also saw whales off the coast and little fresh water turtles at another fresh water lake on the island. That night Siobhan and I befriended some people from another group and went and played Frisbee on the beach with them in the dark. They had parked their truck in a way so that the headlights gave us some light. It started to rain, so we headed back to the camp site only to find that our tent had flooded with water and completely collapsed! We quickly gathered all our stuff from inside the tent and carried it all to the truck. In the process, Siobhan accidentally jammed her toe in the rusty metal part of the truck and started bleeding everywhere! We were both soaking wet by the time we had everything in the truck. We spent the rest of the night squished in the truck with all the food, coolers, rubber maid bin with all the dishes, pots, etc. and sand… lots and lots of sand EVERYWHERE! And poor Siobhan had to sleep with one leg out of her sleeping bag so as not to get blood inside it. On top of all that, about 20 minutes after I was finally able to fall asleep, water started to drip right on my face! Somewhere on the top storage shelf of the truck there was a window left open, but I was too exhausted to try and find my way to go close it so I slept the entire night with water dripping on my face! Now you can be rest assured that Siobhan and I have had many, many good laughs about this since, but I can also assure you, we definitely weren’t laughing at the time!
Our last day on Fraser Island was spent at a more relaxed pace. We took our time packing up and having breakfast… even were lucky enough to get a visit from a paramedic to make sure Siobhan’s toe was ok. Then we stopped at Lake Wabby for a quick photo op. before heading back to the ferry. We returned to Harvey Bay with enough time to have a quick shower and a bite to eat before jumping on a 12-hour overnight bus to Airlie Beach. Luckily we had 2 days to chill in Airlie and wash all the sand out of our clothes before going on our Whitsunday sailing trip. The night before we were to go sailing we heard on the news that Fraser Island had to be evacuated due to flooding and high water levels. How lucky were we to miss that by only 2 days! The weather along the gold coast actually got really bad and there was a lot of rain and flooding… thankfully we missed all of it and only had 1 day and 1 night of rain on our entire trip!
I would have to say sailing the Whitsundays was one of my favorite parts of the east coast. We booked ourselves on a 60ft sail boat that held 16 passengers. On the first day the skipper took us in small groups on the little dingy boat to search for turtles in this little bay where the water was really shallow so we could see them swimming around. Sometimes we would get so close to them that when they’d start to swim away, they’d splash all of us in the dingy… it was very cute! We also went to Whitehaven beach the first day. A beautiful, huge beach where the sand is so white and so fine it squeaks beneath your feet when you walk on it. The next day we went to the Tongue Bay lookout where we got an incredible view of Whitehaven beach. We also did a bit of snorkeling and chillaxin’ on the boat. And finally our last day we went on a nice 1.5 hour hike to the Spion Kop lookout which looks over the Whitsunday Islands, then we suntanned on the boat all the way back to the wharf. It was such a nice relaxing part of our trip… we couldn’t have asked for anything more.
After the Whitsundays we went to a place called Magnetic Island for a couple of days. There we rented a “Moke”, a little vehicle that’s sort of in between a car and a go cart. Funny thing… they were all stick shift vehicles and Siobhan’s licence had expired, so I found myself in a crash course for driving manual with Siobhan as my teacher. Aside from stalling about 50 times, including once on a steep hill, which I think made both our hearts stop for a second, I think I did ok! With the Moke we were able to explore all the beaches around the island and check out the shops and restaurants on our own. We also spent an afternoon at an animal wildlife centre where I got to hold a snake (ewwww!), a Black Red-tailed Cockatoo, and a crocodile (it was little). We also fed the Lorikeets, which turned out to be a bit more of an experience than we had bargained for as there were TONS of them all over us! I was laughing so much I could hardly stand! At one point Siobhan had so many birds on her she looked like some crazy bird lady. Ah, too hilarious!
