Ultra-Adventure in Queensland -- Spring Break 2010! -- PART 2
All right, so here is the end all be all of my spring break blogging endeavors. It has certainly been a long time coming. Nonetheless the following details the rest of my CRAZY trip up the Eastern Coast of Australia. What is to follow is literally an adrenaline-pumping rollercoaster ride of adventure and near-insanity.
CAIRNS & THE GREAT BARRIER REEF
Day 7:
Diving the Reef: Now, I came to Australia with only a few expectations. I knew straight from the moment I arrived that I wanted to go to the Great Barrier Reef. Seriously, after hearing that this proclaimed natural wonder of the world could be seen from outer space, I knew that I had to venture up and check it out. Moreover, I wanted to earn my scuba diving license while in Australia; however, due to higher priorities and a severe case of laziness, I never got around to getting my license. Luckily, many companies offer single dive tours, so we were able to head out for a scuba adventure at the reef.
After a quick PB&J breakfast (as savvy backpackers, we ate PB&J and cereal for nearly every meal besides dinner to save cash), we walked over to the Cairns harbor to board a yacht for our scuba trip to the reef. We set sail with Ocean Spirit Cruises out onto the great ocean blue. We took a group shot with the ships photographer, in which my mate Kristen sported a super cool lifesaver necklace. Not long after that, many people in our group passed out and tanned on the deck due to a big night out the night before. Once again, we totally lucked out as the sun began to creep out through the clouds. Success! We were awoken by our skipper over the loudspeaker and directed to head inside for our dive instructions. There, we learned the diving basics. For instance, the “okay sign” works as a question and an answer while submerged. We also learned the importance of equalizing your ears to avoid feeling like your head is going to explode. Unfortunately, that’s all I remember, which is a consequence of my ridiculous blogging procrastination. Anyways, we stinger suited up and were soon ready to dive.
The dive was phenomenal! Even though my dive instructor practically had me on a leash, I was felt as though I was on another planet.
I was practically an astronaut sucking air through my space helmet and descending through anti-gravitational space. Sorry for the extended metaphor, but it was an awesome feeling.
The reef was practically glowing with extraordinary gold and orange hues.
I swam through narrow canyons of 15-foot coral walls with all kinds of sea life covering them.
It was absolutely nuts! I saw fish in literally every color, purple-mouthed giant clams, starfish, lobster antenna, and even…wait for it…. drumroll please…. FOUND NEMO!
He and a few of his other clownfish friends were spending day nestling in their anemones.
That by far finished my day of scuba diving on an excellent note!
On another note, our dive instructor showed a jellyfish that doesn’t sting and upon telling us how people are dumb for assuming that every jellyfish can cause harm, he realized he was being stung by a blue bottle jelly.
He quickly poured vinegar over his sting as we had a good laugh at the irony.
To celebrate a wicked day at the reef, the gang and I dined once again at P.J. O’Brien’s once again. The night continued with a 2-for-1 drink specials at a really fun bar called the Woolshed and a booming dance party back at Gilligan’s. We showcased our awesome dance moves in the dance cages at Gilligan’s and even made friends with some of the local people of Aboriginal descent. They really knew how to party!
Day 8:
Skydiving: The high energy and extreme spring break carried on as we awoke to go skydiving the next day. I swear I experienced every possible emotion in the time leading up to this day. I was nervous, anxious, excited, jittery, relaxed, doubtful, confident, and at times terrified. Like, I had heard of this condition called the bends that can occur when you fly shortly after scuba diving. I guess that the nitrogen left in your blood from the tank can cause blood clots when the pressure changes while flying. I remember from when Danny dove in Thailand that there is like a 20-hour rule, and we were definitely cutting it close. All I could do was trust our travel agent who had aligned these days together.
From the second we arrived to the diving location, we were quickly directed to fill out liability and code of conduct forms. I hardly had the time to think about pre-dive jitters, and within 20 minutes of arriving, we had geared up, met our divemaster, ran through some diving protocol, and began loading into the airport-bound bus. My dive masters name was Dougie, a laid-back bloke whose sense of humor chilled me out and got me hyped for the thrill. Arriving to the aircraft was a rush all of its own. There were 8 of us diving together and somehow we all managed to fit into a tiny little aircraft. As we took off, Dougie assured me that there was no turning back now and we began to ascend up to our 14,000 foot jumping point. Because Dougie and I were among the first to enter the aircraft, we were also to be among the last to jump (second to last actually).
