Spring Break Road Trip, Week 1

Wow.

I'm sitting here thinking about the past two weeks, and I'm in shock: I just traveled over 2,730 kilometers (approximately 1,695 miles) - from northern Queensland to mid-New South Wales - with a minimal itinerary and a bus pass, and I SURVIVED. I even managed to make it back in time to do a few loads of laundry and catch up on sleep before class on Tuesday!

The trip was action-packed and quite eventful, as expected, and I learned more about myself and my travel capabilities in that time than I have in the past three months.

The day-to-day breakdown of the first week was as follows...

Monday 22 September
Bonnie and I arrived at the Cairns Airport at about 10:30 a.m. after three hours of sleep (her) and reading Cleo magazine cover to cover (me). As we landed, I looked out the window at the familiar sight of palm trees and beach bungalows - wait, did we just arrive in Honolulu? Stepping out of the plane into the 90 degree heat and humidity, I was convinced: I was in Hawaii. Sweet!

We grabbed our bags (for Bonnie, a sensible backpacker's pack; for me, the biggest suitcase I was allowed to bring on the plane) and headed out to meet the van that would take us to our hostel. The driver, a Canadian guy who looked identical to my uncle Dave, told us about the area as we drove down streets lined with beach houses to the Calypso Backpackers Hostel, a turquoise and yellow building hidden by palm trees. The hostel was totally cute: there was a nice pool and a bar/restaurant in the backyard, a big kitchen, friendly people at the reception desk, and a kind of reggae-hippie theme throughout. We shared our room, a 6-bed female dorm painted hot pink, with two girls from Canada (who would be best described as valley girls, judging by the conversations they held in the room.)

We left to pick up some groceries and explore the town, which was pretty small but full of yummy restaurants and a few pubs, plus the touristy discount shops where every item features a kangaroo or the Australian flag. What's funny about Cairns is, although it's a beachy-looking town, you can't actually swim in the ocean because the area is frequently visited by saltwater crocodiles. Instead, they set up these "lagoons," which are essentially large in-ground pools surrounded by short grass and palm trees. Kinda lame, but we grabbed pina coladas and relaxed on the grass for the rest of the afternoon.

That night, Bonnie and I decided to be social, so we went out to a club with three cute, well-traveled English guys from our hostel. We chatted about our travels while sipping our schooners of Tooheys (the beer of New South Wales - personally, I think it takes like dishwater) until loud cheers erupted on the other side of the club and we saw a group of guys dancing and stripteasing atop a picnic table; apparently we were just in time for the Mr. and Mrs. Backpacker contest. Ah, spring break.

Tuesday, 23 September
Waking up at 6:30 a.m. was a bit tough after last night, but it was well worth it because today we were going to go SCUBA DIVING AT THE GREAT BARRIER REEF!! We arrived at the dock just in time to board the Tusa T5, a decent-size, two story boat that would take us to a spot on the reef two hours east of the coast of Cairns (somewhere near Green Island, but I'm not entirely sure what the area was called.) Bonnie and I had signed up for two dives (you could either take an intro scuba course, enabling you to go down 10 meters with an instructor, or snorkel; snorkeling just wasn't going to cut it), so we sat with a handful of others and learned how to breathe through the mask, pop our ears as we descended towards the ocean floor, and how to empty water from our masks while we were submerged. By the time the instructor finished his course, I was already hooked on scuba diving.

I talked to some of the staff members and took in the beautiful morning on the water as we sped towards the reef...and then I was hit with a bout of motion sickness. I was confined to a bench with several cups of water for a good portion of the ride over, while other people threw up into little bags all around me. Not the best way to start the day.

Fortunately, once we anchored at the reef and pulled on our wetsuits and air tanks, I started to feel better. Bonnie and I went down for our first dive with an instructor named Shai, a very patient guy who'd been my biggest helper while I'd been forcing myself not to get sick earlier. He took us two and another woman to the side of the boat to practice using our scuba gear and breathing just under the surface of the water. I popped in the mouthpiece, exhaled to clear the excess saltwater, and ducked my head under. What I saw was beautiful: through the clear blue-green water, tiny fish swam between the large pieces of bright coral under my flippers. Smiling to myself, I took a breath - and freaked out. Wait a second, I thought, I'm no mermaid, how am I supposed to breathe into this tiny thing all the way down there?! I quickly surfaced, my heart pounding as I communicated my concerns to Shai. He only laughed and made me try again, over and over, until I could resurface without spluttering and convince myself I wasn't going to pass out on the ocean floor. Once we passed his test, the four of us linked arms and descended into the depths of the Pacific.

I'm glad Bonnie and I brought an underwater camera with us that day, because I cannot do the beauty of what I saw justice just by blogging about it. Once I mastered the breathing technique, the ocean floor became the most peaceful place I'd ever been: sea plants floated lazily as clown fish and yellow-faced angel fish swam idly over the sand, and coral in all the colors of the rainbow stood out next to large boulder-like pieces covered in tiny sea life. (Obviously I didn't study the actual names of anything I was going to see.) We posed for photos next to various bits of coral, but mostly we just kicked our flippers in unison and observed the relaxing scene below us.

By the second dive, I was having the time of my life, chasing fish and performing underwater backstroke for the enjoyment of Bonnie and Shai (the other woman didn't join us the second time around.) We all started snapping silly photos of each other and of the turtle who came to greet us as we swam slowly towards the surface, relishing our last few moments of oxygen and underwater bliss.

