16
Location: Cairns
After a long few days of work at the Daintree Rainforest, we got a well-earned rest during the morning, and most of us slept in until about 9:30 am. We were very tired from the awesome rainforest tour the night before which turned into being mostly a spider tour. When we woke up, Joe had made us all breakfast which were delicious crumpets. We are all very appreciative for Chef Alexa and Joe and their cooking skills! After breakfast, we packed up all of our stuff, and some of us enjoyed a quick game of Frisbee with Rowan. Once we were done packing and done with Frisbee we had, a taxi picks us up to take us to get hamburgers for lunch. At the hamburger place, we tried different meats including camel, crocodile, bison, kangaroo and regular beef. It was interesting comparing all the meats to one another and seeing the clear difference in their distinct flavors. After we tried a wide variety of different meats, we were taken by taxi to a crocodile tour. At the crocodile tour, we boarded a small boat, and we motored around an island surrounded by mangrove trees in a hunt for crocodiles. We were lucky enough to see two crocodiles! They are pretty amazing animals! A few of us wanted to jump into the water with the crocodiles to try to tame them, but we decided it was best not to. After the crocodile tour, a few of us needed to go to the restroom, but we were nowhere near one. We had to live on the wild side going in the bushes. The taxi picked us up after our bathroom bush break and took us to a really good ice cream place. Some of us had the chocolate coconut ice cream, and it was a highlight of the day! The ice cream was a great treat for all of the hard work we did at the Daintree Rainforest Observatory, and it made the community service work well worth it. After our ice cream stop, we were ready to head back to Cairns a three-hour bus drive. We made the time pass by with trying to solve Keeley’s riddles. Also, on the taxi ride, we were fortunate to enjoy a few beautiful scenic views. Once we got to Cairns, we checked into our motel and went to get Subway sandwiches for dinner. Some were relieved to have American food, but I would have rather had a meat pie. After we scoffed down our sandwiches, we went to attend a Reef Q&A session at 6:30 PM. The session was full of very interesting facts about the Great Barrier Reef and got all of us excited about our next few days of diving on the reef. At the session, they had a few pieces of coral and animals to pass around, so it was able to keep us all engaged. After the session, we went back to the motel to take part in a group meeting then go to sleep. Some of the group did end up staying up kind of late watching the first and second Crocodile Dundee movies under Joe’s request. I can’t believe that we only have a few days left. The trip has flown by! We are all very excited to spend the weekend exploring the reef and spending our last few days exploring the Land Down Under!