Ultra-Adventure in Queensland -- Spring Break 2010! -- PART 3

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:

1. The phrase “spring break” must directly be followed by a group “Woo!”
2. 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.  

Ultra-Adventure in Queensland -- Spring Break 2010! -- PART 2

Sorry for the long wait everyone!  I had a slew of essays and group projects to tackle these past few weeks.

Day 4: Upon waking up for our last day on the Hababi, we were once again directed to stinger suit up and hop into the water for another snorkel.  This last snorkel was pretty cool, but definitely did not top swimming with Elvis and friends.  After that we sped back to Airlie Beach. 

BACK TO AIRLIE BEACH

Our next leg of the trip was an adventure of its own.  Now, we arrived in Airlie at about 11AM, and disembarked the Habibi.  We had rented three cars to drive up the eastern coast to reach Cairns, but could not pick them up until about 2 PM.  We used the time in between to do some simple backpacker things.  For instance, we enjoyed a nice “homeless shower,” as I like to call it, in the public showers at the lagoon; however, this was not just a simple rinse.  After sailing for three days with no shower stalls on our boat, this shower was the whole gamut— wash, rinse, AND repeat.  We seriously did not even mind the attention that we got from passersby as this shower almost humanized us again.

After indulging in some Greek gyros, we later walked up the street to retrieve our vehicles.  The others drove lame Camry’s, but my car was the big daddy of them all – a candy-red Suzuki Swift.  If you are unfamiliar with the legend that is the Sazuki Swift, please refer to the photos and maybe even consider some extra Google’ing.  Anyhow, beginning the drive was… albeit… terrifying! I was so nervous to drive on the other side of the road, but I had to keep my gameface on to convince my passengers (Bobby, Kelsey, and Jenny) that I was confident and chill.  It took me a while to stop driving in the bike path, but soon enough even I was almost convinced that I knew what I was doing!  Playing car games, telling most embarrassing moment stories, and even projectile red soda from Kelsey’s unexpected cacophony did not even faze me!

As we continued, it almost felt like second nature (not first, mind you) to drive on the opposite side, and I was able to relax and enjoy the scenery with my car-mates. The panoramic landscapes were nothing short of gorgeous!  We drove through enormous fields and lush mountainous mountains. We even passed a giant mango!  Apparently Australians love giant roadside attractions – one of the many useless but awesome Aussie facts I have learned in my Australia Now class.  One of the biggest challenges of driving for me was the fact that we kept surpassing cars ahead of us by zooming past in the oncoming traffic lane, which is a very common thing on empty highways throughout Oz.  The lame Camry’s of our group would easily overtake slower cars, but “Team Hotwheels,” as me and my carmates referred to our car group, struggled to make the moves even when I was flooring it!  This also encouraged the other cars to coin the cruel nickname “the little engine that could” for our Sazuki. Team Hotwheels owns!

TOWNSVILLE

 

We arrived in Townsville by sunset.  We had previously heard that Townsville was the most under-rated town in Queensland, but we wanted to check it out for ourselves.  After a pasta dinner at the Italian restaurant next to our hostel, we hit the dance clubs.  Now, Townesville was pretty much the Jersey Shore of Australia, with meathead guys, trashy chicks, and enough self-tanner to feed an entire third world country.  We did have fun dancing and making fun of the weird crowd though.

Day 5: The next morning, we hit the road to travel up the Cairns, home of the Great Barrier Reef.  Once again there was lots of fun car games and overtaking on the highway.  The best part of this drive were the ultra-hilarious road signs like  “Rest stop or death stop,” “Rest if sleepy,” “Survive this drive,” and the side-splitting “Slow down stupid” to name a few.  The signs were sooooooo funny but also a little daunting at times.

CAIRNS AND THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

We arrived in Cairns early that evening.  We stayed at Gilligrans hostel, which was by totally the most luxurious, cleanest, nicest, funnest, awesomest, bestest hostel I have ever stayed in for sure!  The rooms were air-conditioned; the bar had super-fun strobe lights and bumping music playing, and the sandy-bottom pool was compelete with a waterfall. Our stay included free Bolognese dinners, which were tasty but ridiculously small in portion.  For this reason, we had a second awesome roast beef dinner at the Irish pub PJ O’Briens. That night we went out to celebrate our first night in Cairns!

Day 6:

Cape Tribulation: The next morning, our 12-person groups assembled to meet our tour guide for cape Tribulation.  Our tour guide’s name was Peter, a super smart Aussie with a thick accent.  We hopped on the bus and started our tour at Mosman Gorge, where we got to hike through the rainforest and feast our eyes upon a giant river.  We then drove through Port Douglas, one of the ritziest celebrity vacation spots in Queensland. According to Peter, many Holloywood celebrities dress walk around incognito to ward of paparazzi and obsessed fans.  For instance, he spotted pointed out Anglelina Jolie who was mysteriously under the guise of a small Chinese man. (Hardy Hardy Har Har).  After a good laugh, our bus boarded a ferry to cruise across the river to Daintree.  There, we hit up the Daintreee Wild Zoo, where we got to visit come vicious crocs, magnificent blue-headed cassowaries, and hungry wallabies.  Following the zoo, we hiked through the Daintree rainforest at Cape Tribulation.  We saw some awesome plant life there like the hollowed-out and webbed fig trees.  So sick!

After lunch, we got to run around the Cape Trip Beach.  It was so nice to hang out by the beach unafraid of salt-water crocs, unlike Airlie beach. We made human pyramids and took some excellent tourist-y photos there.  From there, we feasted on some ice cream at the Daintree Ice Cream Factory, enjoying delicious native flavors like passion fruit, pineapple, wattle seed, and black sapote.  The tour finished up with a croc river cruise, which was way cool.  My favorite part of the day was easily how Peter would end every single announcement over the bus’s P.A. system with a downward arching tone as he said the infamous Aussie quote, “No worries.”  There were copious Peter impressions to follow this awesome daytrip.  Great day!