The Trip of a Lifetime

Okay everyone I'm finally back and have put my blog of the One Fish, Two Fish tour together. First off I just want to thank my Mum and Dad for giving me the opportunity to do this. I really cant explain how incredible this trip was no matter how hard I try through this blog and all the pictures. It truly was the trip of a lifetime and I don't believe I'll ever get to go on one this amazing again. So thank you once again, I love you guys and I know I could have never done this without you.

Secondly this is one hell of a long blog post so if you want to see the whole tour at once give yourself some time to get through it. Otherwise I'll try and break it down with some good stopping points for you haha. So we here we go.

Aside from the parents these two are the next guys who I owe a huge thank you to. That's Tappa (right) and Doggie (left), they were our tour guides for the week. The craziest couple of blokes I've ever met but they definitely know how to show everyone a good time. 

If any of you remember Vicky from my surf trip, well believe it or not Doggie is her Son! For those that don't know or remember, check out the Surf Trip blog, but she was originally the craziest Aussie I've probably met here. Let's just say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree here and when I first found out, although surprised, it later made perfect sense that Vicky is his mother.

And so here is where the trip began. The boys and I (Justin in red, Matty in grey) waiting outside our hostel in Brisbane to hop on our first bus and begin our One Fish, Two Fish tour. We were pretty excited from the beginning but we had no idea what was coming.

Just a couple of shots of Brisbane. Nothing exciting yet but the city was kind of cool so I thought I'd show you a little of it. 

Steve Irwin Zoo

So we made it to our first bus ride. I'm not going to show you guys too much of the party scene but I thought this picture could give you a pretty good glimpse of how it might have went. This was about 8 am, totally sober, and we got blonde sheilas getting dared dance with our Roo in the middle of the bus... The Roo was just a blow up Kangaroo (as you can see) that we all signed. There were three of these tours going out in consecutive days (ours being the first) and at points where we crossed paths during the trip you were supposed to try and capture the other groups while protecting yours. 

So here we are at the Steve Irwin Zoo. Even though you might think this is cool, don't get too excited because it was easily the worst day of the trip. This first part we got to go to a Croc feeding which was kind of sweet and all but when you see everything that follows you'll understand. And I just don't think the shows the same with Steve gone...

They had some pretty cool elephants. Put these ones up there for you Mom. We all know how much you love elephants.

They kind of tried to put on a show like they do at Sea world (I'm thinking of the seal show) but they just really can't compare. Like I said, the Zoo was kind of cool and especially later when getting to see the Kangaroos and stuff, but easily worst part of the trip...

And here come the Irwin's

Apparently Bindi Irwin (right) is the equivalent to our Miley Cyrus in Australia. I didn't believe Tappa when he first told us that (especially since they try and screw with us all the time) but I guess she's won awards and has all kinds of songs out and stuff. This was also the first show he said he's been to that she didn't perform some song and dance at. He was alright with it though since he's been to about 10 of these things and just can't wait to get out of here and get on with the good stuff of the tour. 

A little Croc feeding. This was actually pretty sweet to see.

So after the Croc show we were just eating in the food court and these two critters were just wandering around scavenging for food like sea gulls. Only in Australia...

Some Tortoises. Apparently they can like for like 200 years or something. That's pretty cool I guess if you're content with walking at about half a mile per hour for about 20ft every day for 200 years.

The Kangaroo feeding area. This place was just one huge fenced in area that you could just walk up to any Kangaroo you wanted and try and feed them. I didn't realize they'd let you do something like this because I couldn't stop thinking about how they rear up and kick the crap out of people with their hind legs on America's Funniest Home Videos and stuff.

I became good friends with this guy

My favorite time at the zoo and probably best picture. It was so funny how he sat up and seemed so human like when I was over trying to pet him.

Koala Bears sleep for about 20 hours a day so we got pretty lucky to actually see a couple of these guys awake and move around.

We actually could have held a Koala Bear if you paid extra (like everything else) so we opted for the petting instead. Queensland is actually the only state in Australia I'm pretty sure that allows you to hold them at all though because they're endangered.

Our first beer of the trip and stop at the bottle shop before a 5 hour trek on the bus to our first stop. Fat Yak might be my favorite Aussie beer I've had so far but at $20 a six pack I only treat myself to one once in a while. Kind of reminds me of some of the Vermont microbrews though.

