Cairns Part 1: SPRING BREAKKKKK!

6am ish at the airport.  Happiest camper award.

Sorry for the delay, I was busy being studious and intellectual, of course.

Daintree Crocodile Tour

For our midsession break, the Colgate group went up to Cairns (pronounced cans) in Queensland.  We were fortunate enough to have flights so early that we needed to catch a 4:15 am bus to Sydney on Saturday, September 26.  Due to such high levels of stimulation and excitement in the morning, we decided to take it easy in the afternoon and explore different parts of Cairns, including the harbour and a local market.  Luckily, our hostel was shared with all Colgate people, so there were no questionable shenanigans taking place. 

too bad the crocodile ate us.

The next day, we took a group tour in the Daintree Rainforest.  Throughout the day, the goal was to learn more about not only the rainforest, but also the Aboriginal lifestyle.  We started the morning with a crocodile tour.  It was cool, but we only saw two crocodiles and one of them was kind of wimpy.  However, afterwards we hiked to a waterfall and hung out there for a while, which was fantastic.  After this we had lunch in the middle of nowhere.  I got to try ice cream made out of random fruits whose names I don’t remember, but it sounded something like jackalackalalkaja.  It was delicious.  In the afternoon, we learned about how Aboriginals hunted for food.  This included learning to spear fish and trekking through muddy mangroves to find other sea creatures.

Colgate Group at the Waterfall

  Where it was a bit too killing things intensive for me, I certainly enjoyed spear fishing salad from the bottom of the ocean with some of the other vegetarians.  Wandering through the mud was exactly what I wanted to be doing with my time.  Our guide told us that if we got all muddy the bugs would stay away.  Where I’m pretty sure this was a lie, seeing as my bug bites were still going strong up until a few days ago, scampering about in the mud was definitely a highlight of the day.

Champion.

On Tuesday, we finally made it to the Great Barrier Reef!  I went on two dives with Karen and Claire.  For some reason we were trusted to frolic about on the bottom of the ocean by ourselves.  It was so much fun.  We saw tons of massive clams and sea cucumbers, as well as a wide array of fratty neon fish.  I found Nemo!  I made sure he made it safely back home.  At night, we all had a group dinner and then had fun Colgate karaoke time.  Burnett told us we were better than his 1996 Australia Study Group, but we’re not supposed to tell anyone this because they would be upset. 

FUN FACT: Turtles can breathe through their butts.  They suck in water then extract oxygen.

Learning to Spear Fish.