East Coast- 1

 

This is blog post number 1 of our Cairns to Sydney tour.

After swimming alongside sharks and stingrays in the

Great Barrier reef we made our way south towards mission beach.

Mission beach is famous for it's skydives as it's one of the few

which allows you to land on the beach. It's hard to describe what it feels like

to freefall in the sky for 60 seconds but all we can say is

it's a must to add to your bucket list.

There's little time to be scared as your up in the plane in
no time and the next thing you know you see your best friends

willingly (or not so willingly) being thrown out of a plane from 14,000ft.

First thoughts are:

Megan “did I actually just jump out of a plane?”

Erin “mother mary have mercy on this blessed soul”

Robyn “ARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH (30 seconds later)

…..RRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH”

After getting over the initial shock of actually jumping out of a plane

your head soon comes back to reality and you're finally able to enjoy

the views from above the clouds. Before you know it

the parachute is pulled and your gliding and twisting through the air.

A 6am start was worth it to see the incredible sunrise which enhanced

the view of the rainforest and surrounding islands.

We were even trusted to drive the parachute for a small amount of time

and whilst your twirling through the air below and above

you parachutes are circling the sea.

Once you've landed you're on such a high for the rest of the day

and no feeling can replace that.

Our trip continued south taking us on a bus and a ferry to Magnetic Island-

one of Australia's hidden beauties.

First thing we noticed when we landed on this Island was

that it had a strange familiarity to Hawaii.

(or how we imagine Hawaii seeing as none of us have never been)

We were lucky enough to have a real Aussie experience as we learnt and

held animals from all over the country, a personal favourite

was the flying squirrel because they were just so darn cute and fluffy.

Another lesson of the day – Wombats have hard bums so that they can

crush a dingo's skull if in danger

(how does evolution even do that?)

Magnetic Island is known for it's excessive amount of Barbie cars,

which i'm sure many of the annoyed locals will tell you

although they looked cute they are probably the slowest cars going.

We were reduced to driving 5mph whilst going up a hill because

the poor car just couldn’t take the weight of three travellers.

(We swear we haven't eaten that much, they say

as they currently carry 72 cookies between the 3 of them, aha oops)

 

 

 

Our final adventure for this blog post is the Whitsundays / Airlie Beach.

We had a 2 night/2 day boat trip sailing and snorkeling

around the islands. This included sleeping on deck and seeing turtles emerge at 6.30am after sleeping on the sea floor all night- Erin being chief turtle spotter. We also fed 'George' a big-lipped fish while at Manta Ray reef while the crew played the 'Jaws' soundtrack in the background - a reassuring sound. The evening consisted of lots of seasickness the first night due to choppy waters, but the second night was a party with all our foreign friends- music, goon and a pod of dolphins showing off. Being in middle of the sea, the solitude is a welcome friend and to lay on deck watching the unreal sunset and subsequent view of the Milky Way above you was what we expected travelling to be like- no worries, no stress, just floating through life.

This is supposed to say Tongarra

meet george

Once we were back on land we were eager to check into

our room because waking up early twice in a row is a real struggle when you're used to starting the day no earlier than 10am. However, we soon learned our new room mates were like no other.

We were lucky enough to be put in a room with two German guys,

Malte and Jan. Malte especially was a fan of hugs and due to many lonely

nights all 4 of us would end up snuggling in a bed 'to scare away those

bad monsters'. In Malte's own words “i'm so happy” but what man wouldn't be

when he is in bed surrounded by 3 girls, his most common

catchphrase was “this is beaauuuttiful.” Hopefully we'll see our German friends

down the coast-ROOM 5 REPRESENT. 

We can't wait for our next stop- Castaway Island.

lots of love

Megan, Robyn and Erin

xx