Things were going great as we ascended and I enjoyed the checking out the dynamic views of lush hills and the gleaming oceanfront. It wasn’t until we reached our maximum height and the doors swung open that the shock factor erupted in the plane. My buddy Nick was the first to go and quickly after that pandemonium ensued as everyone enthusiastically started screaming and laughing. People started dropping like flies, both literally and metaphorically. It all happened so fast. Once I had scooted over to the edge of the aircraft, my memory of the event sort of goes photographic. I remember the terrifying bliss of the first plunge, but everything else is sort of funny and fuzzy. It was both the quickest and longest minute of my life if that makes any sense. I both loved it and feared it all at once, but it was a wild ride nonetheless. The feeling of the rushing winds nailing me in the face and the sound of pure silence (apart form my screamingf of course) were overwhelmingly awesome. Before I know it, Dougie had pulled the parachute and it was a smooth sail down the rest of the way. He even let me maneuver the chute for a while, as I pulled the cords, which allowed us to turn and spiral downward. Spiraling was a thrill of its own, causing a whirling spinart view of blues and greens. Tandem skydiving is the very essence of “living on the edge” and I am so psyched that I accomplished it!
We spent the rest of the morning watching our videos. They were hilarious! Mine was quite surprising, however, as I do not appear to express the thrill and excitement that I remembered form the dive. Straight from the jump, my face went to pure terror. Although the visual terror subsided a bit as the video continued, unfortunately even my “Hi mom!” and “Rock on!” shutouts are a bit dimmed by the intensity all over my face. Even now, I still attribute the terrified expression to the tight goggles I wore on the dive. I firmly still assert that my big head caused the tightened goggles to pull my eyebrows and other parts of my face inward, causing a less than happy look. Anyhow, feel free to let me know if you would like to check out the video, and you can decide for yourself. It’s a good laugh!
Whitewater Rafting: We relaxed for a bit that afternoon to recover from our skydiving escapades. We had some lunch and then once again boarded a tour bus to head over to the river for some extreme whitewater rafting. Now I’ll be honest, rafting seemed is a little less adventurous, especially after skydiving that morning, but it was still a great time. We had a blast cruising through wild rapids down the river, and many extreme drops and dips hurled us out of the boat. Just check out the photos to see the exciting time we had while rafting. We definitely got wet and wild on that adventure!
That night we turned the city out to go out with a bang before we left Cairns! We went to a club called The Heritage, which featured teapot drink specials, wild strobe lights, scandalous dancing poles, and a guest DJ from the group Ministry of Sound. The final night of our trip was easily our biggest yet. We all got to show off our Fresher Dances to the random people at the club, and we just had a great time celebrating the end of our crazy, wild, adventurous, exciting, extreme week up in Queensland. Spring Brean ‘010! Wooooo!
SPRING BREAK ‘010: THE BREAKDOWN
Spring Breakers:
Jennifer Brick, Kayla Carnahan, Richard Chen, Robert Compitello, Nicholas Galante, Alicia Gorecki, Nicholas Heath, Sarah Karron, Timothy Machat, Kristen Nepocemeno, Michael O’Hara, Dana Popp, Talia Shtein, Kelsey Van Nostrand
Rules:
- The phrase “spring break” must directly be followed by a group “Woo!”
- No saying “no” without an extremely reasonable reason, in order to encourage the best time possible on Spring Break ‘010…. Woo!
References:
Shtein, Talia. The Journal of Talia Shtein. South African Notebook Press: 2010.
We conquered a crazy 3-mile hike throughout the gargantuan King's Canyon and marveled over the wild rock formations. There were also these awesome red-orange (orange-red?) wave-like patterns that created a gyrating sensation throughout the canyons, and some way cool fossilized shells and water patterns exemplified the fact that the whole place was once submerged under the oceans. It was very interesting to learn about how aboriginal heritage is passed down through stories, since there is no established written language. To wrap up the first day of the camping trip, we created a fire and cooked some kangaroo/ veggie mince. As we layed and stargazed, we spotted the Milky Way and Skip even taught us how to utilize the Southern Cross as a personal compass. Slowly but surely we all zipped up into our swags and fell asleep.
The next day we awoke and traversed Kata Tujta. We hiked along some once again BEAUTIFUL rock formations and enjoyed witnessing some faces within the rocks. Skip utilized the formations and to tell us the Aboriginal sotries of creation, which was awesome. Later we drove over to the Aboriginal Culture Center, where we were privelidged to learn a little bit about Aboriginal religion, diet, history, society. Skip then led us on a hiking tour around a bit of Uluru, where Skip pointed our some epic cave paintings and sacred sights and told us the stories about the rock. For instance, various locations on/around the rock serve as ceremonial coming-of-age sites for men and women. The stories really helped me appreciate the rock and gave me an awesome glimpse into Aboriginal culture. What I was also astounded by was the fact that such a huge, giant, enormous, single rock formation could have just spouted up out of the ground. ASTONISHING! We got to take some fun touristy sunset photos with the rock to end the day, and even shared the American culture with the group by making campfire s'mores (or least the closest thing we manage).
The tour ended with a super fun (and hilarious!) camel ride at a camel farm, and we spent another day back in the little town of Alice Springs. While there, we got to take a didgeridoo lesson and even got to interact with some Aboriginal women who were selling paintings, encrypted with the traditional dot art. I purchased one, and the artist described the symbols that adorned it of Aboriginal women digging for reptilian foods beneath the earth. We later attended a speaker session of an artist who shared his artwork and stories about his time spent at an Aboriginal community. 
