Newcastle to Sydney, Sydney to Cairns and Back

After completing half of the school year in Newcastle Australia Easter came and we had a week off from school. Me and some of my mates decided that we should make a trip up to the northern tip of Australia. I ventured into Sydney Central Station by myself to meet up with Cody, Alyssa, and Jill.

Me on the train riding to Sydney Central Station.

We all then got on a plane and three hours later we were at our destination, Cairns Australia. Cairns is defiantly a tourist town that has a lot to offer. The sights are breathtaking the weather remains around 30 degrees Celsius, 86 degrees Fahrenheit, even in the winter. This part of Queensland is the only place in the world where two World Heritage listed Sites, the Great Barrier Reef and the Wet Tropics Rain forest, lie side by side. Fortunately we got to visit and tour both the Word Heritage Sites in two days. The first day we toured the Rain forest which was an exciting experience.

We saw some wildlife including Fat Albert pictured below. Fat Albert is a crocodile that is 4.5 meters long and 500 kilos. Now for those of us who aren't familiar with the metric system that's 14.78 feet long and 1,100 lbs, pretty intimidating right. Our tour guide pulled our boat up approximately 10 yards away from this guy who was laying out sunning himself just on the shore.

The jungle itself was a great experience but unfortunately the jungle is visited by tourists everyday and there are some people that are looking to make a quick buck rather than preserving this 110-million year old rain forest. I understand that I didn't help matters paying a tourist company to show me around but as in the picture below the jungle has been invaded by the humans.

The next day we went white water rafting. It rained the entire day but it didn't really matter because we were soaked anyways. They were class 4 rapids on the Tully River about a hours drive from Cairns.



We met a local Australian that someone in our group knew from their college. He took us around in his car to several beaches and showed us some great lookout spots.

Me sitting on the rocks looking out over the ocean.

The beach was beautiful, although you couldn't swim outside the net due to blue bottle jelly fish.

Miles of beaches line the coast followed closely by mountains.

A two hour boat ride out to the Reef was also on our schedule for the second to last day. A couple of people in our group went scuba diving but I was content, not paying extra, and just snorkeling.

Me diving down to get a closer look.

Beautiful brightly colored fish swimming every ware.

I followed this approximately 100 year old turtle around for half an hour watching him. He was huge!

A huge clam that was just hanging out.

The final day we had something special planed. We got picked up at our hotel at 6 in the morning and went sky diving over the ocean landing only a short distance from the beach.

Anyone else feeling nervous?

Running though my head right now "What have I gotten myself into?"

No thinking involved.

Free falling for 60 seconds.

Gliding gently to ground, I can't stand up yet because my hands and legs are shaking.

Over all it was a great Easter Break. Hope everyone enjoys the pictures.

I'm getting excited about the coming weeks because Katie is coming down to see me. I haven't seen her for a little under 4 months! She flys in May 9th and leaves May 25th. It should be fun showing her around!