Fair warning, I am going to drag out our Australia trip a bit in order to get more content for this blog. It is hard to condense an entire journey into one blog post. I did this for Myanmar and it was tough. I wrote a few blog posts for Taiwan and it was much more fun! So I am going to do the same thing for our recent trip to Australia!
This is the fifth continent we have visited. As a couple, we have decided not to count Antarctica. Not because of any “Pluto is not a planet” kind of reasons, but because we do not think it is best for people to visit the place. It seems anti-environmental to put a human footprint on the place. Also, it is really expensive. But mostly the first one. So Australia marks 5 out of 6 continents for us really. Our last one will be Africa. Someday. Someday soon I hope. In the mean time we will have fun exploring more of Asia.
But that is all for future blog posts after future trips later this year. For now, Down Under! We had four real goals for this visit: Hug a koala, see the Great Barrier Reef, visit the Sydney Opera House, and have Mexican food. (There is no good Mexican food in Malaysia, in part because there are no Mexican people) First up, the Koalas! I don’t know if I even ever wanted to hold a koala before we started planning this trip. But once we started planning it, this was number one on my list. After spending all day Saturday flying to Australia, we got up early on Sunday to catch a flight to Cairns. We rented a car and our first stop was Kuranda to hold the cutest freaking animal on Earth! We went into the city for breakfast which was freaking amazing. The drive up the coast was amazing. It was quite a sight on the flight into Cairns too.
Okay enough of that, on to the Koalas!!!
The place we stopped to do this was touristy to say the least, but when one wants to do something very touristy you must go where the tourist are. I am not going to say how much this opportunity cost, but it was both too much and totally worth it at the same time. The koala pooped on my shirt a little bit. I take that as a good sign, an indication that he was totally relaxed.
After the greatest thing ever, we drove up to Port Douglas where we would be staying for the next few days. The drive up along the coast was amazing to say the least. The mountains dropping right off into the ocean, with just the littlest slivers of beaches hugging the coast line. It was not safe to go swimming there, as apparently it is that time of year when the world’s deadliest animal, the box jellyfish, likes to swim near the shoreline. A lot of the beaches we visited in Queensland on this day (and on day three when we went to the Cape Tribulation area) reminded us of a deserted island. They were a romantic vision of the beach a shipwrecked sailor might find when they finally stumbled onto shore.
That’s it for day one in Australia! There is a lot more to come!
Jumpa lagi!
Kevin