After Magnetic Island, we made the last leg of our trip up to Cairns where we had a 2-day overnight dive trip planned on the Great Barrier Reef as both Siobhan and I are certified. The first 3 dives on the first day went well, except for our 3rd dive where we got a little disoriented and ended up having to swim a mile back to the boat after we surfaced. Unfortunately the hotel-size yacht we were staying on was too big to go pick up divers where ever they surfaced, and they only had a small boat for emergencies, so if you ended up far away from the boat you had to swim back! That night I knew we had a night dive planned, which I had been extremely nervous about since before we even left on this trip. When it came time to suit up for the night dive my heart started racing. We got to the dive deck for our briefing and someone who was looking over the back of the boat said, “Oh my God, look at all the sharks!”. I started shaking so much I could barely get my suit on, and I refused to look in the water. In case you're wondering how we could see anything in the water at night... the dive boat had a huge light on the top that was shining down on the water below, so that we could see. Eventually we were all ready to go and we had to make our way down to the platform, at which point I could no longer avoid looking into the water. When I looked down there were DOZENS of sharks swimming around below me. All I could think of was the same thing I thought just before I jumped out of a plane skydiving a few years back… “What the HECK am I doing?!?!?!”. And then I jumped in! I popped up breathing heavily and I didn’t want to put my head under the water cause I didn’t want to see how close the sharks were, so I just started swimming. Siobhan followed and we made our way to the moore line where we were to decend from. Our group went first. As we decended I could see all the sharks swimming around us. It was amazing! I was still scared as anything, but it was such a surreal experience, it was almost calming in a weird way. About half way down our guide told Siobhan and I to stop as there was a problem with one of the other people in our group and he had to go help him. So for a short time, Siobhan and I were on our own with our crappy little flashlights, floating in the darkness with sharks and big Groper fish swimming all around us. WHAT!?!?!? The guide came back only to tell us we had to go back up. We didn’t know what was going on as obviously you can’t talk to each other under the water, so we just followed him back up. We waited on the surface a bit before we were all ready to go back down again. On our 2nd decent my ears started to hurt and I couldn’t equalize, so unfortunately I wasn’t able to complete my dive. We went back up again and I told the group to go on without me. I swam back to the deck on my own, which was a little scary as I knew the sharks were still beneath me, but I managed to make it back on the boat! I was disappointed I wasn’t able to complete the night dive, but I pretty much got the gist of the experience anyway. I think the only thing I missed was seeing the big Groper fish eat the little fish when you shine the light on them. Siobhan told me afterwards that was pretty funny. Oh well… next time!
The following day we had 2 dives left to do. As if we thought all the excitement had been dealt with the night before… nope! On Siobhan and my 1st dive of the day we got so disoriented and lost that we ended up miles away from the boat! When we surfaced I panicked cause I couldn’t see the boat straight away. Eventually I spotted it as it looked so small in the distance. We started to swim. We got to a point where the reef was only a meter below us and the current was so strong that the waves were slamming us into the reef. I stopped swimming and said to Siobhan we won’t make it. We looked at each other and both lifted our arms in the air at the same time to signal for the rescue boat. It didn’t take long for them to come get us, but I was already pretty tired. When we got back to the main boat EVERYBODY was starring at us! We were so embarrassed. I couldn’t understand how everybody else was making it back to the boat until we went on our last dive of the day and realized they were all staying right under the boat! So that’s what we ended up doing for our last dive and it was great! We even finally saw a sea turtle and more sharks. A great end to a jam packed 2 days on the reef!
After partying the night away at the Woolshed we spent the last day of our east coast adventure tooting around Cairns doing some shopping and enjoying the last bit of warm temps and sunshine by the lagoon. Looking back at our trip I can’t believe how much we packed in in only 3 weeks. I had such an amazing time and feel so blessed that, other than our little tent mishap, everything went so smoothly, we had fantastic weather, did and saw everything we wanted to, and had many, many laughs!
We arrived back to Sydney with only a few days left before Siobhan and our other friend AnneMarie left Australia to do a bit more travelling before heading home. To my pleasant surprise, another friend, Kam, from back home was in Sydney, so I got the opportunity to spend time with him as well. We had a big send-off for the girls and enjoyed some good reminiscing of all our trips and experiences thus far. I will miss them both dearly, but plan to visit them in Ireland next year! Thanks for the good times ladies!
As for me…. well, I still have a few months to go, so stay tuned…
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=soqaq08.6lxbkyjs&x=0&y=-psevbh&localeid=en_US
I warn you in advance, this is going to be a long entry. So many wonderful, crazy, hilarious, and unexpected things happened along the way on my friend Siobhan and my 3-week adventure up the east coast, I don’t want to leave anything out! I hope I’m able to share these stories in a way that draws you closer to our experiences. Now pull up a chair….