And the bus ride begins. You can see Matty above breaking out some of his infamous dance moves (which will actually later on win him a dance contest). Then we have Myers below, and I think that picture speaks for itself. If you get the chance though ask Matty how the rest of his first bus ride turned out. We'll just say it was too much to be taking pictures of...

They had this giant jenga at the opening party, and actually at a couple other places we came across later on. Thought it was a great idea and kind of upset we never thought to do this one before. Might be something I have to put together for this summer though.

Fraser Island

Boarding the ferry for our ride over to Fraser Island and a little bus 4x4

I guess cats ride the ferry too

Pulling into Fraser Island. The island is notorious for having a lot of dingos (wild dogs, kind of made me think of coyotes back at home). We actually saw one in the distance when we were on our bus but my picture didn't come out well enough to even show. Only a couple days after we visited the island though a young kid was actually attacked by Dingos right where we got on our bus. So maybe they're a little bit more intense than our coyotes. Should have assumed that with all the deadly Aussie animals.

This is the bus we took "4x4". Not what I imagined when they said 4x4 ride originally (granted we've all seen the vehicles my Dad's built), but it actually turned out to be pretty cool because the roads through some of the rainforest on the island were extremely intense and if you didn't buckle up you could actually get tossed a couple feet out of your seat.

Trying to get a shot out of the bus window here of the rainforest outside. There's actually an extremely steep bank right here that drops off next to the road. And when you get into the thickest part of the forest only 50% of the light is able to get through the tree tops. 

Arriving at Lake Mckenzie

This is a fresh water lake and as you'll see later the island has a lot of them

The water is supposed to have the perfect pH level for humans and is extremely good for your skin. But surprisingly it's actually not good for animals, so you don't find all the things that'll kill you here. The sand here is also some of the whitest and finest sand on earth and it's actually good for you to rub it on your skin as a cleanser. 

Some of my first shots with the underwater camera (they only get better). It's no joke either this water seriously felt amazing. I could have stayed here all trip if we got to swim in this water.

After the swim we went our first walk through the rainforest on Fraser Island. Again because of the previous day's bus ride you'll have to ask Matty why he was chosen to wear that shirt. Someone was supposed to get chosen every morning judging by how much fun they had the night before haha.

So many of the trees were massive, as you can see our tree hugger exemplifying that here.

Although I don't think pictures can even do this rainforest walk justice for how amazing a lot of the stuff looked, it seemed you were constantly  more amazed with the next thing you did for the entire trip.

After the walk our bus took us on a ride down to what appeared to be a never ending beach along the island. We must have drove along it (as are 100's of people) for 20 minutes until we reached this shipwreck. Wish I could give you a bit more details about how it got here but it seems to have been lost in my memory throughout the trip.

And the plane ride

It's supposed to cost $70 per person to get taken up around the island but we found a way around it. Maybe we'll talk about that on a later date...

Lift off!!

We got some really amazing views of the whole island and it was totally worth the "$70"... As you can see with these last few pictures the whole island is actually made of that really fine sand I was talking about. I still don't understand how a rainforest and all the vegetation is able to grow here.

All of Fraser Island itself is huge. Here's another one of the lakes like we got to swim in (this is actually the smallest on the island) and you can actually see another along the horizon.

This is actually a little town along the beach where we went to eat lunch

Beginning to circle around for landing

This is one of my favorite pictures on the trip. I love the shadow of the plane against the orange color sand, and I even got a little fisherman/woman in there too. Didn't even recognize them until I posted it up here.

And the whole crew after or successful flight over the island

Aboard the ferry for our ride back at sunset

It was a pretty awesome day at Fraser Island but once we got back we had a 12 hour bus ride up to Cairns and the Whitsunday Islands. It was a looong bus ride, but that's nothing a little goon can't fix (unfortunately I don't have pictures of that for you).

Whitsunday Islands and Whitehaven Beach

For the first part of the day at the Whitsunday Islands we got aboard two jet boats to boat our stuff out to South Mole Island where we would be staying for 3 days. The Whitsunday Islands is an area of the coast of Cairns Australia that contains 64 different islands all clumped in one general region. This place is absolute paradise beyond explanation.

Since we had two boats transporting our group the drivers would jump and drift in each other's wake. It was a great way to wake up and cure the hangover/grogginess from the 12 hour bus ride.

Even though it appears to be mainland almost every picture I take on this section are islands that make up the Whitsundays.

