The next day was slightly windier, but it still felt like we were leaving paradise for no reason.. I pondered the complexities of the universe in solitude in my last moments on the island:
I think all of us feel privileged to have seen Heron Island, even if only for a day. Matters were not made better by our professors repeatedly referring to what we "would have done on the island" in class lectures at our hotel the following week.
With a newly free weekend, we decided to make the most of it and go somewhere, so we took a day trip to Moreton Island on Sunday, the closest island to Brisbane and the 3rd largest sand beach in the world! (Fraser Island is the largest and fairly close, but supposedly crowded) We took a couple-hour ferry ride to the island, where they set us up with snorkeling gear. We snorkeled around 10 shipwrecks right off the beach and saw a surprising amount of life. We even saw a turtle!
After that, they took us to a lake, a lighthouse with a great view on the other side of the island, and sandboarding on some sand dunes in the middle. It was misting all day, so the boarding was only slightly successful, but still fun. It was a fairly large island, seemingly devoid of people.. I wish we could've stayed for another day with sun, but alas, we had to return.
Wednesday, we took a field trip to Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo a couple of hours north. It was an awesome zoo. We saw an adorable otter feeding; I saw about a million koalas; we pet and fed kangaroos and wallabies for an hour; I PET koalas; we saw a wildlife show where birds flew around the auditorium and they fed a scary crocodile; I HELD A KOALA AND IT WAS AMAZING. My life is complete.
Thursday night, 9 of us headed north for Cairns, where we embarked on a journey to the Great Barrier Reef! We did a liveaboard, in which we dove, ate, and slept on a boat for 3 days. We went to the East and West Timor Reefs a couple hours away. It was diving overload, but awesome. We were allowed to do 10 dives over the course of the weekend, including 2 night dives, and we could snorkel whenever. Due to this ridiculous cough and sinus action that I cannot seem to get rid of, I had a rough time the first day and couldn't do the night dive. It was much better the next day though, and I did the rest of the dives, including the night dive, which was kind of creepy. We did wake an adorable turtle from his slumber and followed him for awhile. Unfortunately, we didn't see any bioluminescence due to the weather, but it was still cool.
Oh, they offered an advanced diving course for $50 (usually $4-500), so Aerin and I did it. It was very relaxed (aka sketchy), so it only took a little bit of our time. :)
Cairns was a surprisingly neat city. They had a sweet massive public pool by the ocean/marshy coast, a ton of stores open late, and bars. Unfortunately, this little girl was too exhausted for anything besides food and bed.
Today we took our last field trip to Lamington National Park, a rainforest about 2 hours away. The tree cover was so dense, it would be pouring for a couple minutes and you would only know it by the sounds of the drops hitting the trees way above. It was a nice 17.4 km loop trail taking us by a nice view of the farmland valley below. There was also a cool "tree top walk," a small bridge suspended 15 meters above ground.
I was planning on going to the outback this weekend, but honestly, there is just nothing there. I'd rather take a 1-2 day trip to the Sunshine Coast or something. We shall see.
Just a week left, then I'm off to Europe. I can't believe the trip is almost over! What an adventure it has been...
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