Surfing at Bondi Beach

I don’t know what it is with the Australian weather just not wanting to cooperate with me when I do cool stuff in the water, but today when I had my first surfing lesson at Bondi Beach, it was just like when I went scuba diving…rainy, windy and chilly. I actually was quite cold on my way to the surf shop, wearing just a t-shirt and my swimmers. I thought that might make the whole experience pretty miserable, but luckily I was wrong.

When I got to the surf shop they had a nice big long list of all the things that can go wrong while surfing and that I could die from something bad happening so there definitely wasn’t any sugar-coating going on about what I was going to do. Then they had me sign it saying that it was still ok and they weren’t responsible for it. After that, it was time to get the wetty (wetsuit) on and head down to the beach.

The total number of people in the group was around 12, but after introducing ourselves to the group and telling about our surfing experience, we were split up into smaller groups based on how much we’d surfed before. So, naturally, this being my first time, I was with the beginner’s group, just there to learn the basics. My instructor was Ryan and he was a real fun guy who did a great job handling us rookies. We first sat on the beach and talked about the basics of handling the board in the water, how to get on and off the board, where to position ourselves on the board and how to catch a good wave. Then we got in right in the water and went for a try. The water, as usual, was pretty cold, but I actually got pretty hot sitting on the beach in the wetty so it felt quite nice. Ryan really helped us for the first few tries and we were just trying to ride the wave all the way in to the beach and basically do every step except stand up on the board. This was pretty easy when Ryan was there and told us when to do what, but once I was on my own for a few tries, it was sort of tough to read the waves and decide which ones were good to try to catch.

After a bit of that, it was time to head back to the beach for another small lesson about how to stand up on the board. Then we went right back into the water and gave it a shot. And on my first try to stand up what do you know, I did it perfectly and rode the wave all the way in to the shore! Now, that must have just been luck because it wasn’t so easy every other time, but I was able to get up on the board quite a few times and that’s pretty good according to a sign I saw in the surf shop that said on the first lesson you should expect to maybe stand up on the board once or twice. So I was happy about that. But again, my big problem was being able to read the waves correctly and be able to choose the good ones. Like a lot of things, getting good and comfortable with surfing comes from just practicing and repetition.

Throughout the afternoon the water was quite rough and I got knocked around pretty good a few times. There was even one time where I just got demolished from all sides by a few huge waves. My legs got taken out from under me and I was flying all over the place. I don’t think I’ve ever swallowed so much salt water in all my life than what I did today! As expected, when the day was over I was very exhausted. As fun as surfing is, it is very taxing on the body, and although it’s a great workout, it is very tiring. So when I got back to Coogee, I decided to treat myself to a nice big pasta bolognaise lunch and a whole pitcher of water to replenish my body!

O-Week

Back in Sydney, this past week was O-Week (Orientation Week) for exchange students. But before any of the actual orientation activities got under way, I finally found a place to live! It’s located just a block from Coogee Beach and I can see the ocean from the balcony of the house. The house is quite big and I actually share the house with nine other people and as skeptical as I was about how that might work out, it’s actually been really good. I’ve already spent some good time with the Australian couple in the house, Maya and Shannon, they are fun to talk to and we have a lot in common. Shannon is big into sports and Maya really likes animals and neither of them seems to be real big partiers or drink enormous amounts of beer like a lot of people I’ve met. So we get along real well. Also sharing the house are four Brazilians, one German, one Scot, and the girl I’m currently sharing a room with, Nicky, is from England. She moves out next week though and I’ll be getting a new roommate. But I’m just glad to finally have a place to live and I really think I scored on this place, because it’s a nice house located in a real nice area, close to the beach, with wonderful housemates and is very affordable. Can’t ask for much more than that.

So, on to the events of O-Week. The first day was pretty much a wash, aside from meeting a few people. We went through a bunch of boring administrative stuff for the first three hours and then got some free food before taking a campus tour. Khalid, my Aussie Mate, couldn’t make it, so I was sort of a nomad, just tagging along with other groups for the campus tour, which was more of a scavenger hunt. Basically, I already knew most of the places we went to see and after that there really wasn’t much more guidance and so everyone sort of just dispersed.