I started the trip by flying from Sydney to Byron Bay to meet up with Siobhan there. She and I met last year on my trip to New Zealand and have been friends ever since, so we decided to do the east coast together back in February since we knew we both wanted to do the same things. In Byron we stayed at a hostel called the Arts Factory, which we were told was a great place. Little did we know that we’d practically be sleeping outside in their so called “Surf Shacks” and be awoken no later than 5am by the annoying Cockatoos, Kookaburra’s, and crazy brush-turkeys chasing each other on the aluminum roof of our “shack”.
The following day we decided to take a day trip on the Hippie Bus from Byron to Nimbin, a little hippie town about an hour west of Byron Bay known as the “alternative village” where most backpackers go to get some “special cookies” or “special grass”. Ok… enough with the “quotations”. Anyway, Siobhan and I did try one of the special cookies, and we were specifically warned not to eat too much too fast, so we practically ate crumbs in 30 minute intervals cause we were worried about what it might do to us. Both of us can admit now it made us a little lethargic, but were adamant then that it wasn’t working. After our little Nimbin tour, we stopped at this random dude Paul’s house where we had a tour of his property and a little snack. He lives on this beautiful piece of land just outside Nimbin, but has NO electricity and makes crazy art pieces out of junk. Still not sure why that stop was part of the tour, but it was interesting to say the least. I think the funniest part of this day tour was how hyper and excited everyone was on the bus ride there, and how quiet and mellow everyone was on the way back. Must’ve had something to do with the cookies.
After 2 nights of little sleep due to the crazy birds as well as dancing the night away at Cheeky Monkeys, and 2 days chillin’ on the beach and checking out Nimbin, we headed north to Surfers Paradise. The only way I can describe Surfers is that it’s a cross between Disney World, Niagara Falls, and Las Vegas. Siobhan and I went to the Movie World theme park where we went on every single ride and even rode the Scooby Doo roller coaster twice! Oh yeah, good times! Other than the theme parks and one big long beach, Surfers didn’t have too much to offer, so we moved on to Brisbane.
We met up with Siobhan’s friend Brian and his friend Dave our first night there to watch the Rugby game between QLD and NSW. Have I told you how big sports are here in Australia? You could almost say Australians worship their sports above anything else. Even the newscasts dedicate more time to sports than to local and world news combined! Anyway, point being that this match was a must see and the bar was packed with crazy sports fanatics. It was great fun as a one-off, but not an everyday thing for me. Since Brisbane is quite small, we took a day trip to Moreton Island, one of the largest sand islands in the world. Once there we snorkeled around the shipwrecks and went sandboarding/tobogganing in the sand dunes which was quite fun and amusing, except for all that sand getting in every possible place you could think of! That evening we met up with Brian and Dave again for our last night in Brisbane.
After only 3 hours sleep, Siobhan and I forced ourselves out of bed, packed up our things and caught a train to take us to Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo. We spent most of the day walking around like zombies because of how tired we were, but we did see a few animals as well as the crocodile show, which was pretty freaky. We also saw Steve’s wife Terri Irwin walking around, which was kinda cool. We then jumped on a courtesy bus that took us up to a small town called Noosa.
Noosa was beautiful and I wish we had been able to spend more time there, but we were on a very tight schedule. We spent 1 day there checking out the beaches and catching a bit of a surfing competition on Sunshine Beach. Then it was off again, this time to Harvey Bay where we were to start our Fraser Island tour.
For those who don’t know, Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world, stretching over 123 kilometers long and with an area of 184,000 hectares. We were put into a group of 7 – Siobhan, myself, and 5 other people we didn’t know. They gave us a 4WD truck, loaded us up with all the camping gear we needed for 3 days, gave us a crappy little map, and sent us on our way. No guide, just 7 of us whom knew nothing about each other, 6 of which had never even been camping before! What the heck were we thinking??? As it turned out as well, we only had 2 people that could even drive the truck since it was stick shift, and driving on sand isn’t as easy as some may think. I actually feared for my life at some points when we were driving around the inner parts of the island. The “road” was so bumpy and steep at parts, I thought we were going to roll over! The first day we spent some time chillin’ at Lake MacKenzie, a beautiful fresh water lake right in the middle of the island. Then we went to the SS Maheno ship wreck and then set up camp. This was real camping mind you where we just picked a spot up from the beach and pitched our tents there. No toilets, no showers, couldn’t even make a fire, and only 2 people in the group had headlights. We saw quite a few wild dingos on our first day, one of which even came to visit us on our camp site. Very cool!