After dropping off our stuff we headed to a spot where we were told to be going on another walk. Although the walks are neat, no one ever seemed to get too enthused and would have much rather cruised around on the jet boats. This walk turned out to be extremely short though and you'll soon see why we all shut our mouths when we reached the look out. 

Seeing this in person was absolutely surreal. I felt like I was actually in a postcard. And don't worry all the colors of the water and the surrounding islands are probably actually even more vibrant than they seem.

I want to blow this one up when I get home Mom and Dad. Easily could be my favorite one and needs to be hung above my bed. 

We have now arrived at Whitehaven beach. Absolutely incredible place.

It was the whitest, finest sand I've ever seen, paired with the bluest water and most unbelievable views. And best of all, we had the whole thing to ourselves for the day. We could just lay out drink a little goon, do a little swimming and enjoy the paradise we got to living in.

The group trying to band together for a photo

We actually got served up a pretty amazing lunch on our boats later in the day as well. I don't know where they hid all the food when we came over but no one was expecting it and when they first had us get back on I thought we were leaving after only a matter of a couple hours.

Still had our Roo. This wouldn't last long though because I think he had already been popped a little by this point.

Would paid more than the $70 to fly around this place

My favorite picture of us the whole trip. We were just absolutely loving this place and living it up. I've got some really good videos of our time here on the beach too but everyone's going to have to wait for those until I get home.

Pulling into South Mole island after our day in paradise. This could easily be argued to paradise too though and was a great home for the next 3 days.

Some sheila doing some fish feeding. This was actually pretty cool to watch and these little guys were always hanging around the pier.

A look out our pier at South Mole. I've got a good story/video of me and Myers jumping off the end of this and getting into a little conversation about Tiger Sharks with a local. Again though videos were giving me a hard time to upload and I'm going to do some good editing on the 30 hour trip home for everyone.

Free Day on South Mole

Playing a little golf on our island with our day off. It was one of the few free things (well actually $2 for a lost ball) but if you could really see the quality of this course they maybe should be paying me for even talking about it on this blog. But it was still a lot of fun and a few goon challenges throughout the round can bring fun to anything.

And of course the views are always amazing

Our beach out front of South Mole

Another potential blow up, but I don't think anything can compare to my previous one

One of our party nights on South Mole. This was called plastic fantastic and they just gave everyone a few neon colored garbage bags to deck themselves out in. Yes that's a stripper pole in the middle of the floor (another good question for Matty haha) and can you spot Myers?

Another one of my favorites off the pier. Everywhere you looked would amaze you and make you want to pinch yourself to check that this was real life.

So our time on South Mole was coming to an end but we were off to snorkel some coral reef at an area called Cave's Cove.

This here is Pete. He was our energetic captain for the day and snorkel guide. Actually had to yell for Pete later on to send a dingy boat out to get me when I cramped up swimming back to the boat... Pretty embarrassing I know, especially when you're the last one back to the boat and everyone is just watching you. Could've been worse though because Pete was going to throw me one of those life saver things, but Myers saved me my dignity and told him I could wait for the guy to come around on the raft haha.

Lying out and sailing to Cave's Cove

So we arrived at Cave's Cove. This island in the horizon is actually owned by Richard Branson (the owner of the Virgin franchise) and is supposed to be the most prestigious and expensive island to visit. Somewhere in the area of $3,000+ a night... Fun fact about him, his high school principal told him when he grew up he was either going to jail or going to become a millionaire. Jail must pay well huh?

Finally some snorkeling and some real underwater pictures. I've got some good ones here, and this might even be considered part of the Great Barrier Reef, but we actually go to the Reef later and that was just unexplainably amazing.

Everywhere you looked it felt like you were seeing something different. And there were thousands of fish always swimming all around you.

It was tough catching these guys in a photo but I got lucky once in awhile

A small little beach where people could go catch their breath. We actually didn't have any flippers or any sort of aid to help us float while snorkeling so it got pretty tiring and was hard to do if you weren't a decent swimmer. That's actually where my problem came from because I thought the coral was so unbelievable I wouldn't get out of the water. I came out for about 5 minutes to tell Myers about all the amazing stuff I saw and insisted he come back and check it out with me. He did but by the time I was swimming back to the boat I was so dehydrated from the salt water and probably a little from the night before my legs cramped right up on me.

Another look out towards Richard Branson's place

Our awesome stinger suits that are supposed to protect us from jellyfish. Forget the jellyfish I think they just look awesome.