The second day provided much more excitement, especially in my case. The morning began with the usual administrative mumbo jumbo, but after the first hour and a half we got a short break and as I was walking back into the theatre where the program was being held, a guy walks up to me, shakes my hand and introduces himself. Dave is his name and he tells me that he needs a volunteer and would like me to do be that guy. I asked Dave what I would be doing and he just said that it wouldn’t be anything real difficult, but I would get a free surf lesson if I helped him out. So I agreed, seemed like a great deal for me. Dave is a surf instructor, if you didn’t catch that already, and he was doing a presentation to all the exchange students about the basics of surfing. My first assignment was to go in the bathroom, put on a wetsuit and then put my clothes back on over the wetsuit and go sit in the crowd with the rest of the students and wait to be called down. After two tries of getting the wetsuit on, because the first time I put it on backwards (doh!), I was finally ready and went through a few quick lessons from Dave about some basics of surfing that I was going to have to demonstrate for everyone and how exactly the presentation was going to go. After that I was ready to go and headed back into the theatre.

Dave’s presentation was the last portion of the morning’s activities, so I got awfully hot sitting in the theatre with the wetsuit and my clothes on. When it was finally time for the surfing presentation, Dave asked the crowd how many of them came to Sydney hoping to learn how to surf. Lots of hands went up, but I shouted out, “Oh yeah, right here, definitely!” Everyone sort of started chuckling, thinking that I was just being silly, but Dave then asked me to come on down to the front and help them out. So, as I was running down the stairs looking super excited to be chosen, I began to strip off my clothes, revealing the wetsuit, and I was ready to surf! Then Dave and his partner, Brenda, pretty much just began to abuse me with sunscreen, zinc, a hat and some crazy sunglasses and then I went through all the demonstrations flawlessly. Everyone seemed to really get a kick out of the whole skit and I kept thinking back to my days in Young Life when I did that stuff every week. Good times! But anyway, as you can imagine, for the rest of the week, I got people coming up to me saying, “Hey, you’re the surf guy!” Most of them assumed that I had surfed before since I was so flawless with my execution during the presentation, so they were pretty shocked when I said I hadn’t.

The next day, there was no more administrative stuff to do, so we just went on a trip to Bundeena and the Royal National Park. It was quite a trip actually getting there. I had to walk a bit, take a bus, walk a bit more, take another bus, take a train, then a ferry, then walk some more and I was finally there. It was pretty amazing, though, because it was a really remote area, but yet we were so close to Sydney. We got to see a lot of aboriginal rock engravings and some wildlife, but nothing real exciting. It basically ended up being a long bush walk when we were finished. We probably walked about four kilometers (2.5 miles) in the sand, with the sun beating down on us, because there weren’t any real large trees or anything to give us some shade.

A few days later, I went with my good German friend, Dominik, on a ferry ride across the bay to the other side of the harbor and it was the same crazy feeling. It was like we were in a forest far from much of anything, but then you just turn around and there was the huge city right there. It’s really cool for a city to have those places where you can really get away from everything, but not have to travel very far at all. When we got back to the harbor, we got some good laughs watching a street performer do a number of tricks, the final one standing on a bike 22 feet in the air and juggling a knife, an apple and a flaming torch, while also taking bites out of the apple as he juggled. It was a good laugh though when he would just make random comments about people just walking by.

Anyway, the weather is beautiful here as usual. Sorry to everyone back home in the snow, but the beach is wonderful and I’m definitely not sad about missing that winter weather back home! :)

Atherton Tablelands

My last tour in Cairns took me to the Atherton Tablelands. This is the land in the mountains west of Cairns and since it is at such a higher elevation, it is about five degrees cooler than in the city and is much less humid. I actually got a bit cold at one point in the trip since I was just wearing a t-shirt and shorts.

Getting up to the Tablelands you have to drive along a very windy mountain road which has something like 267 turns in just 11 kilometers of road. So one of the first questions the tour guide, Scott, asked us was if anyone gets car sick. We were safe because no one raised their hand. It was a very windy road, but Scott seemed to keep everyone occupied very well by telling stories or pointing out neat things along the road. Something I found very interesting was about eucalyptus trees that were growing along the lower parts of the mountain road. Once we got up to a higher elevation the vegetation turned to dense rainforest. But Scott told us to notice the dark and almost burned look to the bark of these eucalyptus trees. The reason they looked like that was because they actually were burned. The fire was actually intentionally started, too. Eucalyptus leaves are very oily and extremely flammable and the trees actually need fire to survive and grow. Scott said that if they aren’t burned intentionally that they will actually start a fire themselves (I forget exactly how he said that worked but it made sense). So in order to make sure that the fires don’t get out of control they burned the eucalyptus trees before they can do it themselves. So, I thought that was quite interesting; a tree that can start fire on its own.

