What you've all been waiting for...

A couple of weeks ago, I went travelling with my brother and sister-in-law for a week around Australia for my spring break, so, finally, I can show you pictures of AUSTRALIA as you imagine it, in all its splendor. But what you see on this post is just a preview, since I can't put them all on this blog. In all, my brother and I took nearly 750 pictures, and that's not counting the one's he took in Sydney. Don't worry though--I've put a condensed version on Shutterfly for you. But first let me give you an overview...
[If you want to skip straight to the pics, click the "Spring Break" links to the right.]

As I mentioned in a previous post, my brother and sister-in-law started off in Sydney and then I joined them a few days later (thanks to my papers). Our itinerary was as follows: First, we went into the heart of Australia to the Northern Territory to see Ayers Rock, or Uluru (its Aboriginal name), the largest monolith in the world. Four days later, we flew to Queensland in Australia's northeast to Cairns (pronounced pretty much like "cans") to see Australia's tropical rainforests and the Great Barrier Reef. Over the course of the week, we saw the outback (desert), ocean, mountains, rivers, waterfalls, all sorts of flora and fauna (both on land and underwater), coral, the beach, and the heavens. It was amazing.

As I said, Uluru is in the middle of Australia, which is all desert. We flew over the Simpson Desert, but from the plane it looked like we were flying over Mars because the sand is red.



[Interesting note: I learned that the redness of the earth is symbolized in the aboriginal flag, which looks like this. The black represents the Aboriginal people, and the yellow circle is the sun.]


Were it not for tourism, there would be nothing out there except the desert, the rocks, and the Anungu aborignal people who live there. But someone came along and created Ayers Rock Resort, which has five accomodation options, from luxury hotel to campground, plus a little "town" to serve the guests, including a post office, grocery store, cafe, and souvenir shops.

Uluru is an impressive rock and beautiful to look at both from afar and up close. As the sun sets, the red rock changes colors with the sky around it. It looks different nearly every second. (We took a lot of pictures of Uluru at sunset, so be prepared).


Uluru is actually owned by the Anugu people. They regained ownership in the late '70s from the Australian government, but only on the condition that they would lease it back to the government for 99 years as a national park. Alot of people visit to climb Uluru, but the Anugu people request that they don't because it is sacred to them. People do anyway. Instead of climbing, we walked around part of the base.

Near Uluru is Kata Tjuta, another rock formation, and we did a 4 hour hike through it--the Valley of the Winds Walk.


One of the coolest things we did in the outback though was have dinner in the desert (the "Sounds of Silence" dinner). First of all, the desert sunset is breathtaking (many pictures of this, too).


Even more breathtaking, though, is the night sky without light pollution from the city. I have wanted to be able to see the stars this way for so long. That night was perfect not only because it was clear out, but there was no moon that night (it was the spring equinox), so the stars were really visible. We could even see the Milky Way, and saw Jupiter and its 4 moons by telescope. The dinner featured a lesson on the constellations of the southern hemisphere as well, some of which we never see up north. My brother's camera was amazingly able to capture Scorpio and the Milky Way.

Can you see it?
Look again...

On to Queensland...
We flew into Cairns, but stayed a bit north of Cairns at Trinity Beach. Our first day, we took a tour of the Daintree Rainforest by boat on the Daintree River, where we saw a very large croc (fondly named Fat Albert by the river guides) and other wildlife.

We also went to Hartley's Crocodile Adventures to see a croc attack show, which was fun, but seeing a wild one in the river made it a little less impressive. Hartley's had some other Australian wildlife, including koalas, wallabies (they look like little kangaroos), and cassowaries, the largest land animal in Australia. Surprisingly, it's a bird.


It's endangered and there are few wild cassowaries, mainly because there is not enough space for them. They are very territorial and occupy something like 10 square km each.

One thing Hartley's did not have was...kangaroos. Still haven't seen one! But I had some for dinner again.

The next day, we went to the Great Barrier Reef, where we snorkeled, and I tried scuba diving. I swam side by side with some really big fish (but no sharks or sting rays) and touched a giant clam! The color and clarity of the water was amazing.


It was my first time snorkeling and scuba diving, and they both took some time getting used to, mainly the breathing. Scuba diving was a bit harder than I thought--the flippers move a lot of water, so it's hard work on the quads. And the scuba equpiment is SO heavy! I thought I was going to fall over backwards. Once you get in the water though, you can't feel it.


The scuba mask also has the unfortunate effect of making you look like a koala...

My last day, we went to the town of Kuranda, which is in the mountains. We went up via a skyrail, riding a "gondola" moving on a cable, overlooking the rainforest, and came down on a train.


So, that's an overview of my trip. You can see the rest of my pictures on my Shutterfly account (you don't have to join). There are two different albums (just click on the links): Uluru and Queensland.

Enjoy!