Australia Part 3: Last day in Cairns and Airlie Beach

I realize I forgot some pictures that I was going to add to the Diving post, so here are some bonus Reef pictures. 

I hope this video works. We decided not to go on the night dive, and this is another reason why we didn't. 

After our dive trip, we had a little more time in Cairns before we had our first drive day to Airlie Beach. From our hostel (yeah, I got my mom and dad to stay in one!) We walked along this lovely boardwalk toward downtown Airlie. 

Dad found it - see the snake skin?

These condos look awesome. I would live there. 

Enjoying the pretty sunset on our way to dinner

The beginning of the downtown - all the beaches that we went to in Australia have this kind of thing. There are public BBQs and places to swim. 

This is the entrance to our "jungle" hostel. It was a bit rugged, but very pretty. Mom and dad were a bit skeptical at the beginning, but then approved at the end :) 

Clearly, we needed a day to chill out and lounge by the pool.

Another view of the beach. 

These signs were everywhere. It's the reason why there aren't any people in the water - they have a massive migration of jellyfish and they can be quite dangerous. 

We got take out and enjoyed our dinner with a view. It was gone before I could get a picture - hence just the drinks in the picture.

These birds are very pretty but SO LOUD and they like to swoop REALLY FAST right next to you so that you jump every time. I think they do it on purpose. 

Another great sunset. 

This begins my FAVORITE DAY in Australia. I think it was also my parent's favorite, but hey, I'm the blogger, so I call dibs. 

We went on this boat to sail through the Whitsunday Islands. Beautiful! We had the perfect day, and everything about this boat was AWESOME. 

This is the beach were we went snorkeling. My dad didn't have his camera with him, so we don't have any pictures, but there were a bunch of cool fish and some decent coral. 

We pretty much spent the whole time in this front part of the boat. The wind was lovely and you had a great view of the islands passing by. 

First view of Whitehaven Beach. Definitely one of the most beautiful beaches I've seen. It is 7km long and has nice white sand. 

Finds along the beach!

It was a really long beach! We didn't have time to walk very far, but we did walk up to the top of the hill. 

Nice view! 

  

This is daydream Island. There is a big resort here that we stopped at and were able to swim and chill by the pools. 

Lagoon with sharks and HUGE sting rays. 

Relaxing by the pool.

And they had kangaroos! 

We tried to get closer to them. 

Very slowly. 

Dad is trying to make it look like he isn't interested in them at all.... but they jumped away. 

Mermaids on rocks.

Cool view of our boat.

Awesome way to finish the day - we had a feast of fish, thai food, and McDonalds Mac n Cheese bites. Yum! 

Australia Part 2: Diving

On the second full day of our trip, we went on a diving excursion that was a 2 day/1 night livaboard boat. We didn't realize that all of the trip wasn't on the same boat, and, unfortunately, we were quite disappointed with the first day of diving. There were simply WAY too many people on our first boat, but... our second boat was MUCH nicer with fewer people, and the sites we dove at were not as grey and damaged as the ones we went to on our first day. Enjoy some pictures from the Great Barrier Reef! Ps: My dad has an awesome underwater camera, so he is the one who actually took all these pictures - as you can tell... cause I am in a bunch of them.

                                  

Mom and me

My dad is the one who is upside down in this picture... I am not as skilled as he is

Sting ray! One of the few cool things we saw on our first dive. 

Of course, the legendary clown fish. They were so cute!

My dad loves taking artsy pictures - notice the nice lighting with the shadows playing on the water... I told you he has skills

Way cool coral 

More cute clown fish!

SHARK! We weren't able to get any closer because he swam away, but he posed nicely for my dad for long enough to get these few shots. 

This is much harder than in looks. You all must enjoy seeing my pearly whites here cause I got a mouthful of saltwater when putting my regulator back in. 

More artsy pictures

Do you see the fish? He blends in pretty well!

Lobster!

Coral fan

Cruizin along

Best picture of the clown fish

Parrot fish

I think I look really awkward in this picture, but oh well. I'm trying to get close enough to the coral so that it is in the picture, but I also know that I can't touch it = awkward Bridget.