Our first stop once we got up into the Tablelands was a lookout on the side of the road that gave a pretty nice view of where we had just come from and how high up we actually were. It was kind of hard to see some things because of the clouds but it was still pretty neat as you can hopefully see in the picture. Then we moved on to a giant tree called the Cathedral Fig Tree. These types of trees look more like a bunch of vines, but actually they are a bunch of roots. The tree begins by attaching onto an existing tree pretty high up in the canopy and then it sprouts roots down towards the earth. Eventually it gets so big that it will actually kill off the pre-existing tree and just continue to get more massive. So this was just one of the biggest ones around, so it was pretty cool. We were also looking for some muskrat kangaroos while we were in the forest, but didn’t have much luck. We saw one but weren’t able to catch it.

From the Cathedral Fig Tree we traveled on down the road for awhile until we came to Lake Barrine. This lake is part of the Crater Lakes National Park which is a group of craters and lakes that were formed from volcanic explosions thousands of years ago. Since the lake is the remnants of a volcano, it is very deep and the land around it is quite fertile. We took a walk through the rainforest around the lake, which unfortunately became a very wet excursion when it decided to rain on us. We were looking for all sorts of neat trees in the forest and also came across quite a few of the forest dragons again. We even got to see some baby ones. But the worst thing about this rainforest was the leeches. Now, at first when Scott warned us about the leeches, I was thinking they were the big, massive ones that bother you when you’re in rivers, but when I finally had one attach to me, I saw that they were just little ones. However, their size can be very deceiving. Not only are they hard to pull off, but most of the time you don’t even realize you have them on you until it’s too late, making it even more difficult to pull them off of you. So, it was a really bad idea for me to be wearing only flip flops because when I got out of that rainforest I was awfully muddy and had about seven or eight resident leeches on my legs and feet.

Our next stop was for lunch, which we had at a picnic area at Lake Eacham, another of the Crater Lakes. Before I sat down for lunch I got a little bit of a surprise. I felt a little bit of an itch on the bottom of my foot and when I looked at it, I realized that I hadn’t quite gotten all of the leeches off of me at Lake Barrine. Now, this guy had been hanging on and sucking my blood for about 20 minutes or so on the ride from Lake Barrine, so he was getting pretty fat and was extremely hard to pull off. Finally after lots of pulling and squeezing on the little mongrel, I was able to get it off. He left behind a pretty nice little hole in the bottom of my foot and it bled for quite awhile and even hurt a little bit. After I rinsed my foot off pretty good, the bleeding finally stopped. Luckily I hadn’t been the worst case because my good friend, Mark, from London, had a massive leech on him that just had a feast on his foot. It was absolutely disgusting how big that sucker was and how long Mark bled after they got it off of him. Anyway, that’s enough about leeches. Lake Eacham was the lake that we could actually swim in if we wanted to, but it was pretty cold and rainy so I passed and there were actually only a couple of people that did jump in. I did get to see some turtles and some kind of big lizard around the outside of the lake though. A neat fact I learned about the turtles that lived in the lake was that they can breathe out of their butts! It actually allows them to be able to stay underwater for longer periods of time. Ah, the resourcefulness of nature.

Then we finally got to see our first waterfall, Millaa Millaa Falls. This waterfall is the most photographed waterfall in the world when it comes to movies and commercials. The reason for that is it’s so easy to get to. You can park right up near it whereas most other waterfalls are deep in the jungle somewhere. You are also normally able to swim in this waterfall, but since there had been so much rain lately it was just a little bit too dangerous for us to take the plunge. Even though it was still raining, Millaa Millaa Falls was a very beautiful place to visit.

Moving on toward another waterfall, Scott realized that we hadn’t really seen a whole lot of wildlife yet, so he took us to an area where he usually sees some tree kangaroos. Sure enough, the spot where he said they’d be we saw one. We only got to see it for a little bit, but it was still really neat. They get spooked very easily so I unfortunately did not get a picture of it. The tree kangaroo actually looked more like a monkey to me, but there are no monkeys in Australia, so the tree kangaroo is as close as we get to monkeys around here. Just up the road from where we saw the tree kangaroo was another lookout, which we stopped at but really didn’t get to see much of anything at all. We were pretty much inside a cloud, so as you can see from the picture there really wasn’t much of anything to look at. The place had a really eerie feeling to it though, which I found to be pretty neat.

