The Great Barrier Reef

Howdy!!

I've been out of the US for 9 months now... a freakishly long time... and in Australia for 6 months. As a way to celebrate being out of the US for 9 months I decided it was time knocked something big off of my bucket list: Dive The Great Barrier Reef!! 

Not having a car made this a little tricky, so I decided to go with my tried and true method of transportation: Hitchhiking. Once again I found myself dependent on the niceness of strangers, and once again, I wasn't disappointed. I decided my first destination would be Bundaberg [About 3 hours N of Brisbane driving and on the way to the Great Barrier Reef] Hitching I got there in just under 5 hours. My last lift took me to outskirts of Bundaberg where I was greeted at a truck stop by Trevor! 

Trevor (or as most people call him "reb") is an old friend of mine who I have been delaying seeing for a good long while because he lived so far north of me. I was ecstatic to finally hang out and catch up and reminisce about to good ole days. Trev let me stay at his place a couple of days until I got my dive booked! To burn some time off we ended up going to the Bundaberg Rum Distillery and having a good ole time of it. Great tour actually, I was surprised at the quality. 

Included in my dive trip was a bus trip from Bundaberg to The Township of 1770. A great thing because of how small 1770 is. 1770 is where my dive boat actually left from. I ended up choosing to go to Lady Musgrove Island; a coral island formed about 1.5 hours from the coast. The best part about the boat ride over.... was.... I was surrounded, yet again, my Asian tourists. Nothing against Asian tourists at all... except when they're on a boat.. and I'm surrounded by them... and A SOLID 90 PERCENT OF THEM GET SEA SICK..... so that was..... just... great. 

But on to the best part of the story!

The boat got there and we went onto a smaller boat and we did our dives. Straight away we say two humpback whales!! A mother leading her calf around. Off in the distance, they didn't want much to do with us. Throughout the rest of the dives we saw HEAPS of sea turtles, a shark, incredibly quick dolphin who were gone before we really realized what was going on. And more colorful fish and coral than I even knew were possible. Literally I did not know that some of the colors I saw even existed in nature. Crazy neons, electric blues, and yellows so in your face you almost needed sunglasses. I will remember that day for the rest of my life. I ended up getting 3 dives in and loving every second of it. 

While there in 1770 I ended up staying at a hostel called "The Cool Bananas." The Cool Bananas was a really unique hostel. It felt like a big living community. Every day people from the 4 local hostels in the area would go down to the beach and play beach volleyball together. I don't know exactly what it was about the Cool Banana but it was incredibly unique. If you every find yourself in 1770, go to The Cool Banana, you won't regret it. 

After my last night there I hitched back to Brisbane. A frustrating hitch because I kept getting dropped in bad spots, but it all worked out in the end. I am headed back to the states for Christmas in a mere 2 months. I have grown very attached to Australia and will be sad to leave. But there is much more of the world to see!

Until next time!

Steve