Under the sea

So our break has ended. We're back in Surfers Paradise and the New Year has arrived and it's looking promising. I hope everyone else had a wonderful holiday as well. This blog post will be a recap of our adventures in Cairns, theres plenty to share.

Once we arrived in Cairns we spent the first night sleeping in the airport terminal.... this was interesting to say the least. The reason for our little sleepover was because when our flight got in it was too late to check in at the hostels, no one is at the front desk at 2am. (understandable) So we spent the night with a herd of strangers with nothing but flickering christmas lights to guild you to the bathrooms at 4am. I awoke to a man clicking his leather heals together and telling me our shuttle was coming in an hour if we still wanted to use our tickets. ( I had you  for a min when I said leather, didn't I ? ) We got the first shuttle at 7am and saw the sunrising over the rainforest surrounding us. We weren't sure what to expect with booking our trip. We thought Cairns hmm.. isn't that north what else is north? Bundaberg. But then we thought Amanda is from Cairns which means it has to be a good place because Amanda is a sweetheart.

Speaking of Amanda we got to see her sweetface on our first few days in Carirns central. She was kind enough to drive down and pick us up.  Before meeting her we spent the morning at the market, which is surprisingly large for the location. A person could overdose on the fruit if they had a day. In short I was in paradise, but time was short and we found Amanda, who had a co-pilot her niece. Who was very entertaining on the car ride. She was showing us Angry bird movies on the iphone, and she can beat Fay at the game. Seeing Amanda and her niece was really cute When Laura & Jarred have their kids I want to be really involved with them.
We had no idea where we were headed, but Amanda had a surprise in store.  She drove us up into the rainforest with thick tropical vines and the suns rays blocked by the forest. I didn't know it at the time but this trip to Cairns was going to exceed my expectations.






 Amanda's niece kept wanting to use my camera to take pictures and I was trying to show her how to focus the lens at ants and she's not bad, if their not careful they may have a photographer in the making :) This ant photo is one I took but she was pretty close.  Once we parked the car we realized the surprise was a waterfall trail. Outside the trail there were warning signs of stinging plants that are poisonous.

Threw out the trail there places to swim in the waterfalls, we only swam in one because the water was really deep and it wasn't clear to see the bottom. Amanda reassured me that crocs (not the shoes the reptiles) only swam in warm water, but what Amanda didn't know was to a Canadian girl it felt like bath water. Still I ventured in even when I felt something shift under my feet... after we got in it was really fun. We liked it so much we swam it again on the way back.  Once we drove out of the forest we met up with Amanda's sister and her mom.

Once we said our goodbyes Fay and I had to get the rest of our trip started. But first was had to take some time for a little date. We don't live near the theatres so it was nice to just get dressed up and spoil ourselves ! We love movies and it felt like a small piece of home.  In a few more days home would be coming to us.

Once we ended our stay at the at the Corona we made our way to the holiday house in the rainforest, near Trinity beach. We thought it was on the beach but it was in the hills. Heres the view from the porch. We had the night to ourselves until Amy arrived in the early and I mean early morning. The house was huge and had a great pool, we went swimming all day long and even the days it rained we'd swim on our backs to see the rain landing on the surface of the pool.


                                                                     Amy came to wake us as soon as she got home. Which in all honestly scared me because I didn't expect it,  but Fay loved it. By the end of the trip I'd be waking up early every morning. Which I'm pleased to say I'm keeping the habit. Amy if your reading this I can feel your smile from Japan. I'm just not made that way I think I was an owl in another life, really. That same day we waited in the pool until Katy, Jackie, and Peter knocked on the door. This was the first the McIntryres has been together (all of them) in over two years. Remember they've been apart over half of their lives. Which is a shame because when they get together it's really quite something. Their different from my family but  they try really hard to include me and make me feel like family. Maybe someday I'll get the street cred. I really love Christmas time and it felt really off because of the heat and no skating or skiing. It's also the second year away from my own family at christmas. And my grand parents are getting older so every christmas means alot to me. Fay tried to keep my small traditions like watching it's a wonderful life when wrapping presents but it felt kinda lonely. Fay promised next year we'd have a 100% Hamilton christmas with lights, skating, volunteering, Gramparents, and stockings. Still I'm in Australia and holy crap?! I'll be entering the New Year by swimming the great barrier reef! I'm very lucky to be here and in good health with family. God's been really kind to us.

