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!

New Castle Adventures

Our group has moved!! We left Anna Bay to get back to our CVA house in New Castle. New Castle is a great city. Its mainly based on coal mining with one of the largest coal exporting ports in the world. Lots of industry and lots of beauty as well. Its really strange to see how the two mesh in one place. But here they have really cool beaches and shops and its a real urban area. This week we've been going out to a place called Ash Island to get rid of some of the invasive mangrove trees that reside there. Its some pretty hard work and the gear I have to wear looks pretty ridiculous. It was really hot today. Sooooo now for a little recap. we had some free days in new castle after we left anna bay which was fun I spent a lot of the days just walking around and talking to locals, finding out more about this city. Also one of the free days we went to a nature reserve called BlackButt and had a koala encounter which was awesome. The male was very angry and bit the handler so he got us the female which had a little baby with it!! such a great experience, they are a lot fluffier than I thought they would be. Another thing I didn't realize was how expensive everything here is!! Its like every meal turns out to be $20 :| and there aren't fast food places everywhere where I can get food for cheap. I've only seen like 3 McDonalds a KFC and a pizza hut. but I guess that's a good thing :P Im starting to get really homesick! its been especially hard because I don't have wifi all the time and when I do get wifi everyone at home is asleep. Like right now its 4:30pm here but 2am back in wisco and 3am for my mom in NC. Sucks. But when I do get wifi its good. Missing everyone though! But im at a library where they only let you use the wifi for an hour so I've got to jet! hopefully will be back on tomorrow evening. :)

Soo more in depth :)

So i have a little bit more time on wifi today so im going to go more in depth of what happened. So yesterday we went around to a bunch of diferent places around Anna Bay Australia where were staying until thursday and i saw a BUNCH of kangaroos and got really close to them. We also went to this beautiful look out when the sun was setting and the moon was HUGE! Theres diferent stars out here to so thats super interesting to look at. I also got to feed a bunch of pelicans with fish heads haha. But ive also been volunteering on the beach of Anna Bay. Its a beautiful beach with sand dunes. There were also camels that i got to ride a couple days ago to :P who knew that there were camels in Australia? But ive been weeding a bush called Bitou bush which is an invasive species from South Africa that takes over and kills all of the natural flora. It grows in huge bushes so its pretty hard to get out. Also weve been planting more of the natural plants that belong on the shore line. Its been super awesome because weve literally been working right on this beautiful beach. The house im staying at has the most gorgeous view of the beach and i love waking up to it every morning. The sunset everynight is also gorgeous. I dont think ive seen any other sunset as beautiful. Weve done alot of work out on the beach planting and weeding so every night ive been pretty tired and knocked out haha. The group im with is 8 other students and 2 leaders. The students are from all over, two from england/whales one from canada, one from taiwan, one from california, and two from Iowa. They're a pretty chill group and we've all gotten along fairly well. Im really enjoying my time here volunteering and i feel very accomplished with the work that weve been doing. It gives me alot of self satisfaction knowing that im keeping such a beautiful beach nice and clean. Also getting rid of invasive species is a very important thing considering sustainability. Ive been having a blast though and been missing everyone back home!! <33 will write more when i have wifi again. :)

NO WIFI OR PHONE

Sooo yeah I underexpected the amount of WIFI i was gonna have here in australia. Its been my volunteering weeks this week and ive been here for four days now without wifi. Mom has been blowin up my facebook but sorry! havent been able to answer! But ive been having a great time. we were in New Castle Australia for a night after we landed in Sydney. My jetlag was SOO bad. We then took a train to New Castle and stayed there for a night. Theres a lot more to tell but my Wifi time is limited to the next five minutes! I will keep updating my journal and righting in it every night so if you're really interested there will be rememberence! I just cant get on here every night and update it or bring the pictures. That will happen when i actually get wifi. I dont have a phone either.. so contact is limitied until i get back to the states!! Having a great time though!

LAX

So just chillin in LAX with Karli and Shelby. I picked them up in my rental car earlier today and we went to Venice beach and Santa Monica pier. These two girls are on my volunteer program and are super nice :) They are from a very small town in Iowa and have traveled to Ireland before so its good to find some people with interntaional travel experience. Super fun girls to im glad im traveling with such chill people! We had lots of fun today romping around Los Angeles. Had some dinner at bubba gump shrimp company on the santa monica pier. The only 2 things i hate about LA though are the traffic and the parking. The two days that i was in LA i probably spent ~$30 just on parking :| but i had lots of fun in LA definitely glad that I got a rental car. Im just chillen in LAX now about to board! Will update about that long flight once i land!! :) if you wanna chat about something hit my up on facebook.

Los Angeles

So im heading into my last couple hours in the U.S. Yesterday I spent the afternoon waiting mostly for my rental car/luggage... But after all that waiting I took a long cruise down the Pacific Coast Highway. Throughout the day however I developed a really bad throat infection and its still hard for me to swallow! Dx I went to Urgent Care here in Santa Monica and they gave me steroids, antibiotics and pain killers. The inflamation in my throat is super nasty and hurts a ton. So most of today I slept in my hotel room. Yesterday i took some cool pics though! Los Angeles is super pretty and has so many diferent beaches. I also cruised through Malibu and saw the outrageous mansions. There are also a lot of people driving super nice cars. Ive probably seen more lexus' and corvettes here than anywhere I've ever been. Hopefully this throat infection goes away and I wont be miserable on this 20 hour plane ride I'm taking tonight! My flight leaves at 10:10PM Pacific time so for all you wisco folks, Im leaving at 12Pm. Wish me luck!!