Be Heard.: sunny cairns :D

that's all of us. at the beach ... i don't have all the photos with me now.. but since i haven't updated for so long, i think it's only justified that i fill it with a bit of my cherished experience in Cairns.

not much of a person of many words... but i must say... i am super glad that my sister is able to come for this trip and that my parents actually are able to sponsor it. this trip saw us signing our lives away as many activities required us to sign this paper of exclusion of liability.. that we are not to hold the organisation responsible if anything is to happen to us etc... it also made a lot of us do things we wouldn't have done otherwise. getting us out of the comfort zone... testing our limits... amazing and comes with quite a price...yet priceless. (if u get what i mean)...

but enough of words.. i shall let the pictures and some caption do the description...

Day 1: after arriving at Cairns at 3am (as our flight got delayed 2 hours!)... we checked in into the accommodation and i found my fitted sheet stepped on... but i couldn't be bothered and slept with the flat sheet on top... and we all woke up, and headed out to explore the city and to find activities to do on our free day.

but this is the lagoon... sort of a man-made water front place... with a pool and showering facilities... and nice decks for people to sunbathe during the sunny days :)

went for fishing and crabbing later on in the night and me, taking after my uncle's talent... caught the first fish of the day!

but it was fun. it was a night event.. so quite interesting lah. had a bbq dinner on the boat :D

and girls are better fishes than boys. 11-6. woohoo.

and then this is how powerful the QLD mudcrabs are.

Day 2: went to the outer reef for a day of snorkelling and scuba diving! the first time ever i got so sea sick that i puked.

and this is us before we were sick. rather before the boat started moving.

and this is 4 of us who went down together...

doing the intro-dive was a great challenge of trying to equalise pressures, trying to stay away from corals... and trying to breathe through the mouth... O_o it was quite easy to get a panic attack under water and the trick is to stay calm. didn't manage to get a lot of photos but this was how it was at the sea bed...

came up for lunch... did not do the second dive (which cost an additional $45... ) so did some snorkelling... given a chance, i will try to get a PADI cert to be a certified diver. the underwater world is just too amazing. and this is our instructor...

Day 3: Free day. we signed up for bungy.

this is the sign they had....

yikes. i kept thinking about how it would be like... what i would do... will i freak out and back out? etc.. going through the whole motion of mental preparation and just realising that whatever it is, just don't think so much and just go ahead and.. JUMP.

50m. 164ft. walking up that flight of stairs to the platform, we were all asking ourselves. what were we thinking of man. we signed up for the biggest day out package... unlimited bungys and one minjin and one free lunch. quite worth it actually. so we told ourselves at least 2 jumps. to make it all worth it. and we did! the feeling is scary but incredible. i don't quite have the guts to go again.. but if i have to do it. i will :D

and the people hanging on the right side is the 'minjin'... that's the giant swing.. almost like a viking.. so we are strapped up.. and there's this system that pulls us up to a height of... about 30+ to 40 m... and someone on the minjin pulls a cord and the whole thing will just.. swing. to a speed of up to 120kph... back and forth.

those 2 are my first ever adrenaline rides. O-o

i screamed my head off. and pretty much closed my eyes. hee.

Day 4: White-water rafting.

kept seeing videos and pictures of people in a raft with helmets and life jackets and like holding on for their dear life with their paddles flying everywhere in all directions and expressions of jubilation/fear and huge splash of water.

white water rafting was great. oh man. superb.

this is 6 of us who were on the same raft. with Dino our guide from queenstown, NZ. the feeling of completing the rapids are amazing. and maybe there is a lack of water this time of the year (somehow) but everything felt very safe. we all responded readily to commands of 'forward paddle!' 'backward paddle!'... 'jump left!'... 'HOLD ON!!!!!'- which means hang tight for ur dear life... and like.. 'get in!' (?) this i forgot but yeah. IT WAS GREAT FUN. awesome. it is something i will definitely do again. but after that, i spent the night in bed feeling that my body was still in the raft challenging the rapids. haha.

Day 5: Sea-kayaking @ Fitzroy Island.

and we never get enough of water sports :) hehe. sea kayaking was fun. what more with GREAT corals to look at and amazing fishes underwater while snorkelling. saw a mini jellyfish but freaked out all the same. climbed up to the lighthouse of little fitzroy island after our lunch break and basically it was a peaceful and tranquil view of everything. the sunshine, the water... the sky...

my silly sis got tired and i had to keep paddling. tsk.

this is how amazing the place looks :)

and this is the view of the reef terminal. at sunset. woohoo.

and it was supposedly the blue moon day. but we caught this view instead. :) gorgeous.

Day 6: travel up to Cape Tribulation.

stopped at daintree sanctuary.. where they had cassawory, kookabaras... ducks.. pelicans... roos... wallabies... koala... saw quite a bit of animals and became very happy and contented :)

this is the almost extinct cassawory. the female one. the male was nesting the egg.

and this is the laughing kookabara. and now i finally understand the kookabara song we sing :)

and this is the pelican that was flapping its wings and exclaiming to everyone.. STAY OFF MY ROADS! IT'S MINE!!! *flapflap*

and the kangaroo that was sunbathing. oh so vain.

and one of the 2 species of tree kangaroos! check out its hands.

Rainforest up in northern queensland... which is a world heritage site. just next to the other world heritage site- the great barrier reef. the temperate there is amazingly great... just nice. and since it's the rainforest, prices of food were exhorbitant and we ended up just having a meal at the 'resort' jungle bistro... and pretty much spent the night eating ice cream and laughing at each other...

but before that we did check out the 'exotic fruit farm' there.

and these were the fruits for tasting. carrambolla= starfruit. Atemoya = custard apple. Sardophilla (?) = chiku. a bit cheated cos we can eat them back home. BUT ... it was nice as well. the only thing we didn't eat before were the breadfruit.. which tasted like tapioca and the Davidson's plum which was super sour.

and we also checked out the beach. and we were just a bunch of silly people jumping up and down to capture this..

whee! :)

Day 7: had the morning free in cape tribulation and so 7 of us decided to go jungle surfing :) the other 4 went sea kayaking. hehe. after bungy, everything looked easy. hee. well basically we are harnessed and basically do a flying fox thing through 5 platforms surfing through the rainforest. pretty cool! we even did it upside down! :)

yea but this is how we had to go down the platform....

and this is us with the guides :)

and then we made our way back to Cairns... and we took a daintree river cruise and learnt about crocs and them fighting and who gets which territory and we saw this.

this is albert. he is fat. about 600 kg? and he's the largest one along the daintree river... yups. O_O imagine it butchering a cow. yikes.

and this is just the view along the river ;)

so we got back to Cairns and basically just washed up and had a quick dinner :)

Day 8: the last day was spent lazing around in the city...

we walked around.. tried on a lot of sunglasses... stopped by for coffeee...