Jackie had a horrible time getting here, she lost her jewelry on the flight very sentimental  jewelry. And it wasn't the best start to her trip to Australia. But the girls had a surprise in store for her they bought champaign for Amy's engagement. But really it was an excuse to dress up and surprise her with diamond earrings. Which could never replace the originals but it would help her see past the disappointment. And its always nice to see her smile.

 Jackie is original and this is why I love her, other than raising a incredible daughters, she brought a 3.5 meter tree with lights and decorations. Thats right leave it to mom to make it feel like home.

Christmas came around and the gifts were from all over the world, jp's from Japan and Scotland. Shoes that change colour according to the temperature, tri-pods for bottles. All sorts of good stuff. The best part was seeing everyone in one room without skyping. Priceless. I got to speak to my sister on Chirstmas day, she was crying on the phone because she was so glad to hear my voice. Laura couldn't reach me and was scared that she'd miss Christmas. She's kinda the best sister in the world, and Jarred's pretty awesome :) The rest of the day was spent in the
pool talking about Amy's wedding, and dresses.


After Christmas we got did every beach everyday. As you can see some at day and some at night. We had to swim in chained in nets because of the box jellyfish, which later we found out second hand that the net didn't always work. Stingrays and jellyfish alike found themselves inside the nets. Great, good to know...












We visited villages in the rainforest that had a type of zoo, we got to see snakes, hold a koala and feed a Kangaroo. The Koalas climbed the trees, they knew human cuddles were instore. On the way there we saw Kangaroos in the wild boxing in the fields. Which I thought was rather cartoonish of them, apparently this is a common thing for them to do.

With everyday came a new beach, they were all different and nice in there own ways. I have the names marked on a map but I'll save you guys some time and just post the photos.

On New Year's Eve we drove threw the mountains to reach a different beach, Palm cove, which is the place to be if your one of the cool kids, or so we were told by some locals. The women of the house ( which is everyone but poor Peter) just wanted to lay on a beach and get their rays in before returning to colder climates. I don't blame them, but I had done some research and found that in four hours drive we could enter the heart of the rainforest and do the waterfall trails! Which anyone who knows me knows that water is my element, frozen solid or not it's the best thing in the world to be in natures playground. However first things first, New Year's was tonight and after dinner we returned to the cove for a firework show that was on the beach. There were fire dancers entertaining, kids running with sparklers and glow sticks. We got right under where the fireworks set to go and we had ourselves a Kodak moment. The fireworks were early enough that we could get home and call Canada to wish them a Happy New Year. For the count down we had sparklers and poppers in the pool. It was different from Last years new year. I think nothing will ever top the London roof top fireworks, it's one of those moments that will never fade. Still nice to see everyone together again and ready to take on another year.

The next day was our trip to the outter barrier reef. 

Which was really quite something, we had two locations 

to swim at and over 2hrs of ruff seas to get there. I was really 

sick the first half, I threw up to the point it came out of my noise... 

which really burned,  wasn't sure if that was even possible. 

At that point I was told to swim and the seasickness would 

end itself. I jumped into the water and tried to swim it off 

and enjoy the view.  The second dive was more eventful we all got in a smaller boat to an island under the tide and we jumped off to make our way back, right away a turtle swam past, this was my chance and I gave the camera to Amy and took my lifejacket off and dived to follow it to the floor of the coral. Their quite














fast for being so heavy, I almost reached it. I put out my hand and it turned to notice my reach and I thought it best to leave it be, that and my air had ran out and it was swimming further away from the boat.  This was the one that got away. Jackie doesn't really swim in the ocean but in the last go she got in with everyone and swam even after Fay saw a leopard shark and jellyfish. Lots of clear small jellyfish. Which now that I think of it, I swam with the leopard shark too, I never left her side    when snorkeling ... well I never saw it. Thats for the best I guess.

The last adventure was to do the 4hr roadtrip to milla milla falls, where a herbal essence commercial was filmed, fun fact. The falls had warnings of stinging fish. I worn my shoes to be on the safe side. When I had reached behind the falls I turned and looked up threw the falls, it was so beautiful. the entire rock face was geometric, like big pillars. As if the entire wall was a huge church organ. The falls where almost 40 meters high.

The day was young so we thought we'd check out the local beach. On the way there through the mountains we decided to visit another waterfall trail. This one was more of a hike in, we reached the rock slides and the pool was clear and deep, I could have stayed there a whole week. And I would have but the beach was waiting. This day was easily my most favorite of the trip. Cairns would prove to be memorable to say the least.