Our final destination took us to Dinner Falls and a huge crater which I can’t even remember if it had a specific name, but it was just so massive. This crater, like the lakes, was also made from volcanic activities, but it is much smaller and you can actually see how deep it is. Scott made sure we brought some rocks along from the parking lot to throw into the crater, because it made a huge sound from having such a far drop. That was pretty cool and then Dinner Falls was actually a series of waterfalls, but nothing terribly spectacular.

The real highlight of the day came when we were just getting ready to leave Dinner Falls, head back to the bus and then make our way back to Cairns. However, we were in for a surprise. Cassowaries, as you may know from reading on earlier post, are quite dangerous to humans and have even been known to kill a couple people. Well, a small group of us had walked up the hill from Dinner Falls and were standing there chatting when all of a sudden one of the girls yells out “Oh shit, what is that?” I looked up and standing right there about 10 feet away from us is a big, huge cassowary. Like most tourists would we all run and yell, which is the last thing you are supposed to do when you come across a cassowary. I remember thinking though, like a huge wuss, that as long as there is someone between me and the bird, I will be fine, it will get them first. Well luckily for all of us the bird did not get too excited and decide to run after us. However, the cassowary was now standing right in the middle of the path; our only way out of the forest. So we ended up having to wait….and wait…..and wait until about 45 minutes later it finally wandered off a little ways up into the forest. So we slowly snuck back towards where it had been and as soon as Scott gave the OK, he led the way for us out of the forest. But then suddenly I look up into the trees where it had wandered off to and there is the damn thing running after us! I looked up at Scott and he said to just keep walking, so I put my head down and just kept walking, but it was definitely a quick walk. Well now, I look back behind me a bit and realize that there is no one behind me because the four or five people that were trailing me had stopped because they figured the cassowary was going to cut them off. So much for my plan of keeping someone in between me and the cassowary. When I looked back in front of me, Pier, the big “Italian Stallion” of the group, who had been right in front of me, was now in a full sprint, running past the females in front of him again doing exactly what you are not supposed to do. I started laughing at this, but was obviously still worried about the cassowary coming up behind me. Well, luckily it must have realized that we weren’t interesting enough to keep pursuing because when I looked back I noticed that it wasn’t there anymore. Scott was now waiting for us and told us to just keep walking on by and on to the bus. Eventually, the others that had been separated finally were able to sneak by the cassowary which apparently was still close by. When we all finally made it back to the bus, we all were so worked up and could not stop laughing about the incident. I couldn’t stop laughing about Pier and how he, being by far the largest person in the group, seemed to be the most scared and just jetted past everyone.

So everyone was safe from the cassowary and it really ended up being a great bonding experience for everyone, because on the bus ride home everyone seemed to pretty much let loose. It got very entertaining when Mark sang a few karaoke songs and toward the end everyone was singing to various classic hits. When we got back to Cairns that wasn’t the end of it either, because most of the group ended up going to a pub called the Woolshed which is a big gathering place for backpackers and the like. I even got to see goldfish racing in all its glory. Talk about a funny experience!

On that trip to the Atherton Tablelands, I met some of the most fun people of my whole traveling experience so far. We ended up getting together for the next couple of days and it was really fun to hear of everyone else’s experiences.

I also got to do the kangaroo petting, koala cuddling and see a crocodile show when I took a trip with my roommates, Traci and Gordon, to the Cairns Tropical Zoo. It was really neat, like any zoo, but they did a really nice job of having shows for most of the animals they had there and spread them out so that we were able to see all the ones we wanted. Some of the crocs we saw were enormous. The guy doing the crocodile show also showed us what 3000 kilos of pressure per square inch in a croc’s mouth sounded like. It was very impressive and I even got a little video of it. I also got to see up close the most venomous snake in the world, the Inland Taipan. Seeing all the animals was very neat, but also just spending one last day with Gordon and Traci was really fun, too. I really enjoyed their company and we had quite a few very good laughs.