On the way back, we struck up a conversation about how Americans don't travel enough with a gal who'd just graduated from San Jose State and a nice man from South Africa, then spent the rest of the ride sleeping in the sun.

Wednesday, 24 September
After unsuccessfully trying to book seats on the 9 a.m. Greyhound, we scheduled ourselves for the 1 p.m. bus and went our separate ways: Bonnie to the lagoon for some last minute tanning, and me to grab a coffee and walk around the part of town we hadn't explored. We met back up just before one and proceeded to the waiting bus, loading our bags into the storage compartment before settling into our seats with our books. Success! In just nine hours, we'd be in Airlie Beach to relax at our friend Paul's beach house, which he'd rented for the week.

Or so we thought.

After two hours on the road, we reached Mission Beach, the first stop on the Greyhound map. A few passengers began unloading their bags while others climbed aboard, so Bonnie and I decided to get off and grab coffees from the store across the parking lot. We we gone for about three minutes (we actually timed it), but when we walked back outside, the bus was nowhere to be found. Confused, we ran over to a group of backpackers sitting at the bus stop, who informed us that the bus had just left a minute ago. Let me repeat that: THE BUS HAD JUST LEFT US. Our luggage was still on board, but fortunately we'd been smart enough to take our purses with us, so we both still had our iPods, cameras, and cell phones. Bonnie dialed Greyhound and arranged for our luggage to be dropped off at a stop called Townsville (four hours away) and reserved two seats on the next morning's 9 a.m. bus, while I hyperventilated and emailed Paul to let him know we'd be a day late.

Fortunately, the Absolute Backpackers hostel we decided to stay at took pity on us: the sweet woman at the reception desk gave us free towels and our own two-bed room. Deciding to make the best of it, we checked out the beach just a few minutes' walk down the road, which was actually quite nice, and grabbed a frozen pizza and a bottle of sauvingnon blanc for dinner. That night, we joined a group of people from the hostel at a bar down the road and recounted our story over several glasses of champagne provided by the bar owner (for no apparent reason, it was free.) Ironically, the folks we met in Mission Beach ended up being the ones we kept running into at other hostels further down the coast!

Thursday, 25 September
This day was pretty uneventful: we boarded the Greyhound at 9 a.m. with a few fellow Absolute backpackers (still wearing the same clothes as yesterday, of course) and watched Little Miss Sunshine on the way to Townsville. We only stopped there for a 30 minute break, but I wish we could've stayed longer - the town was bustling with activity and seemed like a fun place to explore. If this trip taught me one thing, it was that two weeks is not enough time to cover this much ground.

We took another break once we reached Bowen, but for some reason the driver decided to park at a gas station in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE so we weren't able to take in any of the beauty of this little beach town (I later read about it and discovered that scenes from the upcoming Nicole Kidman/Hugh Jackman movie Australia were filmed here. Damn!) Bonnie and I sat near the bus and chatted with a German girl named Andrea with the coolest back story: she'd found an ad in her local paper from a family in Sydney offering three months' free accommodation and unlimited travel time in exchange for child care services, so here she was!

We finally arrived in Airlie Beach at six that night and were greeted with the most gorgeous sunset - and Paul! We grabbed a taxi to drop off our luggage at the beach house - a tiny, one-room abode with a basic kitchen, dining table, queen size bed and two bunk beds crammed inside. Still, it was charming. We walked down Shute Harbour Road (the main, or really the only, road that goes through the downtown) and grabbed dinner, then hit up a couple bars further down the street. The busiest bars were connected to hostels, so lo and behold, we ended up running into some of our Mission Beach friends! The jokes made about our bus misadventure were endless.

Friday, 26 September
Another early morning, but this time Bonnie, Paul and I boarded a boat and cruised through the Whitsundays: a stunning archipelago of 74 Hawaii-like islands near the base of the Great Barrier Reef. The weather was on the cloudy side, but our spirits were high as we arrived at Daydream Island, the first of three islands we were scheduled to visit. We only had an hour to walk around the island, but that wasn't a problem because the whole island was essentially a resort and everything was closed. So, we just took silly photos in front of some mermaid statues and climbed back aboard the boat to head out to destination number two, Hamilton Island.

Since we had an extra half hour to explore Hamilton, the three of us rented a "buggy" (oh what the hell, it was a golf cart) and set off to find a beach and a cocktail bar. We drove around for a bit to check out the scenery and the pricey beach bungalows before settling ourselves on a quiet beach, Bloody Marys in hand, staring across the water at the other islands. Pure bliss.

Our final stop was to Whitsunday Island, the biggest of the bunch with the world's most photographed beach: Whitehaven, where the sand is fine as dust and literally just as white. It was absolutely breathtaking, but once the wind picked up, heaps of that fine sand ended up in our beach bags and coated our bodies like sugar. I'll have to return and go snorkeling, as I hear it's fantastic in that area.

By the time we returned to Airlie Beach our energy had been sun-drained, but we headed out to grab a beer in celebration of Paul's birthday the next day.

Saturday, 27 September & Sunday, 28 September
Paul left in the a.m. to catch a flight back to Sydney, but Bonnie and I decided we wanted to stay in Airlie an extra day, so we moved our stuff to a bohemian-style hostel down the road. While Bonnie and Andrea met up to go hiking through Conway National Park, I took advantage of the free time by catching a few more hours of sleep, walking around the town, getting a pedicure, and reading magazines on the beach (which was next to another lagoon, even though people were jetskiing in the ocean, so I assume there weren't any crocs lurking....) After the action-packed week I'd just had, it felt great to just relax and soak up the sun.

To view photos, see below!
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