15
Location: Cairns
This morning was a lovely, slow morning for us in the Kuranda rainforest. After two full and satisfying days of volunteer work with a local non-profit called EnviroCare, which repairs and nurtures the local rainforest with a variety of projects, we all enjoyed sleeping in an extra hour until 8:30. Steph and I woke up a little earlier than the students. We drank tea on the porch of our rainforest cabin surrounded by the green trees and our newest friends, the brush turkeys. See photo 1. We all met for breakfast at 9:15, where we had cereal and a few quick things before we caught our shuttle from Kuranda, left the rainforest, and drove into Cairns to Motel Nomad. They graciously let us check in early, so we settled into our rooms for a little while, then walked to a nearby shopping center to have lunch. After lunch, we headed back to the hotel, did laundry, played frisbee, and got ready to go learn about the Great Barrier Reef and its creatures with a cool group called Marine Discoveries (see photos 2 and 3). We took the bus from our hotel, swung by the dive shop ProDive to get fitted for gear and finalize the paperwork for our live aboard dive trip starting tomorrow, and headed to Marine Discoveries. We learned about the great expanse of the reef, what corals are, and how important they are to the marine environment, as well as a ton of the invertebrates, fish, sharks, turtles, and more that we might see while we are diving. We are really excited about our weekend trip with ProDive, and we can’t wait to see what underwater wonders are waiting for us! To end our day, we took the bus back, ordered pizza, and got packed for our early (6 a.m.!) pick-up tomorrow to go diving!