It took until the very last weekend I had to spare in Australia, but I finally went to one of the natural wonders of the world: the Great Barrier Reef! Tara and I decided to take a road trip to the small town of Seventeen Seventy (1770) to go on a day cruise to explore a small portion of the reef. The reef actually goes all the way up the east coast of Australia starting just north of the Sunshine Coast going all the way up to Cairns. 1770 was in driving distance, so it was nice to save a little money. We booked a day cruise with Lady Musgrave Cruises in 1770. It was affordable and it was an entire day that included: a 90 minute boat ride out to Lady Musgrave Island, a tour of the island, morning and afternoon tea, a lunch buffet, a semi-submersible tour of the reef, and over 4 hours of free time to snorkel.
The driving time was about 6 hours one way, so to break it up a little we decided to stop a few places. We went to Maryborough and stayed the night at Reuben and Nicole's (Tara's brother and his wife) house. They were nice enough to let us stay the night and they even gave us dinner. I got to know them pretty well the week before when we spent the night and watched about 8 movies! They were really cool people and we got along great, it wasn't long before they took me in as a new family member. They made sure to let me know that I would always have a place in their home if I came back to the country. The next morning we left around 7:30 to head to Bundaberg: the small town known for the well known Australian Bundaberg Rum. We planned on going to the distillery and getting a tour. It was really cool to see how much rum they made since it was the only distillery that made it to supply Australia. They had over 250 giant vats of rum sitting on the property... aging for about two years for the perfect taste (if you ask me...it was Captain Jack Sparrow's heaven). Every vat contains about 6 million dollars worth of rum, that is over $1,500,000,000...which would explain the electrical fence that surrounds the distillery. For about $25, we got a guided tour of the distillery, a look at the museum, a free taste test of molasses, and two free taste tests of rum. Oh yes....we really enjoyed ourselves :)
The tour at the distillery took about an hour and we were done by 10:30am, so we drove to 1770 to hang out and explore for the rest of the day. We quickly found out that it wasn't much of a town...it probably wouldn't exist if it weren't right on the ocean. Tara and I got bored pretty quickly, we just had a picnic lunch on the beach, watched the sunset, and then watched Pirates 3 out my laptop before going to bed. We decided to take a risk and sleep in the car to get out of paying for accommodation, which turned out to be pretty luxurious. With nothing really to do and it being dark out by 7pm, we had no choice but to go to sleep by 9pm. The early night was fine though since we had to get up at 6:30 for the cruise the next morning.
We woke up easily with the sunrise and got ready for the cruise. We met our group at wharf at 8am and left for the island at 8:30. Tara had never been on a boat before so she was pretty excited. The trip to the island took an hour and a half...the water was pretty smooth at first, but as we got further out into open water it got more intense. There were 'just in case' bags on the boat in case anyone had problems with motion sickness (which a few did...it was quite pleasant). I was beginning to feel a bit queasy myself, so I forced my self to fall asleep to avoid any further sickness. We got to our destination and hooked up our boat to a permanent platform near the island. Here they had picnic tables, changing rooms, wetsuits and snorkelling gear, and a downstairs underwater viewing area. Tara and I were assigned to be in group 1 of two groups, so we got to go the the island for a tour first thing. We got there by a pontoon, which had a glass bottom so we could see the reef below us on our way. It was amazing! We went right over turtle beds :)
We got a 45 min tour of the island, which was formed entirely by coral reef pieces that built up over time. It was called Lady Musgrave Island. There were these really cool trees that could quickly regenerate, they were all over the island. The tour guide told us that if you cut of a limb of the tree and place it on the ground, it would begin growing into the ground and forming new limbs within months! Pretty cool! It also had many types of birds and insects, no snakes thank goodness! This one type of bird would travel to the island to nest every year, over 60,000 of them. Unfortunately because of the sticky sap that the trees produced, about one-third of those birds died every year. Seeing all the pieces of coral everywhere was pretty awesome, I took plenty of photos :)
We went back to the platform and then went on a semi-submersible boat for a 20 min tour of the reef. We sat below which was under the water. We got a view of the reef through glass windows which was really neat! We returned and had some lunch before going out snorkelling. Tara and I got our wetsuits on after we were done eating and got our snorkel gear ready to go out on the reef. I was SO EXCITED! We went out there and the water had luckily warmed up a lot since the morning...it was nice to be in group 1 so we could swim later in the day. The wetsuits made it extremely easy to float which was nice, and the water was a gorgeous blue-green color! It was so clear, which made it really simple to see all kinds of fish and coral from the surface. I brought out an underwater camera to take photos :) Tara and I made our way around the edge of the reef, it was SO beautiful! We got to see tons of cool fish, colorful coral, and even turtles! We saw a small one swim by right in front of us and saw two more that were a lot bigger on the turtle beds. It was a wonderful experience, I felt like I could have explored it all day :)
By about 3pm we had to head back to 1770, the waves were a lot bigger this time so I had to make myself go to sleep again... The day was over so fast, but it was well worth it! Tara and I were so happy we got the opportunity to see the reef and spend some more time together before I had to go back to America. I only had one week left with my best friend, and it was really nice to experience something so amazing with her. I am excited to return home after all this time being away. I will be able to tell plenty of stories and share the Aussie culture with my family and friends, but it is hard knowing that I will have to leave this wonderful country...and say goodbye to one of the greatest friends I have ever made. I may be counting down days to go home, but I am also counting down days to when my Aussie twin comes to Wisconsin to visit me in December! Sadly, this is my last Australia blog (hopefully just for this trip), and I can proudly say that the country of Australia is now and will forever be my home away from home! G'day mate!
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