Back to the snorkeling. Oh yea I forgot to mention, the reason they call it Cave's Cove is because a lot of the coral here actually forms cave underwater. That's also why I wouldn't get out of the water earlier because it's no joke and they were absolutely amazing to dive under. Not great for pictures so you can't fully see them but I do have video so you'll all get to see this summer.

Tried getting a shot of a cave here. I need an intense flash on this underwater camera to help me out or something.

More cave

Sometimes I'd get lucky with the sunlight. The colors of everything were so bright and amazing. I capture it a little better with some of my later Great Barrier Reef shots.

Whitewater Rafting

Us pulling into our breakfast spot at the Tully River. This was probably the only day we didn't end up having beautiful weather. But in my opinion it turned out awesome because all the mist and cloudy weather along the mountains just made for an even better whitewater rafting experience.

The spot where we ate some breakfast. Speaking of breakfast, we were getting up around 7 or 8 everyday throughout this trip and going and doing something incredible followed by a big after party every night. Just the shear amazingness and excitement with everything we did somehow kept us going to put together the greatest trip of our lives.

Everybody starting to gear up for our ride down the Tully River

This was our leader/steerer for the day down the river Steve. He actually sits at the back of the boat and yells out commands, "forward", "reverse" and "stop". Really pretty straight forward and then you just paddle accordingly. Matty and I were manning the front and were supposed to lead the boat with the pace of our paddling and how fast we wanted to dive into the rapids.

Couldn't really get the action shots of ourselves (for obvious reasons) but whenever we caught a break I was trying to catch some pictures of those following up behind us.

Another awesome picture of us from this trip. We've got Myers in the back, with his classic Myers look. That's Gustavo to his left, our new Mexican friend from Monterrey, looking a little uneasy. Doggie being Doggie in the front right and of course Matty with downs. Just the perfect picture. This deserves a print.

Classic photo of Ella freaking out through one of the rapids. Some of them were really intense though and it seemed worse at times being in the front. We were always the first to get submerged over the waterfalls or slam into big rocks. I can't even count the amount of times I caught Matty in the chest as he can flying across the raft.

The waterfall leading into our lunch break. The instructors brought everyone underneath this thing and when our raft went through we all tried to stand up under only immediately to be sat down from all the pressure.

Some well earned burgers before getting back at it again

A decent shot of the action. That raft is going to be completely submerged only seconds after this photo.

It's somewhat hard to see in this photo but they had a pretty rough cyclone season this year (equivalent to hurricane season) and a lot of the vegetation from these trees was killed off from the intense rain and winds. There were spots Steve showed us that the water level was up by probably 3 or more meters from where it was at this day.

Climbing a boulder in the middle of the river to take a little jump off

Tappa just riding past. I don't know if he did a whole lot on this whitewater rafting trip. He's a little guy but I get the feeling sometimes he may have been just hanging out in the back. Not to mention he "lost" his paddle about half way through.

And we survived the whitewater rafting. Looking back on it now at this point already in the trip there was a point where there was potential danger from Jellyfish, Sharks and Crocodiles. Jellyfish when we snorkeled, Tiger Sharks when Myers and I jumped off the pier (video to come) and we were told of Crocs just past the ending point of our whitewater rafting trip. That's actually the reason it ends where it does. You never know when they're screwing with you or not so I didn't believe them when they first told us but our instructor actually advised us not to purposely flip our raft at the end because that's the most dangerous area for Crocs. Some of these Aussie's are crazy.

This was our first night of celebration at the Woolshed. Easily the greatest bar I've ever been to and therefore obviously the best in Australia. We end up here every night for the remainder of the trip but getting introduced to the Woolshed with this delicious BBQ Rib dinner was the perfect first impression.

Here's a little taste of the Woolshed. This is what they call a tequila suicide. Tappa convinced Matty to give it a shot. Salt up the nose, tequila shot, lime in the eye. The real question is how he convinced him to do it twice...

The next day when we went to get a little lunch I wandered into this Aboriginal store filled with didgeridoos

These are the instruments that the Aboriginal people traditional play and are made from a Eucalyptus tree that is hollowed out by termites through the core.

This was Edina, the woman who owns the store, who kindly enough sat down and gave me about a 40 minute lesson on how to play these things. Myself a little tipsy from our free day before going bungy jumping, I was half expecting her to tell me to leave. Turns out these didgeridoos aren't as easy as it seems to play but by the end of my lesson I figured it out. I don't know if Edina was just really nice, as most every Aussie has been I've met, or if she was just really trying to make a sale. Either way I'm glad she did because I was going to need a lot more goon than I'd had to be dropping $700 on a hollowed out piece of wood. 

