Cairnes

Our prebooked week of adventure started early in the morning as we slept through our flight from Melbourne to Cairnes (pronounced like Cans). We were scheduled for a skydive the afternoon we arrived, so of course we got pumped up throughout the morning. Unfortunately, when we were supposed to get picked up we were informed that our group was too small and we were rescheduled for tomorrow. That was fine with us, as long as we got to go. It was a beautiful day so we headed to the lagoon, a large pool overlooking the beach. Our roommate came with us too, friends seem to come easy in Australia :-) It was an absolutely perfect day.

The following day, however, was not perfect. It was raining. Our 10:30am skydive got bumped back to 12:30 and then cancelled all together. Our next two days were booked up so we had to work out some kind of refund. Rats! So after getting ourselves excited and ready 3 times now, we settled in for a grouchy day on the couch. It ended up getting better as we hung out with our new friend and got to see some more of the town. I even ended up winning a 2 for 1 skydive from a paper airplane contest, which I gave away, but was still pretty proud of!

Thursday, our 3rd day in Cairnes has been my absolute favorite day of our trip. We went White Water Rafting. It was absolutely brilliant. Such a thrill. We have a million bumps and bruises from this adventure but had so much fun. We were so giddy all day, talking and laughing with our great crew. We had the only all girl raft, with the exception of our guide Chase, but he took us over parts of the river that other boats went around because he believed in us that much. I also got to steer the boat and was offered a job on th spot because of my amazing abilities ;-) Such a good time!

Our last day in Cairnes was spent out on the Great Barrier Reef. We went snorkeling and KT went Scuba diving. My ears would not allow me to go down but KT said it was beautiful and really cool to be able to touch different things on the ocean floor and see the reef from below. Although the coral attacked us more than once, snorkeling was really fun too.

We spent our last night in Cairnes with 5 out of the 6 people in our hostel room. We all hung out on the balcony and then went out in the town together. So many new friends who we fall in love with and then have to say goodbye to. 24 hours friends are great but exhausting. The next morning we were picked up at 5am to head to the airport for our next adventure.

Cairnes left us with many bumps and bruises, but great stories to go with them. Australia has been good to us so far.

-Kate