Thanksgiving!!!

11.25.10

Well,

Wednesday was a very exciting day; today we were heading up to Kuranda.
We woke up at 3am for our 4:10am hotel pick-up. We got picked up and then taken into Mareeba for our hot air balloon ride. The balloon ride was about a half hour. We went fairly high up and over fields and saw wild wallabies and it was a ton of fun. We were on the first flight and so had to get off for the second one. We ended up landing on the side of the rode in a small strip and switched passengers. Then we had to chase the balloon since the wind is in control of where it goes. After the second group landed we had to help pack up the balloon. This included helping deflate, folding it up, and lift the basket onto a truck. After this we headed into town for our champagne breakfast. We had eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, hash browns, and of course champagne. From there, we headed to Kuranda.

In Kuranda, we walked around the shops and the markets before heading to the Rain ForeStation. This is where we took an Aboriginal “dream-time” walk and learned about spears, the didgeridoo, and throwing boomerangs. I also finally saw someone circular breathe and will attempt to learn it. Then we went to an Aboriginal dance show. Then we left to go to the Sky Rail. The Sky Rail went through the rainforest. We were able to get off and look at Barron Falls, and rainforest plants. Unfortunately at the top it was raining pretty hard and so we couldn’t really see a lot but it was fairly nice at the bottom after we navigated through the fog. At the bottom, we got picked up and taken back to the hotel. Even though it was like 3:30pm, we were all exhausted. We then walked around the city looking for food and finally decided to eat at KFC. It was a lot better than I expected it to be probably due to my extremely low expectations of KFC. Then we came back to our room, took showers, and went to bed.

Thursday was Thanksgiving Day. This was the day we were heading out to the Great Barrier Reef. We went to the Reef Fleet at 8:15 and caught our boat. We left the marina at 9am. On our way out to the outer reef, we stopped at Fitzroy Island to drop off some people. The entire trip out to the platform took about an hour and a half. Due to the weather, the ride out was very choppy and I became very seasick even though I took pills to prevent it. We were hoping that the platform would be very stable but found out that it was also floating and thus not stable either. Still seasick, we rode both a glass bottom boat and a semi-submerged boat. After having a roll for lunch, we slept on the sun deck with hopes of feeling better. We were woken up by the rain and I definitely felt a ton better. We walked through the underwater part of the platform before heading back onto the boat to head back into Cairns. We got back to Cairns at about 5:40pm. Again we were exhausted and went for food. This time, we ended up at Villa Romano. My mom and I had Moreton Bay Bugs with prawns and my dad had veal. We all had a thanksgiving glass of wine before returning to the room and falling asleep.