I feel a bit sad knowing that this is my last post. However I’m happy to report that my trip ended on a spectacular note in the land down under.
After almost 80 days of traveling and sleeping in hostels, I was getting a healthy dose of homesickness when I got into Cairns. I was not very happy to be checking into another 8-bed dormitory. Luckily however, Cairns is miraculously a sunny temperate paradise even in the Aussie winter, and so I let myself unwind on the beautiful beaches there as I awaited the start of my dive course.
I had booked my 5-day dive certification course a while back. Looking back on it Cairns was possibly one of the most expensive places in the world to get diver certified. However, in the end I had a wonderful experience with a great instructor, a very well-planned 3-day live-aboard trip, great company, and the beautiful Great Barrier Reef.
Learning to dive was not exactly easy. Even on my two previous discovery dives before I had felt that breathing from a regulator underwater was very contrary to some of my basic instincts (notably the one not to choke and drown). I had felt very paranoid under the water even in shallow depths of 3 or 4 meters. This time we had two days to practice in the controlled environment of a shallow pool for the first two days, which gave us time to get used to the idea and the feeling of breathing underwater. By the time we got out on the ocean I became fairly comfortable with the sensation of being submerged. Instead of the natural anxiety and desire to panic, I started to be able to rationalize my drowning instincts away and allow myself to relax underwater.
The diving was incredible. The reef in my mind definitely lived up to expectations. From the first dive, even from the very surface, we saw schools and schools of fish of every imaginable color and pattern. Among the highlights: a sea turtle happily munching on seagrass and completely ignoring us, sting rays having sex, a tiger shark casually passing by, an school of huge bumpheaded parrotfish (each over 1meter each!) incredibly bunched up in a gigantic group just waking up as we swam by, and of course we found Nemo!
We had a fun international group on the boat including other students in the open water course and certified divers from all over the world. Although the schedule didn’t allow for much down-time between diving, eating (remarkably delicious food), and sleeping, we still managed to hang out over a couple of beers several times. One thing that I won’t soon forget was the night sky on the second night out on the sea: a gorgeous crystal clear vastness in which I easily picked out the Milky Way for the first time I can remember.
After Cairns I flew to Sydney. Thankfully Sean and Ellen were kind enough to to give me refuge from hostels on this last leg. I was almost all sightsee-ed out at this point, but fortunately I dragged myself out to see the strange and beautiful coastlines along Bondi Beach and Watson’s Bay. Sadly it was too chilly in Sydney to do any swimming or sunbathing on the beaches, but by that time I figured I had enough color on me to last a good while. Oddly (or not so oddly considering Australia’s proximity to Asia) I had some very good Chinese, Korean, and Japanese food in Sydney. I also went for a spectacular night run along much of Sydney harbor with the Nike run group and got to see the harbor bridge and the opera house up close at night when they were brillantly lit up.
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| Bondi Beach |
On my last full day in Australia, Sean took me out to the Blue Mountains north of Sydney for a hike. The Blue Mountains, as Sean suggested, could be more aptly called the Blue Canyons. It is a thickly forested sprawling landscape of grand flat peaks overlooking wide river valleys. The peaks and valleys were separated by steep bare cliffs often dressed in dramatic waterfalls. This was where Sean did his 100k ultramarathon earlier this year, but fortunately for me, we settled on a ~7km hike going down from the canyon top to the valley below, through the forest, and back up. On the way we passed through some very scary steep passes along the cliff face, and some almost-vertical ladders when the trail got too hairy for mere scrambling. With Sean leading the way with (what was to me) a breakneck pace, we finished what was supposed to be a 3 hour trail in about an hour and a half! Enough to work up a huge appetite on the way home for my last dinner in Australia in… where else.. Outback Steakhouse.
Having been back in the states for almost a week now, I feel incredibly thankful for this entire trip: for the friends I met on the road, friends who met me along the way, the friends back home who skyped with me when I got lonely, the countless breathtaking views, the exhilarating adventures, and the unforgettable memories. It’s been an incredible 90 days around the world, and thanks for reading!
