Crazy adventures

so yesterday was THE DAY! we got up real early to get on our ocean cruise to the reef! It was a huge boat that we took called the ocean spirit. It had a huge front deck that we lounged on for the two hour ride out to the reef. when we arrived it was gorgeous. We went to an island that's a protected bird sanctuary so there was a ton of birds. I went right out on the first trip to go snorkeling. It was GORGEOUS. I got really close to a lot of the wild life, touched a giant clam and found nemo! I cant even describe the feeling I had while I was gazing at the reef. Its just so great. Im glad that I also had a reef teach the day before so I could actually identify species and know what I was looking at. Even though my snorkel mask kept getting water in it I had a great time snorkeling. Then I headed back to the boat to go scuba diving!! we suit and everything. Since it was my first time diving I had a partner and we were connected arm to arm to a certified diver that led us around the reef and did our ascending and descending deeper into the water. That was soo beautiful being so close to huge walls of coral!! I was amazed. Overall one of the greatest, if not the BEST day of my life was spent on the reef yesterday. And on our boat ride back we ran into a group of hump back whales!! I couldn't catch any pictures of them breaching because my camera doesn't zoom that far, but there was a lot of action. One large female, and one baby were playing around in the waters. They breached many times and it was a fantastic sight. My tour leaders first time seeing whales on the tour, he was even surprised we saw them!! I was so lucky on that trip. My tour leader also said that out of all the times hes been out to that spot it was the clearest water hes ever seen. And the warmest water hes been in. SO LUCKY!! it was just an amazing day. Could'nt have gone any better. After that we all got back and went out to dinner together at a really cool bar where they gave away free champagne to the ladies :P. Easily one of the best days of my life. My dream came true!! Top of the bucket list is checked off. :) Great Barrier Reef, Check. Then today I went bungee jumping!! It was so exhilarating. I was flying literally through the air. I was tied around me ankles so it seemed like there was nothing there. It was such a crazy experience. Definitely will want to do it again. My friend also got a video of the whole thing :)

So real busy lately

I left my volunteer project and headed to Cairns! The volunteer project was awesome, I loved my team leader Fiona she was from New Zealand. Our last night we went out to a really nice chocolate place downtown and I had some yummy dark chocolate fondue :). It was a great goodbye meal to half my team. Only 4 out of the 8 people I was with the past two weeks joined me on the adventure tour. So I did a little bit of traveling. Qantas airlines is SO NICE! they provide meals on like every flight that really aren't that bad. And the movie selection is AWESOME. I got to watch the great Gatsby on my flight from Sydney to Cairns. So more recently I arrived in Cairns and I'm staying at a SUPER COOL hostel called Gilligan's. Its got a club, and like 900 beds throughout. Cairns is basically just a big tourist destination so there's ALOT of stuff to do. Today I signed up to go on Monday in the rainforest to bungee jump for the first time! I'm so excited. But I've met a lot more cool people here on the adventure tour. There's about 45 people in our group. The other volunteer groups from different projects all joined together. I got here yesterday and im staying in a room with 7 other girls. Real hectic. but a lot of fun :). But yeah today we went and visited the Aboriginal park here. It was really cool learning about their culture. They actually have a language that was almost dead. There was only one person in Australia that could speak their language. They revived their culture with this park though so it was really cool to learn about it. We had a couple presentations where they spoke their language and told us about their creation story. I also go to throw a boomerang for the first time and a spear! It was super fun. The boomerang almost hit me in the shin though.. We also got to hear a bunch of didgeridoo's played :). That was cool to hear it being played. After the park though we loaded our GYNORMOUS bus back to the hostel for lunch. Had a meat pie for the first time! And then we were on our way to a small company called "Reef Teach". They had a slideshow/ lecture dealio to teach us about the different species we will be seeing on the reef tomorrow! I was really excited about that. I walked in there with all smiles and sat directly front row and center. took notes and everything. Its really great that they do that because that gave us suggestions for things to watch out for and special things to interact with the reef while were there tomorrow. I'm SO EXCITED FOR THE REEF TOMORROW! its like a dream come true, literally. SO EXCITED!!! All the people I've met so far are super cool to :). Im having a wonderful time. But I do really miss home a lot. Not being able to contact home when I feel the need to has been rough as well. But here in gilligans I have wifi whenever im here so this next couple days while im here ill be able to blog. But the next couple days are JAM PACKED! tomorrow is the reef day then the next day is bungee jumping, then white water rafting the Tully river. Grade 4.45 rapids. Then the next day we have an exciting $35 pub cral around Cairns. This adventure tour is going to be so great im so happy that I've started such an awesome two weeks!!!! But that's about it for today. I know its a lot to take in! but ill be able to update it tomorrow night to cause the wifi here is pretty sick!