Day 3 :)

Tuesday July 13, 2010
Jungle Tour today! The hostel made special plain eggs for me! Nerissa, my last roommate to arrive came in the night before and we really hit it off. We became fast friends listening and making fun of our tour guide, Fraser. I called him Mr. Ray from Finding Nemo because he just had the one-liners and songs just like him! Our first stop of the day was to the Rainforest Habitat. They had grasslands, wetlands, and a rainforest section. We saw koalas, pythons, lots of birds, wallabies (these are my favourite ), kangaroos, crocodiles, and cassowaries. We then drove (by bus) to Daintree National Park and listened to funny stories from “Mr. Ray.” Some people swam in the river but I just wanted climb on the rocks. Hehe! We then had some time to walk the trails a bit and check out the lookout spots. We then drove out to Mt. Alexandra’s Lookout where we could see the island where Steve Irwin was killed. We stayed for only a few minutes before heading to the river where we had lunch and I got gluten free bread! We got some Daintree tea (delicious!) and then went on our river cruise. We met Fat Albert, Elizabeth, and an 11-year-old male. Our next stop was Daintree National Park Beach! The beach was at least 500 meters before the waves of the Coral Sea. We had to start heading back after a short time there, but we did get to stop at a fruit farm where they made their own ice cream! I got some mango-puree juice, yum! We then had a 2.5 hour drive home with one stop for munchies.
I decided that I wanted a real dinner with AustraLearn before I went on the pub crawl with the others. The fish I had was really good, but then by the time I was ready it was too late for me to join. The bouncers would not let me on the party bus even with my pass. So I decided to just go back to the hostel. I was too upset to sleep so I just hung out with my roommates that stayed behind. Not such bad thing...

Day 2! :)

July 12, 2010
It is now Monday! Crossing the international dateline makes you jump ahead a bit. I was surprisingly not jet lagged at all! That morning we boarded the bus and were taken to Rydges Plaza for a really good continental breakfast. Afterwards we had another informational session where they tried to scare us with the native animals of Australia. Hilarious! (Youtube Australia’s deadliest animals, it has a great song!) Then there was a presentation from Mojo Surf Company. I signed up for the big surf weekend in September! I get to learn how to surf!! 
After all the talking was finished all 53 of us piled back into the buses and headed off to Rainforestation. We attempted a group photo. Out of 53 people how many of them do you think had cameras? Lol. Our group split into 3 different groups. My group went with Ross to the Aboriginal presentation. The aboriginal people showed us the different types of spear throwing and talked about hunting techniques. Then we learned how they made didgeridoos and how to play them! My favourite part was when we learned how to throw a boomerang! Our guide told us the Aboriginals would throw 3 at once to bring down birds. I was the only lefty in the group, but I was the only one to have it actually come back to me! Hah! Beat that right-handed people!  After that we watched some Aboriginal dances. They were so cool. After the performance we had lunch at the café buffet. Passionfruit is absolutely scrumptious!  After lunch we went to have our picture taken with a koala. My koala’s name was Humphrey. He pooped on me, but he was still really cute! AustraLearn has an adopted 1 year old koala named Tim-Tam, which happens to be their favourite candy bar (or lolly). After Humphrey went back for his nap (they sleep 20 hours a day!) we went to pet and feed the kangaroos, wallabies, parrots, hold a boa, see some dingoes, fresh and saltwater crocs, and eat the butt of a green ant. Haha! It tasted like a green apple warhead. One crocodile there had a name that suited him quite well. Jack the Ripper was over 5 meters long and had killed his last 12 girlfriends! So now he will be a perpetual bachelor for the rest of his existence. After seeing the biggest crocodile ever we went on a tour of the rainforest in an Army duck. Basically a truck and boat in one! That was the end of our tour of Rainforestation. We loaded up the buses and headed back to the hostel and played a pickup game of volleyball with some of the others staying there. Dinner was on our own so a few of us went to a Mexican restaurant and then had to wait for-ev-er for the shuttle bus to come and pick us up! Went straight to bed when we got back because of the Jungle Tour in the wee hours of the morning! 

My first day...

I got to the airport in one piece! Lol! J I was checking my bags only to find out that one of them was overweight by about 7 pounds! When I was frantically trying to rearrange items the lady told me my flight had been switched from Detroit to Dallas to LAX instead of Detroit to Chicago to LA. So instead of leaving MI at 1pm I left at 11:30 AM. The lady said God bless you for being early! The flight from Detroit to Dallas was smooth except the minor annoyance caused by the constant jabbering of the lady across the aisle from me. :/ From Dallas to LA I sat next to a member of the Texas Chorus Girls traveling choir. She had an intense fear of flying so that flight was interesting to say the least! I had a long layover in LAX, so I mostly read Persuasion and ignored people. After flying so much I was not feeling very social. When it was almost time to begin boarding our carry-ons needed to be weighed and lucky me, mine was too heavy. Even after taking out my laptop it was too heavy and so had to be checked and I held onto my laptop in a nifty red and blue plaid bag.

Around the time the gate was getting full I finished my book and started talking to some of the people coming on the same trip with me. There wasn't too much to say seeing as we were all tired from travel already and were not looking forward to an even longer flight. I was surprised at how quickly that flight went! They boarded the back of the plane first (smart huh?). I got the window seat and was asleep before take-off and then the very nice older couple beside me woke me up for dinner (it was actually decent) and then I tried to watch some movies but I fell asleep again in the beginning of Invictus. I talked to the couple from Brisbane over breakfast and then finished The Book of Eli. When we got into Brisbane the line for customs was really long but moved fairly quickly. Security was another story! It took us forever to get through for our connection to Cairns. There was a massive line to go through and all of us had passenger cards that did not "clear." My bags had to be dog sniffed and then searched! Because of this delay by the K-9 unit I lost the group and so I had no idea where to go to recheck my bags for Cairns. Luckily most of the people in Australia are very helpful.

The flight from Brisbane (Brizzy) to Cairns was about 2 hours. The way to baggage claim was an interesting hike because they are reconstructing the airport. Finally we were able to load the buses and head off for our hostel. My AustraLearn group was 53 students when all of the flights made it in. Serpents Hostel Bar and Resort was a madhouse trying to get everyone's stuff upstairs to the rooms! I had to take 2 trips to get my 3 bags up to the 3rd floor. Once my stuff was settled I went for a walk with a girl I had met in the airport (Holly) and took pictures of the area. We found the beach, but you can't really call it that because it was mostly mud. We were told it is nicer in the Summer (its winter here now).

Our first evening in Australia was spent in an informational session and then dinner at a cool bar in town. Bought vouchers to go on a pub crawl on Tuesday. (It is Sunday now). I slept like a log when we got back but woke up at 4:30 AM to the people watching the World Cup. I didn't find out until the morning that Spain won. :)