Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef

We made it to Australia! It was kind of a strange feeling at first. It was our last country on our trip before coming back to New Zealand, so we were a little sad about the trip being almost over. But Australia has always been a place that we've wanted to visit so we were happy to finally make it. Sometimes we laugh about how we used to think Australia was this exotic destination that you could only dream of visiting, when in reality it is probably the country most similar to the US, after only Canada. Still, it is a dream destination and we were excited to get started. Cairns, pronounced "cans", is on the northeast coast and is known as the "gateway to the Great Barrier Reef." We were greeted with blue skies and a blazing hot sun that we were more than happy to soak in. I was immediately disappointed at how expensive Australia was going to be. The Aussie dollar is really strong and is basically 1-to-1 with the US dollar. A shuttle from the airport a mere 2 miles into town cost us 18 bucks. What happened to the $1 taxi rides we had in Thailand? Make no mistake, we'll walk back to airport when it comes time to leave.

Of course #1 on our agenda in Cairns was the Great Barrier Reef. Who doesn't have visiting the Great Barrier Reef on their bucket list? The reef is a couple miles offshore, so there are a bunch of tour operators vying to take you out for a full day trip. Seeing as it is such a huge destination, we wanted to spare no expense and actually splurge on a dive or two. Even Steph, who has never dove before, signed on for an introductory dive. In fact, she enjoyed it so much that we both went for a second dive. We had awesome weather, so one of the sites we visited is one that they rarely get to visit because of strong currents. You could tell it was less used as the coral was much better here. Although I was hoping to see a shark, the only major wildlife we encountered was a huge moray eel, though Steph was the only one that saw it. Still, there were tons of cool fish and coral and all that good stuff that goes along with snorkeling and diving. Maybe should've put more sunscreen on, but other than that an awesome day.

The only tangible evidence of our $500 reef excursion. The memories are priceless

Though we didn't see all that much wildlife on our reef excursion, the town of Cairns was home to some animals we weren't expecting to see much of. Bats. Tons of huge, hairy, noisy bats hanging around by the hundreds in the trees around town. I believe they are fruit bats, but they were pretty nasty.

Other than that, we didn't get up to much in Cairns. They actually have a Target so we did manage to do a little shopping. With only 6 days in the area, we were anxious to get out of town and explore the countryside a little bit. That's right, another first for the trip - we rented a car, bought a tent and air matress at Kmart, and hit the road. Road trip! Coming soon...