Days 71-84: Spring Break

I managed to finish all 3 of my essays by Wednesday morning, which was fantastic! All I need to do now is edit them and writ up my bibliographies and I can hand them in! I will say that getting those out of the way before break was one of the best ideas I have ever had. Some of my friends are stressing about the work they have to do now, and I don't really have any work to do!

This past week and a half, I was on spring break with a bunch of friends, mostly from IH. It would take far to long to go into detail what happened in those 11 days, but I'll break it down a bit.

• Flight to Cairns
• I wasn't asked to show ID once the entire way through security, nor did I have to take my shoes off
• about 3 hours, but it felt longer. 
• the seats didn't recline, so it was pretty uncomfortable
• Cairns
• arrived at dinner time and checked into the hostel
• room had 1 bed overbooked (they had 7 people booked into a 6 bed room), so they upgraded the four of us staying together into a 4 bed room, which costs more than the 6 bed room. So we ended up with a room to ourselves
• lounged out by the pool all day (they don't have a beach, only a lagoon which Adria and I learned that the lifeguards don't appreciate you walking around in)
• got our free "meal" from a nearby restaurant (the hostel provided vouchers for these free meals) which ended up being about 10 noodles and a teaspoon of sauce
• we ended up getting kanaroo burgers afterwards. They were quite good actually
• Jungle Tour/ Cape Tribulation
• Daintree Rainforest is the oldest in the world
• Day 1-walked through a gorge, went on a riverboat cruise to spot crocodiles, visited a bug museum, had lunch grilled for us (steak or fish), scenic drives, dropped off at our hostel in the afternoon, explored the beach across the street.
• Day 2- explored the beach again in the morning, picked up by our driver (who vaguely resembled steve irwin), more scenic driving, tropical fruit ice cream, lookout over the Daintree rainforest, short hike, saw a cassowary (the deadliest bird in the world), back to Cairns to hang out for a few hours before our bus
• Airlie Beach
• hung out around town all day and laid on the beach a bit. Very pretty city with very nice weather
• a few of us attempted to make pancakes for dinner, which turned out to be a disaster. Hostel cooking utensils aren't the best for making anything more involved than pasta, lesson learned. They were still edible though.
• celebrated Annelotte and Theresa's birthdays after dinner
• Whitsundays sailing/ snorkling
• my favorite part of the trip
• 3 hour cruise to get out to the pontoon on the great barrier reef
• we went on the submarine, went snorkeling for about 2.5 hours, ate lunch and rode the 3 hours back to Airlie Beach
• I bought a disposable underwater camera and took pictures, I really hope they turn out well, I have to go get them developed sometime this week
• Hervey Bay
• quaint little town with a nice beach
• Megan and Teresa went skydiving that afternoon, so a few of us went to their landing site on the beach to wait for them and take pictures
• Fraser Island
• the worlds largest sand island
• the last population of pure bred dingos in the world, unfortunately we didn't see any
• the weather started off really cloudy and cold, but cleared up and got warmer as the day progressed
• we walked through Central Station (part on the inner rainforest on the island), then got lunch, then drove down the beach to Eli Creek, The Maheno shipwreck, the colored sands, Lake McKenzie (which was gorgeous and i went swimming in it. the water was so clear and blue with white sands. Gorgeous!)
• Hervey Bay
• Had to wait at the bus station for 3 hours after the McDonalds next door closed at 10:30pm and we arrived at the bus stop at 8pm, for our 1:30am bus
• Byron Bay
• a very hippie surfer town
• it rained almost the whole time we were there
• Day 1- we did some shopping (though I only bought some postcards) in town. Went to a bar called Cheeky Monkeys for a little bit that night
• Day 2- surf lessons were so much fun! We all stood up on our boards quite a few times, it was great! After lunch, a few of us hiked over the beach and up to the lighthouse, passing the easterly most point in Australia on the way. After dinner, we planned on going back to Cheeky Monkeys, but got too tired and went to sleep instead.
• Day 3- it was still really rainy, so we changed our bus tickets and left at noon instead of 9pm.
• Sydney
• back into town at 1am

In general, it was the best vacation I have ever been on! I had so much fun, and we are all so much closer as a group, which is going to make leaving in November that much harder. 

This is almost all of us in front of the Maheno shipwreck on Fraser Island