Prepare for a long post everybody.
As you can tell from the lack of posts, I’ve been very busy this month – this post will be dedicated to my Spring Break (the next will be about my “real” life in Sydney. Okay – so I know I say I’ve had “the best time of my life so far” a lot, but this time, I really mean it. Spring Break was easily the best week of my life, ever.
First stop: Cairns, Australia
Cairns is a little town about a 3-hour flight north of Sydney, this is the main town to visit the Great Barrier Reef. First, I’d like to mention the lack of airport security! My group and I got to the airport 2 hours early, expecting long lines to check in, for baggage, and security. I went through check-in, baggage, and security without even showing my ID! Even when boarding the plane, the attendants didn’t ask for an identification from any passengers. I was baffled, how could an airport be so relaxed about this. When going through security, for domestic flights – you don’t need to take your shoes off or remove liquids from your bag. I’m not complaining about the entire process because it was very quick and easy, it just really put the U.S. security into perspective. The moral of the story is, we made it safely Friday morning. In Cairns, our first stop was skydiving. Our flight landed 11.45am Cairns time, we were to skydive at 2.00pm. Unfortunately, our trip was canceled due to rain so we had to wait until Tuesday for the next available timeslot. That day we entered a volleyball tournament through our hostel. We had 12 in our group that were traveling together, made up two teams – we both lost. But as long as we had fun, right? Our hostel was nothing like I expected, it was almost like a resort. There was a bar and restaurant, travel agent, sand volleyball court, lagoon pool and our room had a balcony! Safe to say we had everything we could ever ask for.
The next day, our travel agent recommended a waterfall tour around the area. We all obliged and went on this daylong tour. We saw a total of 3 waterfalls and 1 freshwater lake. We went jumping off rocks, climbing terrifying trees, swimming in rivers, eating Australian barbecue, sliding on natural rock slides, swimming in the 2nd deepest lake in Australia, and flipping our hair like the Garnier Fructis girl (see picture for details J). It was absolutely exhausting, but it was an action packed day with good friends – what more can you ask.
That Sunday, we did the “classic Cairns” and went to the Great Barrier Reef. Yes, I saw one of the 7 Natural Wonders! Snorkeling was first, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so beautiful. Look up pictures of the Great Barrier Reef – that’s exactly what I saw. The colors, the fish, and the wildlife were incredible. I also bought the sting-proof suit for $7, somehow still got stung by a jellyfish on my neck and under my goggles. Keep in mind, those were the only two spots on my body that were not covered by the suit! I lived, so no complaints. Next was scuba diving. We had a long tutorial on how basically not to explode, none of us did luckily. Not going to lie, when I first jumped in the water with my 75lbs worth of equipment, I almost had a panic attack. It was such a weird feeling breathing under water, my brain kept telling me “you shouldn’t breathe under water, Kelsey”. But, I calmed down and saw the coolest fish ever! I found Nemo, a sting ray, some people even saw sharks and sea turtles. A few members of our group didn’t equalize their ears properly, so they ran into some issues. The one got a nasty ear infection, and the other two had ringing in their ears for days. My piece of advice, always equalize and always breathe.
Our last main adventure in Cairns was skydiving. I’ve never felt freer. I actually wasn’t scared to jump out of the plane at all. My instructor, Todd, and I hit it off and were just chatting up a storm. He was telling me about his children, I was telling him about my dog (basically my child). Before I knew it, we were 14,000 feet up in the air and the garage door in our plane was open and ready for bodies to free fall out of. Todd was the group leader, so we were last. Obviously I asked him to do crazy flips and he did not disappoint. We jumped out of the plane and I was on top of the world. There’s no better feeling than freefalling looking at such a scenic view. One the parachute was pulled, a sense of calm came over me. There was no wind, no talking, nothing but an uninterrupted view – my favorite. We landed safely, I immediately took my gear off and did a backflip because the adrenaline needed to go somewhere. I bought the video of my experience, I think I’ve watched it easily 50 times. I never want to forget that memory.
Second stop: Queenstown, New Zealand
New Zealand, oh how I love you. In Queenstown, we were surrounded my mountain chains. I’ve never seen anything like it. Each mountain was covered with lush, green life. Queenstown is this quaint little town in the middle of nowhere, basically. The natural life was so untouched and beautiful, I could’ve stared at it for hours.
Our first order of business was the Milford Sound. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s also referred to as “the 8th Wonder of the World”. This was a 12 hour day via tour bus, so clearly we had a lot invested in this trip. We were about two hours into the trip, just about to stop at our first hike – and our bus driver says we must turn around. There was a tree down in the road and her General Manager notified her that all buses must turn around and head to Queenstown. She was not taking this for an answer; she pulled the bus over, called her manager, argued for a good 20-30 minutes, quit her job, got back on the bus, waited around for about 40 minutes, the tree eventually cleared and she was able to take us. Yes, you read that right – she quit her job! She was so passionate about taking our group to see this Wonder, that she quit her job because she knew the tree would clear shortly after it fell. Eventually, she got her job back but it was one hell of a story to tell. We finally made it to the Milford Sound, we had a boat cruise waiting for us. We toured the Sound and all of its natural beauty. There were over 1,000 waterfalls and rainbows accompanying some. No picture could fully capture the beauty, but I now understand why it is considered the 8th Wonder of the World.
Next order of business, bungee jumping. Only 4 of us wanted to go bungee jumping (opposed to 8 skydiving). This is what separates the boys from the men, I guess. We did the freestyle bungee so we could do flips and basically anything we wanted. Of course, I did a backflip. I was actually scared before jumping, unlike skydiving. If I didn’t hold onto the cord in the right way it could get wrapped around me and I’d be seriously injured. I held it the right way apparently and made it out fine. It was such a rush and there was such a pretty view, too. From where we jumped I could see the blue lake, the green mountains and the cute little town of Queenstown. Then the group of us did the luge ride that every tourist to Queenstown has to do. Afterwards we did a zip-lining tour. This includes hiking and 6 zip-lines, including the steepest zip-line in the world! This was a nice adventure that I didn’t have to be terrified for my life.
The last day we took a wine tour with our entire group, we pretended to be fancy for a day. That night, the girls and I decided we wanted to do more hikes. Let me tell you, this was the hardest/steepest hike I’ve ever done in my life. It was 1.5 of straight vertical trekking (exaggerating, but still). It was all worth it when we saw the sun setting and the night sky over Queenstown. My favorite part of Queenstown may actually have been a cheeseburger. Fergburger is a famous burger joint with burgers that are to die for and I'm not even exaggerating. I don't even have the right words to describe it. I was sad to leave Queenstown, I definitely need to make my way back there in life so I can travel and see more of the country.
All in all, it’s hard to believe my time in Australia is halfway over. I never want to leave! I tried to be as descriptive of my Spring Break as possible, but there are always details that will be missed. Feel free to reach out to me via Facebook/email while I’m here – I love hearing from home!
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