On our second day we went for a little hike up to Indian Head where we were able to see a Manta Ray swimming in the water below. We also saw whales off the coast and little fresh water turtles at another fresh water lake on the island. That night Siobhan and I befriended some people from another group and went and played Frisbee on the beach with them in the dark. They had parked their truck in a way so that the headlights gave us some light. It started to rain, so we headed back to the camp site only to find that our tent had flooded with water and completely collapsed! We quickly gathered all our stuff from inside the tent and carried it all to the truck. In the process, Siobhan accidentally jammed her toe in the rusty metal part of the truck and started bleeding everywhere! We were both soaking wet by the time we had everything in the truck. We spent the rest of the night squished in the truck with all the food, coolers, rubber maid bin with all the dishes, pots, etc. and sand… lots and lots of sand EVERYWHERE! And poor Siobhan had to sleep with one leg out of her sleeping bag so as not to get blood inside it. On top of all that, about 20 minutes after I was finally able to fall asleep, water started to drip right on my face! Somewhere on the top storage shelf of the truck there was a window left open, but I was too exhausted to try and find my way to go close it so I slept the entire night with water dripping on my face! Now you can be rest assured that Siobhan and I have had many, many good laughs about this since, but I can also assure you, we definitely weren’t laughing at the time!
Our last day on Fraser Island was spent at a more relaxed pace. We took our time packing up and having breakfast… even were lucky enough to get a visit from a paramedic to make sure Siobhan’s toe was ok. Then we stopped at Lake Wabby for a quick photo op. before heading back to the ferry. We returned to Harvey Bay with enough time to have a quick shower and a bite to eat before jumping on a 12-hour overnight bus to Airlie Beach. Luckily we had 2 days to chill in Airlie and wash all the sand out of our clothes before going on our Whitsunday sailing trip. The night before we were to go sailing we heard on the news that Fraser Island had to be evacuated due to flooding and high water levels. How lucky were we to miss that by only 2 days! The weather along the gold coast actually got really bad and there was a lot of rain and flooding… thankfully we missed all of it and only had 1 day and 1 night of rain on our entire trip!
I would have to say sailing the Whitsundays was one of my favorite parts of the east coast. We booked ourselves on a 60ft sail boat that held 16 passengers. On the first day the skipper took us in small groups on the little dingy boat to search for turtles in this little bay where the water was really shallow so we could see them swimming around. Sometimes we would get so close to them that when they’d start to swim away, they’d splash all of us in the dingy… it was very cute! We also went to Whitehaven beach the first day. A beautiful, huge beach where the sand is so white and so fine it squeaks beneath your feet when you walk on it. The next day we went to the Tongue Bay lookout where we got an incredible view of Whitehaven beach. We also did a bit of snorkeling and chillaxin’ on the boat. And finally our last day we went on a nice 1.5 hour hike to the Spion Kop lookout which looks over the Whitsunday Islands, then we suntanned on the boat all the way back to the wharf. It was such a nice relaxing part of our trip… we couldn’t have asked for anything more.
After the Whitsundays we went to a place called Magnetic Island for a couple of days. There we rented a “Moke”, a little vehicle that’s sort of in between a car and a go cart. Funny thing… they were all stick shift vehicles and Siobhan’s licence had expired, so I found myself in a crash course for driving manual with Siobhan as my teacher. Aside from stalling about 50 times, including once on a steep hill, which I think made both our hearts stop for a second, I think I did ok! With the Moke we were able to explore all the beaches around the island and check out the shops and restaurants on our own. We also spent an afternoon at an animal wildlife centre where I got to hold a snake (ewwww!), a Black Red-tailed Cockatoo, and a crocodile (it was little). We also fed the Lorikeets, which turned out to be a bit more of an experience than we had bargained for as there were TONS of them all over us! I was laughing so much I could hardly stand! At one point Siobhan had so many birds on her she looked like some crazy bird lady. Ah, too hilarious!
