Well, Woolshed’s didn’t happen last night. Our intentions of going out and having a schooner (beer) were put on hold when Kristin and I both fell asleep at 6:30pm – we then woke back up at 10pm, and again at 2am for a one hour girl talk and finally hit the bed again until my cell began singing it’s happy tune at 6:45am. We got ready for the day by sporting our swim suits and 30spf. We hurried down to the hotel restaurant for an amazing brekkie overlooking the sparkling water and mountains. We were surprised (Kristin was elated!!) to see some spaghetti being served and got some crème fraiche to put on some delicious fruit. We’ve realized that our conversations during mealtimes consists solely of, “mmm, MM, yeah… that’s good.” Everything is so fresh and healthy!
We caught the big bus for Quicksilver tours outside our hotel, which took us on a scenic drive to Port Douglas. Along the way we saw lots of sugar cane fields and have this sweet plan that in the future we will return here to live in bungalows, harvest sugar cane and become rum makers here. Seriously, Bacardi ain’t got nothin on us! The best way for you to picture it here is it is the scenery in the Jurassic Park, so that theme song was hummed pretty much the rest of the way there. As we traveled along the coastline on Cook Highway, named for the man who discovered this beautiful beach area, we saw Wallabies! ….Wallaby Raptors, what?! “Shoot her! Shoooot HER!”
We made it to the docking area and embarked onto this huge ship. We sat in the front on the boat ride out, feeling the full force of the wind and soaking in the experience to the max! Literally, it brought a tear to our eyes (although, that may have been the fierce wind…) As soon as we got to the pontoon, we grabbed some flippers and snorkeling gear and dove into THE GREAT BARRIER REEF!! The whole time we flashed back to middle school geography class and pictures where we were on the map. We are actually here, swimming around what we’ve only read about!! Randomly throughout the day it would just hit us full force and we couldn’t help but thank God for all the blessings we have, and seeing this miraculous creation first hand is truly one! It was a breath-taking experience, as we would dive down to get closer to the reef and swim with the schools of fish, although we were careful not to wack a flipper on the reef itself (that is a big no-no!). Yes, we put an underwater camera to work down there trying to capture all that we could. There was an incredible variety of fish and coral. “Under the sea, under the sea, darling it’s better, down where it’s wetter, take it from me!” Yes also a theme song for the day.
Some of my favorite included the Sergeant with four black stripes, the Maori Wrasse that had big lips like Wanda from In Living Color… “Heeeeey! I’m gonna rock your world,” the turquoise rainbow fish, the unicorn fish, this crazy looking long yellow fish, and all the mackerel that sparkled like confetti as we would swim. As my buddy Kristin and I swam along, we saw spaghetti coral waving in the sea, brain coral, a turtle and huge clams! So I went “out of boundaries” while snorkeling, whoops! Boundaries don’t hold me back! Thankfully Kristin came to my rescue and we held hands after that- hehe. 2 things she likes: spaghetti on the breakfast buffet, and spaghetti coral. On the pontoon we caught a half submerged submarine boat that drove around the coral reef so that we could see even more! There was a place to walk under to see the fish close up as they fed them from the sides.
Lunch – well let’s just say there was some more, “Mmm, delicious...” comments. The boat ride back we made friends with Taylor, one of the boat’s lifeguards who had lost his “sunnies” while saving a person’s life earlier that day. Naturally, we kinda giggled a bit and now love our sunnies. He was pretty pumped to go see Transformers 2 tonight, a movie we had been talking about wanting to see earlier! Oh, Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, plus who the new villain would be since Megatron made for a deep discussion. Oh! And apparently that morning we had run over a Minke whale on the way out, so we had our eyes peeled for any crazy wildlife. All the salty sea air, the beautiful views, they brought us to tears!
It was an absolutely amazing FIRST day of seeing this marvelous country! There is so much more left to explore! So since we ended up takin a coma last night, we’re skipping the early bird special and heading out to explore the Woolshed and life in Cairns! We out to see the town and soak in something more than just sun.
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