Our first full day in Cairns was filled with dangerous animals and dangerous jumps. After a brutally long travel day that started at 4am yesterday, our day didn’t start until 10;30 this morning. We hopped on a bus and headed on an hour bus ride to the zoo. We have been told from the start of the trip that we would get to hold a koala in Cairns and I think everyone and their parents were excited for this day. When we got to the zoo we wasted no time and got right in line for the koala. I was the last person in our group to go so I got to see everyone else hold the koala and get their pictures taken. The anticipation built up and it was finally my time to hold the stuff-animal-like creature. The little girl koala was incredibly friendly and sat calmly on my arm as my massive smile covered my face.
While Jules may have wanted to take the koala with us, our trip to the zoo moved on to the kangaroos, where we were quickly approached by the biggest kangaroo of the bunch. I took a fast step back because I had heard all the stories of the boxing kangaroos, and I wasn’t going to be the next victim. Turns out this guy wasn’t trying to fight me, he just wanted to say hi and was a remarkably cool fella. I fed him and took some very cool photos with him and some of the other kangaroos in the field. The rest of the trip to the zoo revolved around one thing, Crocodiles. I don’t think I have ever seen an alligator or crocodile, in person, before today and now I think I have had enough of the modern-day dinosaur-like creatures. We saw the man-made swamps that the adult crocodiles live in, as we drove through the swamp in a boxed-in boat. These things were flinging themselves out of the water trying to catch their lunch and thirty members of the boat looked on in awe. The bite force of the crocodile was so loud it could probably be heard from 100 meters(we are in Australia) away. After the boat trip, we saw the pen where baby crocs are farmed, for their skin and meat. Around fifty crocodiles were just lying there in the cage right in front of us, as we were explained the process of crocodile farming has resulted in the revival of the almost extinct animal. Another highlight was seeing the crocodile demonstration that the zoo puts on where we saw a man spend upwards of thirty minutes in the same pen as the crocodile as we learned even more about the absolute tank of an animal. A few members of the group even tried some crocodiles for lunch, if that gives you an idea of the kind of place we were at.
After the zoo, the group ventured to the Crystal Cascades and took a short hike to a local swimming hole. While it may come as a surprise, the first person in the water was Professor Burton, yep the professor on the trip jumped head first off the face of the rock into the beautiful river. After seeing this, it wasn’t more than ten seconds until I joined him in the water as I jumped in doing a cannonball. This was one of the cooler local spots you will find in the Cairns area and a perfect place to relax for the afternoon. Not everyone in the group went in, but those of us who did were able to do amazing flips of the rocks facade and swim under a waterfall. It was easily one of the coolest parts of the trip and I had an absolute blast jumping into the warm freshwater river, especially because I knew there were no crocodiles.
The group then split up for the rest of the day and found local dinner spots around Cairns and tried some more local meats, this time it was a kangaroo. Today was filled with some big splashes, many crocodiles, kangaroos, and koalas. So exactly what an American would picture when they think of the land down under. We now go to sleep knowing tomorrow we will see one of the natural phenomena of the world, the Great Barrier Reef.
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