Aussie, Aussie, Aussie...

Oi, oi, oi!

Yup, that's right. Australia has sucked me in. I meant to write a post before I left for Australia on April 28, 2011 but time just escaped me or was sucked away by work and studying for final exams. Which means.....I'm DONE!! My business degree that is. I'm finally a graduate. Now on to real life. But first a couple vacations, hence Australia.

It was a family trip that we planned to last 6.5 weeks and we were going to cover the entire East Coast of Australia as well as both islands of New Zealand. However, as most of you may not yet know, we opted to come back to Canada halfway through our trip because my aunt (who is fighting cancer) became extremely ill and the doctors didn't think there would be much time. Either way, here I am back in Edmonton with lots of awesome memories. To many to tell all through my blog so you'll have to hear most of them directly from me.

For now I'll delve into the highlights. We started in Sydney, Australia on April 29 and spend about 4 days there. A pretty metropolitan place that is kinda like a combination of Vancouver and Hawaii (or so my dad says since I've never been to Hawaii). Because it is their winter, Sydney was a little chillier than we had hoped but it had also snowed in Edmonton a bit before we left so anything above 10 degree C was a nice change.

Soon enough we headed up north to Cairns. We actually stayed in an apartment in Palm Cove (30 min north of Cairns) for almost 2 weeks which was gorgeous. I loved getting to make our own meals, eat out on the patio and walk to the gloriously large beach. No swimming though, unless it was in the designated areas, because of stingers (aka. jelly fish).

My biggest dream for Australia was to dive on the Great Barrier Reef. So thats what we did. Janelle (my sister) and I signed up for our PADI Open Water Course and did two classroom days and then spent 3 days living on a boat in the middle of the sea. Freaking amazing. I can't even express how awesome this was. Just imagine waking up at 6am to put on your gear and greet the underwater creatures good morning. The sun was just rising by the time we entered the water and after getting out we would rinse off, pull on some clothes and go for breakfast. What a way to wake up!! After almost every dive we would remove our gear and I would just stand on the back on the boat in awe of the incredible sight that surrounded me. Essentially our routine for the 3 days was: Dive. Eat. Dive. Eat. Dive. Eat. Dive. Sleep. Dive. PURE AWESOMENESS.

After that both the weather and the experience was hard to top. It rained a lot of the rest of our time but we did get to see some other sweet things such as the Daintree Rainforest, Cape Tribulation, Whitsunday Islands and Fraser Island - entirely made of sand and you have to 4x4 down the beach to get around. PLUS I got to squeeze in a visit with my good friend Vanessa in Airlie Beach.

We missed out on Uluru (Ayers Rock), Byron Bay, surfing lessons and Brisbane but the country is just too damn big and I already know I have to go back.

Until next time!