After Magnetic Island, we made the last leg of our trip up to Cairns where we had a 2-day overnight dive trip planned on the Great Barrier Reef as both Siobhan and I are certified. The first 3 dives on the first day went well, except for our 3rd dive where we got a little disoriented and ended up having to swim a mile back to the boat after we surfaced. Unfortunately the hotel-size yacht we were staying on was too big to go pick up divers where ever they surfaced, and they only had a small boat for emergencies, so if you ended up far away from the boat you had to swim back! That night I knew we had a night dive planned, which I had been extremely nervous about since before we even left on this trip. When it came time to suit up for the night dive my heart started racing. We got to the dive deck for our briefing and someone who was looking over the back of the boat said, “Oh my God, look at all the sharks!”. I started shaking so much I could barely get my suit on, and I refused to look in the water. In case you're wondering how we could see anything in the water at night... the dive boat had a huge light on the top that was shining down on the water below, so that we could see. Eventually we were all ready to go and we had to make our way down to the platform, at which point I could no longer avoid looking into the water. When I looked down there were DOZENS of sharks swimming around below me. All I could think of was the same thing I thought just before I jumped out of a plane skydiving a few years back… “What the HECK am I doing?!?!?!”. And then I jumped in! I popped up breathing heavily and I didn’t want to put my head under the water cause I didn’t want to see how close the sharks were, so I just started swimming. Siobhan followed and we made our way to the moore line where we were to decend from. Our group went first. As we decended I could see all the sharks swimming around us. It was amazing! I was still scared as anything, but it was such a surreal experience, it was almost calming in a weird way. About half way down our guide told Siobhan and I to stop as there was a problem with one of the other people in our group and he had to go help him. So for a short time, Siobhan and I were on our own with our crappy little flashlights, floating in the darkness with sharks and big Groper fish swimming all around us. WHAT!?!?!? The guide came back only to tell us we had to go back up. We didn’t know what was going on as obviously you can’t talk to each other under the water, so we just followed him back up. We waited on the surface a bit before we were all ready to go back down again. On our 2nd decent my ears started to hurt and I couldn’t equalize, so unfortunately I wasn’t able to complete my dive. We went back up again and I told the group to go on without me. I swam back to the deck on my own, which was a little scary as I knew the sharks were still beneath me, but I managed to make it back on the boat! I was disappointed I wasn’t able to complete the night dive, but I pretty much got the gist of the experience anyway. I think the only thing I missed was seeing the big Groper fish eat the little fish when you shine the light on them. Siobhan told me afterwards that was pretty funny. Oh well… next time!
The following day we had 2 dives left to do. As if we thought all the excitement had been dealt with the night before… nope! On Siobhan and my 1st dive of the day we got so disoriented and lost that we ended up miles away from the boat! When we surfaced I panicked cause I couldn’t see the boat straight away. Eventually I spotted it as it looked so small in the distance. We started to swim. We got to a point where the reef was only a meter below us and the current was so strong that the waves were slamming us into the reef. I stopped swimming and said to Siobhan we won’t make it. We looked at each other and both lifted our arms in the air at the same time to signal for the rescue boat. It didn’t take long for them to come get us, but I was already pretty tired. When we got back to the main boat EVERYBODY was starring at us! We were so embarrassed. I couldn’t understand how everybody else was making it back to the boat until we went on our last dive of the day and realized they were all staying right under the boat! So that’s what we ended up doing for our last dive and it was great! We even finally saw a sea turtle and more sharks. A great end to a jam packed 2 days on the reef!
After partying the night away at the Woolshed we spent the last day of our east coast adventure tooting around Cairns doing some shopping and enjoying the last bit of warm temps and sunshine by the lagoon. Looking back at our trip I can’t believe how much we packed in in only 3 weeks. I had such an amazing time and feel so blessed that, other than our little tent mishap, everything went so smoothly, we had fantastic weather, did and saw everything we wanted to, and had many, many laughs!
We arrived back to Sydney with only a few days left before Siobhan and our other friend AnneMarie left Australia to do a bit more travelling before heading home. To my pleasant surprise, another friend, Kam, from back home was in Sydney, so I got the opportunity to spend time with him as well. We had a big send-off for the girls and enjoyed some good reminiscing of all our trips and experiences thus far. I will miss them both dearly, but plan to visit them in Ireland next year! Thanks for the good times ladies!
As for me…. well, I still have a few months to go, so stay tuned…
