Tuesday: Arrived in Cairns at 6:30pm. Checked into my room then headed out to explore the city.
Wednesday: More exploring of the city. Laid out at the Lagoon.
Just general chillaxin' going on.
Thursday: Got on a boat at 8am and set sail for the Great Barrier Reef. Had my first ever experience diving at Michaelmas Cay.
Note the abundance of birds on the island. Apparently it's bird mating season, so they were all going apeshit.
Headed off to Paradise Reef for a second dive later that afternoon.
I saw barracudas, a reef shark, a giant clam, a couple of sea turtles, held a sea cucumber, and saw a bunch of freaky looking fish. Along the way I met a couple of other Americans and ended up making plans and having dinner with them that night.
Friday: Got on a different boat and set off for my second day of diving. This boat ride was not quite so pleasant because of the god awful wind and choppy water. Getting in and out of the water was quite a chore and the waves ended up slamming me against the boat several times. I have several cuts and bruises to show for it. 
Saturday: Welcome to the jungle! I embarked on a 2-day long tour of the jungle. First stop was the Rainforest Habitat in Port Douglas. I pet a kangaroo and held a koala bear!
Next we went hiking at Mossman Gorge. I went for a quick swim and nearly froze! Also, several of us in the tour group decided it would be fun to jump off of rocks.
We dried off and headed to the Daintree River for a nice relaxing cruise. Too bad we didn't spot any crocs.
On our way into the world's oldest rainforest we all kept our eyes peeled for the endangered cassowary. As usual, humans fucked everything up by encroaching on the cassowary's territory and running them over with cars.
I freaked myself out walking through the rainforest alone at night. I kept imagining a cassowary jumping out of the trees and slashing me to death. Look 'em up on YouTube.. those things are badass!
Sunday: I went jungle surfing with two Irish girls in my tour group.
This activity isn't quite as fun and extreme as it sounds, but drinking with the Irish girls from 11:30am until 4pm was a blast! They were quite impressed that I was able to keep pace with them with no trouble at all. They even dubbed me their "honorary Irish sister". I knew all that liver damage would pay off one day.
At 4:15 the tour group departed the jungle and ended up back in the city. Does the day end there? Of course not! The Irish girls and I got together for dinner and MORE drinking. Yeah, my body was hating me after that one.
Monday: I went bungy jumping off of a 50 meter high platform! Three times! The first time I jumped off the platform as normally seen, the second time I ran and jumped off the roof of the bungy platform, and the third time they hung me upside down and dropped me. In the midst of all this I met and flirted with a very handsome, tall, blonde haired, blue eyed, athletic Dutch boy. He seemed really into me, but I couldn't really figure out why.
Tuesday: I checked out of my room at 10am and just walked around Cairns all afternoon. At one point I stopped by Woolworths and grabbed a bag of chips to snack on. I sat on a bench outside the store and started stuffing chips into my face.
Sure enough, the hot Dutch boy from the day before walked out of Woolworths and saw me sitting on the bench. Stuffing my face. And looking like an absolute unmade wreck. He recognized me and sat next to me to chat. All of his body language and his million dollar smile indicated that he was into me, but I felt so gross, fat, and menstrual that I couldn't even muster up the energy to send him the proper signals back. So the cute Dutch boy with the most beautiful blue eyes (dark blue outer edges, light blue inside that, with green and gold flecks around the pupils) ended up saying goodbye to me and we parted ways for the second time.
All in all the trip was such a blast! I made a couple of really good friends, got a ton of cool pics, and have amazing memories to last a lifetime. I'm actually planning on Eurotripping in February/March with one of my best buds and making a stop in Cork to see my Irish friends.
P.S. If you want to see all of the pictures from my trip then add me on Facebook.
P.P.S. Does anyone want to go Eurotripping with me and my friend for a month? I can guarantee it'll be a blast!
