I have safely returned from my Spring Break in Cairns! Let me start by saying that this break was probably the best one I have ever had/will have in my entire life. 4 nights in a row I went to sleep thinking "this is the best day of my life". And each day was, in its own right. Everything about Sydney has been incredible, but my time in Cairns made me appreciate Australia and everything it has to offer in a new way. Before I start, let me warn you, this will easily be the longest post I have ever had, so set aside 5-10 minutes of your life to tackle this novel - I'll try and be entertaining!
Tuesday, March 5
Tuesday morning began bright and early, much too bright and early. After going to sleep at 11:30 p.m. the night before, I was up again 3 hours later at 2:30. I was excited enough to leave that the morning was tolerable, but I am not a morning person, much less a middle of the night person. Our taxis came at 3:30 and we got to the airport a little before 4, aka, before the airport was even open. So our break started by sitting outside the airport, and then sitting to wait for security to open, and then waiting for McDonald's to open so we could chow down on breakfast. All this waiting eventually led to getting on our 6 a.m. flight. [Side note: To board planes in Australia, you get to walk across the tarmac and take stairs up into the plane. Felt like the President/a celebrity for about 20 seconds, until we got in trouble for trying to take pictures!] I got on the plane, and literally about 10 seconds after we took off, I fell asleep and was out for the entire flight.
4 a.m. at the airport - yeah, yeah, yeah
We got to Cairns and you could feel the humidity right away - Minnesota summer magnified a few times. We were sweating long before we got to our shuttle to Gilligan's, the hostel where we were staying for the trip. When we got there, we found a cute cafe for breakfast [where I ordered cinnamon toast and bacon, hellooooooo food from home] before getting picked up on a bus to go skydiving. Before we got on that bus, I was nothing but excited to go skydiving. After an hour and a half drive (during which time I signed my life away) to think about everything, I was overwhelmed with terror.
When we got there, there were too many people in our group to go in one plane, so the 4 boys got to go first while the 3 of us girls nervously waited. After watching them get suited up and take off in the airplane, it seemed like it took forever to see their parachutes in the air. But when they reached the ground, all they could talk about was how awesome it had been, and I was slightly more excited. Before I knew it, it was our turn to jump out of an airplane at 14,000 feet.
If you'd like to skip my description, you are more than welcome to watch this video instead, which very accurately depicts the entire process:
Bailey's Skydiving Video [all you have to do is click on the link - Blogger is being difficult and not letting me embed the video in this post!]
We spent a while getting suited up before I met my lifesaver for the day: John. I was going to be strapped to him while jumping out of an airplane, so I am happy to report that he seemed qualified for the job, even if he spent the whole time trying to freak me out! After that, we got in the airplane where I spent the most terrifying moments of my life. It took about 20 minutes to get up to 14,000 feet - during which time John asked me if I had a plan for when the parachute didn't open, what I had left everyone in my will, and a number of other wonderful questions. There are 3 lights in the plane - red, yellow, and green. The red light turns on when there's 3 minutes to go, yellow with 1 minute remaining, and green when it's time to hurtle your body out of an airplane. At the side of the plane, there is only a not-very-solid sliding door separating you from the outside. John and I were the 4th pair to jump, and when I saw that first pair fall out of the plane I thought I was going to cry. For some reason, it hadn't occurred to me that in order to jump out of a plane, I was going to have to sit on the edge of it and fall. When it was finally our turn, I was sitting on the edge of the plane with my feet dangling off, staring at the ground with my heart beating a million miles an hour. When we jumped, I literally spent the entire 60 seconds of free fall screaming at the top of my lungs. After the parachute was opened, I got to enjoy the wonders of Cairns underneath my feet for the next few minutes and I was in awe of what I had just done. Hands down, skydiving was simultaneously the scariest and best experience I have ever had. Shortly after, I read a quote on a shirt that said "Every day you should do something that reminds you you're alive." That was my thing of the day; I have never felt so alive or deliriously happy.
Prepped and ready to go!
With my lifeline - John
Absolutely thrilled, obviously.
The view at 14,000 feet
Moving towards the edge...
...and off we go!
This close-up was unnecessary, I must say
Checking out Cairns on the way down
About to land safely, already planning my next skydive adventure
Wednesday, March 6
For Wednesday, we booked a waterfall and rain forest tour with Captain Matty and Barefoot Tours. We were pretty excited; the prospect of spending all day swimming in waterfalls around the rain forest sounded appealing for sure. Right off the bat, Captain Matty let us know what kind of day we were in for. The title "Barefoot Tours" is incredibly accurate, as he wears no shoes, even while driving. He hopped off the bus that morning, gave all of us huge bear hugs, and declared us "Team America" for the day. Other than our group of 9, we were mostly strangers - something Matty wanted to change quickly. We went around the bus exchanging names, marital statuses, and whether we scrunched or folded our toilet paper. There was never a dull moment on that bus, whether he was talking about butterfly mating rituals or revenge-driven cows out to destroy all passing cars.
Swimming our way through the rain forest and the tablelands of Cairns was absolutely incredible. There were 4 different swimming spots, each one better than the last. I swam in the bluest water I've ever seen, swam behind and through a waterfall, and got bitten by a catfish. What a day, let me tell you.
I feel like I can't sum it up appropriately - my words really wouldn't do the experience justice. It was the perfect mix of crazy, relaxing, and enlightening, and I spent the entire day laughing.
Lake Eichan
Just swimming around, looking real good
The crew for the day
This is what happens if you don't want to get in the water - Captain Matty will throw you in!
They filmed an Herbal Essence commercial at this waterfall - Milla Milla Falls
Hanging out behind a waterfall
Ooooh, Captain Matty.