The Great Barrier Reef

The highlight of my trip to Cairns came Sunday. I finally got to get out on the Great Barrier Reef and even got to do some scuba diving. Unfortunately, it was a very gloomy and rainy day and we were pretty wet even before getting in the water. They had told us that the weather out on the reef is always much better than in Cairns, but it was so bad in Cairns that it would have had to get extremely better out on the reef to actually be good and it wasn’t. Also on the way out to our spot on the reef, which is about 18 miles off the coast of Cairns, I began to get a little sick to my stomach. So, I just had to lie down on the boat in a position that would minimize most of the rocking and I was ok. It really wasn’t too bad at all and I’m certain that some of the uneasiness in my stomach was due to the nervousness of what I was about to do.

Throughout the hour and a half boat ride out to the reef, the captain of the Falla, Doug, talked to us about coral, some history of the reef itself and a bit about his past. He actually grew up in Miami and spent a lot of time in the Bahamas before moving on to Australia. But we also received some instruction from Greg, the dive instructor, about hand signals we would use below the water. He said that as soon as we got to our spot we were going to jump right in and he wasn’t joking. When we got there he already had us geared up and went through a couple training exercises and we hopped in the water! Once we got in the water we had to go through a few more exercises to make sure that we were ok to go down. Now, I’ll tell you that when I first got in the water and started moving around with all that gear, it was very tough. Breathing through the mouthpiece was also sort of difficult at first, but just because I had to learn to trust it and breathe deeply and slowly. When really I probably wasn’t, I gave Greg the ready sign to go on down.

As soon as I got to the ocean floor, I was almost immediately much calmer. We went down about 10 meters, which is about 30 feet, but I think that just finally seeing what it was like and getting rid of the anxiety that had been building all day was what calmed me. As soon as everyone made it down though and we were given free reign to explore, I was off!

Before I left the US, Carrie, my travel agent, said that I should scuba dive no matter what the cost is because it’s such a whole different world under the sea. Well, luckily I didn’t have to pay very much at all for it, but she was totally right about how different and neat and beautiful it is. I can’t begin to describe how awesome it is down on the reef. There are so many beautiful fish of all sizes and colors and the coral is just magnificent. And this was all on a cloudy and rainy day. I can’t imagine how it would be if it was sunny. Towards the beginning of the dive Greg waved at me to come over toward him and pointed at the sand underneath him. I couldn’t see anything but figured there was a snake under the sand or something. Then he stirred it up a bit more and then out comes this big Lagoon Ray. It was much bigger than what I was expecting to come up from the sand and it moved pretty slowly so I got to take a great little video of it. I rented an underwater digital camera, but once I got down under the water and realized how difficult it is to keep yourself still I got a little frustrated and started to just enjoy what I was seeing instead of trying to take photos of everything. Toward the end of the dive, we found a big collection of coral with lots of much bigger fish and one of them even started chasing me a little bit. Whenever I would point at it, it looked at me and then swam toward me. It seemed to really like swimming around me, I guess. You can see the picture here of it with me. It’s kind of far behind in this picture, but trust me he was pretty big and could have probably bitten my finger off if he wanted to.

Unfortunately, I know that my photos again will absolutely not do the reef justice, but I at least got some photos of myself under the water. But I will echo what Carrie told me and say that no matter what it costs you, everyone should definitely scuba dive if you ever get the chance. You will not regret it and it’s worth every penny you spend.

Daintree Rainforest

Hello from the Wet Tropics of northern Australia! I’ve spent the past couple of days in Cairns, which is along the northern coast and just off the coast is the Great Barrier Reef. Yesterday, I took my first day trip and went to Cape Tribulation and the Daintree Rainforest.

The day started off early when I was picked up at 7:10 right at the front door of Gilligan’s, where I’m staying for the week. The tour guide’s name was Steve and he was a true Australian bloke with the sense of humor and wittiness that you’d expect. He actually did a lot of work with Steve Irwin and had some good stories to tell about The Crocodile Hunter. He said that the way he was on TV is exactly how he was in real life and he wasn’t just putting on a show for the cameras. But our Steve was a great tour guide. On the drive to the rainforest he made sure to point out all the significant landmarks and usually had a joke to throw in about it as well.

After we picked up all of the other tourists, our first stop was Mossman Gorge, which is a small section of the Daintree Rainforest. Usually, we would have been able to go swimming in the river at Mossman, but with all the rain the area has received the water level was too high and the current too strong. I did get to see some neat wildlife though. The highlight was a lizard called the Boyd’s Forest Dragon. It looked a lot like some kind of iguana, or even that little dinosaur from Jurassic Park. I also saw some wild tropical fish, which were pretty big. Just walking through the rainforest is really neat and none of the pictures I took can really do it justice. You just can’t take photos of the all trees and foliage and do it justice.

