In the last couple of weeks of my Summer holidays I had planned a one week trip up to Cairns with a friend. We lived with a host family during that time which Mrs Laing, the international student co-ordinator at our school, had organised for us. Monja & I had booked a diving course which went over 4 days. The first two days we practised in the pool at the diving centre and the other two days we drove out to the Great Barrier Reef on a boat. The trip out took us about 2 hours. The underwater world there was just so special, I recommend everyone going there if they are in Cairns one time! But what I enjoyed even more than the underwater world was the scuba diving itself. It is just an incredible feeling to float through the water 12 metres under the surface, only hearing your own breathing and only being able to communicate to your diving buddy by hand signals. We had to do different exercises, like taking off our mask, taking out our regulator, sharing air with your buddy or taking off and putting on your BC, all under water. I passed all the exercises so I got rewarded with my very own diving licence at the end of the diving course, so I am now an officially accredited Open Water Diver! 🙂 That means that I am allowed to go scuba diving all around the world now. I hope I will be able to go and dive soon again. On our last day in Cairns we went on a Cape Tribulation Tour up to Port Douglas. The drive up to Port Douglas was very nice and took us a couple of hours. Included in the tour was a visit to the wildlife park and rainforest up there, crocodile sight-seeing and a couple of more smaller things.
A couple of days after arriving safely in Brisbane again and unaffected by the floods it was time to drive out to the airport again to fly down to New Zealand! After more than 6 months I finally saw my family again. I really enjoyed the time there. We went for multiple hours walks in the Abel Tasman every day, swam in the perfectly clear water, and in the evenings we either played games, went down to the beach near our motel or just chilled in our personal whirlpool. 🙂