AJ Hacket Bungy Jump

I want this sign

When we first got here I had been so excited to try this I was probably the first person to run up these stairs.

On the way up a shot of our landing zone and the water that catches you if the rope fails

And if not they'll come out and get you on the raft

The view looking out towards Cairns from atop the bungy jump

And finally the look down below your feet before you jump. Not going to lie, I was awfully excited to get up there and do this but once you look down your heart wants to pound out of your chest.

This guy who jumped actually got to do a different jump then what our tour did. I'm sure it costs a little extra but instead of giving you a harness attached to your feet, it's attached to your chest and you can run and jump off of the roof of the bugy jump area.

Matty actually ended up being the first guy to go out of our whole group. They didn't really do it in any specific order so it only raised the suspense for when they were going to call out your name.

I think you can kind of sense it in our faces that we were pretty much scared shitless while waiting up there. I have to say I thought skydiving was a bit cooler and slightly crazier, but pre-jump, bungy jumping was easily a whole lot scarier. I don't know if it's because you're closer to the ground, jumping alone or trusting a rope, but regardless it was pretty terrifying while waiting to jump. Of course, again I have a video for this, you can find it on facebook and I've put it on youtube but I couldn't get it to upload. It's under my videos if you find me though so check it out, it's definitely the best way to show you this.

Myers looking nervous haha

This is the view from the bar down below. Yes I said bar. They actually let you and encourage you to get all liquored up before making the jump. It definitely works too. That's the minjin wing coming down in the background too. It's the swing you see at fairs and amusement parks a lot that pulls you up, usually with a group of three, and then you just release yourself to swing down across the pond. Since we did this after the bungy it really wasn't that exciting.

The minjin

We actually stayed here until after dark. Being one of the first to go I didn't get to do it at night but would love to see how much different it is. Apparently blindfolded and backwards are much scarier so I imagine it would scare you a little more the same.

The bar down below. If you look in the top left of this photo, where the flat screen is on the wall, they actually play live feed of each person jumping there. It's pretty funny because we had a couple people actually stand on the edge for what felt like about 5 minutes and one girl even broke into tears before everyone cheers them on and they finally make the leap. Those people actually usually just stepped off with their feet instead of diving as well but then just got whipped around at the end and it looked more painful to me than if you just went for it. 

Hanging at the bar and enjoying the show

They were grilling up burgers for you too. This was really just an ingenious set up. I've got a think there's a mountain in Vermont with an excellent view that one of these set-ups could be thrown up and be successful.

They told us this was a circus dog, and if we got our entire group to jump they strap him up in a harness, throw a stick off the top of the bungy and let him do the jump. Of course we had a couple who didn't jump and I wanted to see this more than anything but they were just pulling our leg to give us a little more encouragement. As if the bar wasn't enough.

The Great Barrier Reef

This was the only other day where we had a slight overcast to start the day, but it cleared up as you'll see later on and was a great day for diving the reef. We only had to walk about 5 minutes from our hostel this morning to get on our dive boat in the marina as well and then began our hour and a half trip out to the reef.

This was actually a multi-million dollar yacht we got to take out to the reef this day. Good thing too because it was pretty rough that day and we had an extremely long night with an early wake up so I imagine there would have been a lot more people getting sick than already were.

Our life guard out to help any snorkelers that may get leg cramps. Luckily I didn't near drowned this time  and spared myself the embarrassment. They did give us flippers and noodles to hold onto though haha.

And hear is the reef from the boats view. It was incredible how you could actually see it through the water like this. As you'll see there's definitely a very good reason it's one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. 

People headed out to snorkel

This snorkeling experience was a little better set up to with those floating pvc pipe squares. They were there for you to rest on if you got tired out by the reef because the boat was unable to go very close to where you needed to snorkel. You didn't have to really use them though and you wouldn't want to because once you saw the reef you did not want to leave and only wanted to see more.

They couldn't have named it better

The first group starting to prepare to dive. Everyone got to go in groups of 4 and be taken on a scuba dive for about 25 minutes with no certification required. You would all go with an instructor who would have everyone link arms (instructor in the middle) and take you about 3 meters deep to explore the reef.

