Before we even got to school in the Gold Coast, we stopped over in Cairns for some good old fashioned hostel living. The hostel we stayed in, Gilligan's, was actually pretty nice and the only "roughing it" we encountered was living in a room of 5 other girls and one boy....awkward I know.
Gilligan's was such a great place to stay, with a sweet pool, waterfall, bar & grill, dance club all included and on the property. We made use of all the amenities (minus the bar) as pictured here in Fig 1.
Drinking is a pretty big thing in Australian culture as we soon became aware, so drinking games are an absolute must. We quickly found out, however, that vegemite is a way worse consequence than a swig of some gross tasting/smelling liquid. So naturally we got a pretty big vegemite game going at Gilligan's in the lounge next to our rooms. The pictures speak for themselves. The losers really felt like losers with a whole spoonful of "the worst tasting thing I've ever tasted".
There was heaps to do there too (heaps is some lingo we picked up here)! The first day of exploration, we went to the zoo and an aboriginal camp. The zoo was awesome. We got to feed kangaroos, hold koalas, and much much more! PS. Dingoes are just dogs. Don't let them fool you.
At the aboriginal camp we got to throw boomerangs. Ally's came back and she caught it so she got to keep it!
Perhaps the highlight of the whole Australia expedition...THE GBR...Great Barrier Reef. We took a pretty big catamaran out into the deep blue Australian Ocean (which I believe is the Pacific...right?...having a Newport Beach moment). We went to two dive/snorkel spots. Amanda went scuba diving and Ally lived vicariously through Amanda by taking a bunch of pictures. Our underwater pictures aren't developed yet but are going to be awesome for sure.
The second stop landed us at what we like to call Bird Island because we can't remember what the real name is...Michelson Cay or something like that. Anyway, all the birds you see are migrating from Alaska and stop on this island to hatch their eggs. We got to swim out to the island and it smelled like poo.
All in all it was a great day, and Ally thinks she got a rash from the GBR which is pretty cool in our opinion.
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