Well, after Mossman Gorge we headed on toward the Daintree River. But on the way we stopped at a really neat lookout point along the road that showed where the river met with the Pacific Ocean. The Daintree River, naturally comes out of the Daintree Rainforest. I’ll get into a little more detail about it a bit later, but the view there was just amazing. The sky was actually blue and not cloudy and overcast like it has been a lot lately. I also got a great view of the surrounding forest, too. Hopefully my pictures here can sort of show you what it was like.

Eventually, we went on to catch a cruise of the Daintree River. After some tea and biscuits (cookies), and a demonstration on how to play the didgeridoo, we boarded a pretty small little jungle river cruiser type of boat. It was really neat goin and things. We actually saw one too and got really close to it. Our river guide, Mickg through the dense rainforest in the boat and being so close to crocodiles, told us all about Scoot, which was the croc’s name. Unfortunately, Scoot didn’t move around too much at all, but at least we got to see him. The conditions that day really weren’t favorable for being able to see a croc. The Daintree River is a pretty good place to see them though because the water is pretty murky. It’s actually about 50% saltwater and 50% freshwater since it’s so close to the ocean. The saltwater crocodiles obviously can withstand saltwater, but prefer freshwater because animals they might want to eat are going to be drinking freshwater, not saltwater. But anyway, the Daintree River was awfully neat as well.

Next stop was lunch at an entomological center. No, we didn’t eat any insects. This was just the place where Steve would cook our lunches. Before lunch though, I actually got to go swimming in a small rainforest creek and swim with some tropical fish and a big turtle! We tried catching the turtle but he was pretty smart. The water was actually pretty cold but very refreshing and super clean and clear. For lunch, I had some Barramundi, which according to Steve is one of the top 10 best fish to eat in the world. It was very good and the potato salad I ate with it was also very tasty. I got to eat with Steve, too, so this was where he told me some of the stories of Steve Irwin and also gave some good advice about other good things to do around Cairns.

After lunch, we headed to Cape Tribulation beach. Unfortunately, we couldn’t swim here either because of the very toxic Box Jellyfish in the water this time of year. Their sting is said to be one of the worst pains that you could ever feel and some of the bigger ones have even killed people. Some places have swimming nets to keep the jellyfish out, but not Cape Tribulation. It was still very beautiful and there were at least lots of little crabs around in the sand to play with. I’ve put a couple pictures of Cape Tribulation here as well. Cape Tribulation is the spot where Captain James Cook, the man responsible for colonizing Australia, first landed after being stuck between the Great Barrier Reef and the coastline. His boat got stuck off the shore and he called the area Cape Tribulation because this is where his troubles began.

From Cape Tribulation we headed to another rainforest walk at a place called Jindalba. Here Steve told us all about some neat aspects of the rainforest and showed us some trees that were over 2000 years old and showed us how you can get water out of vines if you’re ever lost in the rainforest, too. Maybe most importantly he showed us a ginger plant which has leaves that are very useful as toilet paper if needed. Then he saw a snake on the ground near a tree and just stopped what he was doing and in pure Steve Irwin style jumped right over at it and tried grabbing it. The snake got away down in his hole, but you can see the picture here of Steve trying to dig it out.

We were heading home after Jindalba, but on our way we had the rare pleasure of seeing a couple of the most endangered animals in the area, a cassowary. There are only about 1000 cassowaries left in the wild anywhere in the world and we saw two of them, a male and one of his young. We had to stay in the truck though, because cassowaries are very aggressive birds and are the only birds that have ever been known to show aggression towards humans. Two people have actually died from them. But it was really neat to see something so rare. Steve said he hadn’t seen one in over four months and he does a lot of tours, so were just extra lucky!

The day at the Daintree Rainforest was really a great experience. The Daintree is special because it is the oldest rainforest in the world at around 135 million years old and is one of the few untouched rainforests left in the world. It is also one of the most diverse rainforests in the world, meaning it has one of the largest variations of plants and animals on earth. So, actually being able to visit a place so rare and extraordinary like this was very special.

Tomorrow, I’ll be heading out to sea on a sailing, snorkeling, and scuba diving trip, so be sure to check back for details on that!