A Week Up North

Wow, where to start. So, early Sunday morning, I caught the 5:19 bus to the airport. The trip had begun! We flew up to a town up north called Townsville and then took a ferry over to Magnetic Island. The island was so cool! It reminded me alot of the island from the tv show LOST, but minus all the creepy/weird things on that show. We stayed in a youth hostel right along the beach. It was a cute, nice hostel.


There were eight of us in the group (7 girls and 1 guy) and we all were in the same room which turned out to be a nice little cabin. It was super hot there and very very humid; it was around 85-90 degrees Fahrenheit all week and the air was super wet and sticky.

Tuesday 6 of us went down to Horseshoe Bay and went on a horseback ride through the bush, along the beach and in the water if you wanted. It was super fun!! It turned out to be about a 3 hour ride. We got to see so much and when we got to the beach, after riding along it for a while, we had the option to go bareback on our horse into the water. I didn't end up doing that, I don't know exactly why, I kinda wish I would have, but I can't go back now. Those who did go, though, got to do different things on their horse while in the water, such as stand on the horses bottom and jump off in to the water. It looked like lots of fun! I was on a horse named Kloe, she was dark brown with a white stripe on her forehead. Before the horseback ride, we had walked around Horseshoe Bay a bit and we found Wallaby Way, but unlike in Finding Nemo, there was not 42 Wallaby Way and there was no P. Sherman. Ialso got to see a few Koalas in their natural habitat.

Wednesday was the trip out to the reef. We caught the boat at 7:30 in the morning. There were about 30 people on the boat (that included us). It was a 4 hour boat ride out to the reef. Unfortunately, the trip there was pretty miserable for me. I've never gotten motion sickness on a boat before so I didn't think anything of it, but I had to fill out this waiver form and it was pretty rough water and that combination was bad. I felt pretty sick the whole 4 hour ride. It was raining off and on the whole ride over there as well, and there were no seats under cover, so I had to sit out in the rain, so I got completely soaked. Once the boat arrived at the reef, the sun came out and it was beautiful weather! The snorkle gear was passed out and we all put on stinger suits (like wet suits), flippers, and the snorkle masks, then it was off in the water we went. It was sooooo pretty!!! I didn't get my hands on an underwater camera, so I don't have pictures, but man, it was AWESOME!! I saw a giant sea turtle and swam over it for a while, and I saw reef sharks, teal/bluish fish, big ugly fish, clown (nemo) fish, black and white striped fish, etc. and of course lots of coral! I snorkled for about an hour, then came back to the boat for lunch, then went back in the water for about another 1/2 hour. I didn't want to leave!! It was so beautiful! The boat ride back was much better, I didn't feel sick and it was sunny and nice the whole way back. After getting back the group of 8 I was with, walked down the beach to a house that a group of 7 ASCers had rented and had dinner and hung out.

Thursday I hiked over to this private beach that Kelsey and Audrey had found a few days earlier. It was a nice, peaceful beach. There was no one else there for most of the time we were there. We couldn't go swimming in the ocean though because of the box jellyfish, so that was a bummer. There were some neat rocks to climb on this beach.

Friday we had to get up early and catch a bus to the Nellie Bay ferry so we could get back to Townsville and catch our flight back to Sydney. I wasn't ready to go back, it was such an amazing relaxing week!! I sat next to this crazy lady on the flight back. She was nuts!! For one, she was terrified of flying and apparently dealt with it by talking to someone (not her boyfriend, who was sitting next to me as well, she said because she always talks to him) and that someone ended up being me. She was very.......I'll just say eccentric. From the airport I went with Keri to Burwood Park to use her camera to take pictures of the giant chess board there for a photography project I had to do.

Oh yah, how could I forget. Okay, so around the hostel there were ring-tailed possums everywhere and they were not scared of people. One night, I don't remember what night exactly, Matt, the one guy in the group, decided it'd be funny to play a joke on the girls. So, there were five of us girls in the cabin and Matt picked up a possum by the tail and threw it into the cabin. I heard a thump and looked down and there was a possum in between my feet nosing up to my feet. Several of us started screaming, more from the shock of a possum being flung into the room than from the fact that is was a possum, and that freaked the possum out. Eventually we all made it outside, possum and us girls. The guys in the cabins next to ours had heard us screaming and all had come outside and were all laughing at us, which I was laughing to by that point. It was pretty funny!