Worth noting - for dinner that night I had Thai food for the first time in my life. Had Pad Thai and absolutely loved it; am I really no longer considered a picky eater?!
Thursday, March 7
Like each of the two days before, Thursday was a day to remember. This was probably the day I was most looking forward to, as we were heading out to the Great Barrier Reef for some snorkeling. "Snorkel the Great Barrier Reef" is high on my life bucket list, and I absolutely could not wait to cross it off. Since the Reef is supposed to be gone before the end of my lifetime, I knew this was an incredible opportunity to experience something that so many others will never get to see. After seeing it myself, I desperately hope I can go back and experience its wonders another time.
When we got on the boat, we had to fill out a giant form (again, signing my life away) and at the bottom we had a chance to choose between snorkeling or an introductory scuba dive at our first location. All of us chose to do the introductory scuba dive, something I didn't even know was an option as I'm not certified.
Initially, scuba diving was not for me. I had my wet suit, flippers, goggles, and air tank and hopped in the water face first. We had to spend the first 5 minutes hanging on to the boat, practicing breathing. When I was still in the boat, this sounded like the dumbest thing I had ever heard...in the water was a different story. My breathing definitely needed practice - it was so weird breathing through a mouthpiece, and I was incredibly panicky. I actually came up from under the surface and told my instructor that I couldn't do it and wanted to get out of the water. He then told me that "the only way to do it, is just to do it" and following those words of wisdom, I got back underwater to give it another try. It took me another couple minutes to master breathing, and then after that I had to show that I could equalize my ears, clear my mask of water, and successfully clear out the water in my mouth piece if it came out during our dive. [That was the scariest part - pulling out my air source underwater, exhaling, putting it back in my mouth while filled with water, and getting all the water out so I could breath again.] Once I had all this figured out, we were off on our scuba dive, which was amazing. Seeing the reef from inches away was the best way to see it - it really didn't feel like real life.
In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I chose to scuba dive at our second location as well. This time, we went on a full-length 35 minute dive during which we controlled everything by ourselves and cruised around the reef however we pleased. I found Nemo, and we swam with a sea turtle! Unfortunately, this is another experience that I'm honestly not sure how to put into words. It was greater than all my expectations, something that needs to be experienced firsthand in order to understand fully. I know I need to go back; there's something incredibly peaceful about swimming with the fish in the middle of the most beautiful ocean I've ever seen.
Me and Julie, enjoying some snorkeling time
The Reef
Getting my snorkel on!
Sea turtle - not my photo, but we swam with one of these guys!
Nemo! [also not my photo]
Scuba diving - my new love.
Friday, March 8
Friday marked our last day in Cairns - and we definitely did it right. Tim, Matt, Brian, Connor, Julie and I went white water rafting down the Tully River. It was an early morning, 6:45, so we spent the entire 2 hour bus ride sleeping and mentally preparing ourselves for the day. Matt had signed us up for the extreme version of white water rafting, and we weren't entirely sure what that entailed. By the end of the day, there was no doubt that we had made the right choice.
When we got there we met our guide, Al, who led us down to our raft. Brian and Connor took the "ejector seats" in the front, while Julie and I took our spots in the back by our guide. We learned about different ways to paddle, how to move about the raft, and how to pull our mates out of the water should it be necessary. We took off down the river, and that last skill [pulling each other out of the water] was necessary almost instantly. Raging Thunder is the only place with guides who are skilled enough to intentionally flip rafts on the river, and Al took full advantage of that. One of the initial instructions we learned was "Paddle left" and "Paddle right", which means everyone needs to move to one side of the raft. While it can be used to get out of a tricky spot, Al primarily used it to get us to flip our raft over before we realized what was happening! And so we flipped. While the boys were easily able to pull themselves back into the raft, Julie and I definitely lacked that upper body strength, so every time we ended up in the river, the boys had to pull us back into the boat by the straps of our life jackets. [This happened a great deal of times throughout the course of the day, oh boy.]
We had about 5 hours on the river that day, and had some of the craziest adventures. Our raft flipped about 5 times, 3 of which we agreed to. At one point, we were going down the river, and Al explained to us that we were going to go over a waterfall just right so that we would land sideways and the raft would flip. He said that flipping would be the ideal outcome - we weren't so sure. But we went over the waterfall and all of us ended up in the water, though we later learned that the raft hadn't actually flipped - we all just abandoned ship! I also jumped off two cliffs over the course of the day (another bucket list item accomplished) while screaming the whole way down. Every time Al asked us, "So, do you guys want to be extreme and jump off a cliff?" the answer was definitely "yes". Besides that, we all individually went down a natural rock water slide into the river. Before going, Al explained that the water was falling so hard that we were going to reach the bottom, be pushed underwater, and eventually resurface 5-10 seconds later. It was pretty terrifying, but we had life jackets, so we knew we would eventually resurface. The final crazy thing was the "drowning simulator", which involved voluntarily getting out of the raft into white water rapids and swimming through them. Drowning simulator was accurate for sure - I took an insane number of waves to the face. The rapids themselves were another story; so much excitement and screaming and trying not to fall out of the raft. Overall, we were smiling ear to ear at the end of the day - a perfect final day in Sydney.
The entire crew
How to fall out of a raft in 4 easy steps:
Friday night concluded with some crazy adventures, and seeing JJ one more time! Always good to see a familiar face.
Ultimately, Saturday came way too fast. Overall, I was blessed with good weather and even better company. Cheesy as it may be, there is no one I would have rather spent my Spring Break with than this crew.
Spring Break 2013 - a trip to remember
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