And now it's our turn to prepare

Matty getting amped up. I knew he meant thumbs up as in this is awesome, but when you're diving this actually means you want to go up and you're supposed to give the okay sign haha.

Before we head over to the reef they just give you a quick couple of basic tests that they tell you how to pass before hand. Some people actually did panic a bit here because it is a strange feeling to not be able to breath out of your nose and have to breathe deeply only through your mouth. It's awkward at first but once you settle in it's really amazing. And you sound like darth vader.

And we're off

I tried to set these up to save some of the best for last and I actually got a lot of really good video that I'm going to piece together for everyone. I went back out snorkeling a little later and got the good pictures.

You really felt like you saw something new and amazing at every turn. You wanted to just freak and tell someone about how amazing the things you were looking at were, but of course you couldn't talk or you'd be getting a mouth full of water and not able to breathe. I like the quietness though and just getting to look at everything without talking or listening to anyone. If you lived with Myers jabbering in your ear you might know what I mean. Just kidding but seriously the peacefulness and just how surreal everything seemed at the same time was amazing. 

Myers and I headed out to do some more snorkeling. Like I said a lot of video will come from the scuba dive later.

I was able to get some pretty good color on a lot of these shots, but everything was honestly far brighter and more colorful than my camera could capture. I know I sound like a broken record but words can not even describe it, and if you ever get the chance, you need to go here.

And this is where Nemo lives. No joke I've got an awesome video of it and there are two little Nemo looking fish that always live in this part of the coral. This coral is constantly moving and swaying with the movement of the water, it's unbelievable. 

One of my favorite pictures on the reef. The bright blue that you see is the inside of a giant clam. They were all over the reef and if you touched the inside of the blue area they would close up on your hand. It felt like velvet it was so awesome.

The one thing I wish I could've gotten more pictures of was the fish. They were everywhere by the thousands but everything was just so massive it was hard to focus in on them. These couple of fish really aren't that small the coral is just incredible. Following the single fish was just too difficult so I had to go for the bigger picture.

For my final picture on the reef, a more close up shot of one of the clams. This picture was alright with capturing the color but even the things surrounding the blue were so much more vibrant. I don't know that I could say the reef was my favorite thing to do, perhaps the most amazing, but literally it was hard to decide out of all the incredible things we got to see and do would have been my favorite. I just do know The Great Barrier Reef is without a doubt one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. 

Sadly, Our Final Day of One Fish, Two Fish...

Our bus ride atop the party bus to the rainforest walk and one last day trip before our final night in Cairns.

Amazing scenery just outside of Cairns

So this was our final election on who gets the I <3 Fish #1 Goon shirt and rightfully so, our own guide Tappa was awarded it. It was his birthday the night before and this was ninth and final tour with One Fish, Two Fish. If you went on this trip you would truly understand how sad that might be if this was your job so he went pretty hard in celebration. 

Also noting the can that Doggie is holding. That was known as the "sin tin". Each morning people would have to come up and pay for their sins the day before. All the proceeds then went to throwing one last party for everyone at the Woolshed and huge feast.

Arriving at our walk through the Daintree rainforest

The river was pretty amazing looking (sorry I've kind of run out of adjectives on this blog) along the walk.

This was the swimming hole that we got to hang out in for a final day as a group

I think this is my favorite picture of the waterfall. And there is no photoshopping involved here people, this is what and how I captured it.

Hanging underneath the falls

It was a fairly low key, but beautiful day and great way to cap off our 9 day adventure on the tour.

And here we have Doggie with a few of the girls at our final pre-game together before heading out to the Woolshed. 

Of course Tappa wanted to go out strong with his final night of One Fish, Two Fish haha. Don't worry Mom I don't drink of the bottle like this.

And as a final farewell we all got together in our own private room at the Woolshed, had some awards passed out, ate some delicious food and given an oh so memorable speech by our leaders Tappa and Doggie. Doggie, who had skipped out on both the snorkeling/scuba diving adventures we went on, used that time to put together a montage of photos and video of our entire trip as a group over the 9 days. We all get a copy of that as well, which we'll be getting at a reunion in a couple weeks time in Coogee, and I will be sure to show you all when I return home. 

I hope you all enjoyed reading about it even half as much as I enjoyed living it. I know it's long, I know I'm missing some video, but now you just have something else to look forward to upon my return home. Missing you all like crazy and can't wait to see you soon. It's the home stretch and now I have to actually go get some school work done. After that trip it's definitely going to be a struggle getting snapped back into reality.