Aussie land :D

First and foremost - a shout out to Gemini (because he asked me to...hi!! I love you!!)

My trip to Australia is over, and I'm back home now. Back to work and school, and the normal grind of daily life. But I thought I might fill you all in a little bit on what happened when I was in the land down under.
Firstly, the plane ride is horrible! Unless you are really intent on going there and making the most of it (which requires longer than 10 days I might add...) then I wouldn't suggest it. It's long and cramped and if you are lucky, you'll get there without killing someone or yourself on the way. And that's assuming no plane delays and/or missed flights!

So we got there after 30 some-odd hours of airports and planes, and settled into our hotel rooms which had wonderful views of the township (I laugh that they call it a city) of Cairns. We spent night one walking the town and checking out the Esplanade (ie boardwalk) and the shops. We went to bed early and exhasuted. I slept from about 9:30 pm until midnight, not a very successful sleep, but conducive to calling home at 3am (1 in the afternoon Toronto time).

Friday we walked the town again, found some nice places to eat and shop, and hang out and relax. Nothing too exciting, but enough to tire me out again, and keep us busy. Then we found out that our trip to the rainforest wasn't going to happen, because the lady who was supposed to book us in, sent in the reuqest late, and it was full. So we booked a train ride up to a town called Kurunda on the top of a huge hill/mountain, and the skyrail down. The skyrail is carts that travel along a cable over the rainforest.

The trip was amazing. This was the view;
I also got to hold a koala bear;
And pet a kangaroo and some wallabees;

Sunday I started conference (ie. work) time. I attended several workshops in research, and the opening cerimonies. All in all I was there 14 hours, and have no exciting pictures to show. Monday through Wednesday are about the same. I have a picture of my poster, but that's about it. At night we ate and shopped a bit, and went to bed early for the most part. There was some food experiences. I ate Kangaroo, and emu, and crocidile, and bay bugs (lobster-like), and lamb (which was new to me). The food was expensive!! Even an appetizer was about $25. I tried to keep it cheap, but there weren't many cheap options unfortunatly.

I found a store with crocs, so I bought these beauties to save using a box of Bandaids per day;
Thursday we went to the Great barrier Reef, which was amazing. Unfortunatly I don't have a ton of pictures because the water cameras were expensive (and I haven't developed mine yet). But we went scuba diving (8m down for 30 min) and snorkelling (which was amazing!).

We saw tons of fishes, and I touched a few. including this huge fish!! that was about the size of my torso;
and I found Nemo!! although you can't really tell because the camera didn't pick up colours very well...the fish is actually brilliant orange and white;
I think the most amazing thing we saw was a beautiful sea turtle. It was about as big as the hole if you make a circle with your fingertips touching. It scared me at first actually, but it was harmless and I followed it around for quite a while;
Though the pictures don't do it justice;
The last day we were there we went to the Rainforest (originally booked for a week earlier). I'm glad we got to do this too. Everything we saw was amazing. And we got to stop at a gorge with tons of rocks, clear waters, and little waterfalls. It was also beautiful.

On this day trip we also got to go on a trip down the river to hunt crocidiles, and we found a few just chilling out on the edge of the river. Some were huge like this one;
And we went to a beach that was gorgeous. The sand was shiny, and the water was clear and blue;

The day was great. The trip was great. I talked to some important people, and saw things I'll prbably never get to see again in my life! All-in-all, it was fantastic, but I'm glad to be home, even if it means back to work!