last leg

Hiii readers! Sorry for the lag in updating, again. I'm blogging to you from Cairns, Queensland, our last destination of the journey! We'll be getting certified in scuba diving, starting tomorrow, and then diving for a couple of days out on the Great Barrier Reef...how wild is that? I remember learning about the Great Barrier Reef as a kid, but I can't believe I'll actually be there soon...talk about surreal. But before I have to go, let's see if I can recap my trip really quick since my last update. So the kangaroo feeding ended up just being us watching the guy feed joeys (baby kangaroos) through milk bottles, but we still got to pet them (and I got kissed by one! See Facebook, haha), so that was awesome :) During the rest of our Groovy Grape journey, we got to hike around Uluru, a sacred Aboriginal site that is a giant monolith (super cool!), as well as Kings' Canyon, another awesome hike. I got to make friends with some cool European backpackers during the ride, as well. After Groovy Grape, we flew to Brisbane and then spent 5 days at Chenrezig Buddhist retreat center, set in the lush rainforest atmosphere of Queensland. It wasn't actually as bad as I thought it would be--it was really relaxing, and I got to learn a lot about Buddhism from some really nice monks and nuns and artists. Also, I surprised myself by reading four books in 5 days! (Hinds' Feet on High Places, and then three memoirs: Eat Pray Love, Mao's Last Dancer, and Tuesdays with Morrie--all so good!) Altogether a good time, so praise God for that :) The past few days, we've just been doing some free travel again--got to go to Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world, and we also got to learn how to surf in Noosa (a beach town)! That was really sweet and a lot of fun :) Also got to take a couple of awesome hikes in rainforesty areas over the past couple of days (and I spotted a koala high up in a eucalyptus tree! Wheeee). Now we're off to eat dinner and prepare for--you guessed it--the last leg of our trip. Here we go!

conservation + outback.

Hiiii everyone! :) How are y'all? (No worries, my Texas accent is as much with me as ever, haha)
Currently updating you from the beautiful, bustling (but not really) town of Coober Pedy, the opal capital of the world. It's kinda in the middle of the great Australian Outback, so not too busy..hence the downtime to shoot a little update :)
So after Sydney (and for those of you who are wondering, the sticky situation was resolved, ptL!), we flew out early in the morning to Adelaide, where we met up with CVA (Conservation Volunteers Australia) and split into our two groups for the week. Our group went to Eyre Peninsula (an 8-hour drive away, whew!), where we spent the week weeding a few different invasive species. The days were hot but short (we'd always get off work around 2 pm or earlier...haha), and our hostel was an old shearing woolshed next to a jetty on the bay, so we got to see some sweet sea life--some small squids and octopi, even a couple of manta rays! Easter kinda passed by without a big deal (which was kinda weird for me), since that was the day we drove back to Adelaide. Overall, it was a fun week, though, and weeding's not so bad when you're doing it with a group :)
After a free day in Adelaide, which I spent at their awesome Botanic Gardens, we were off into the outback with the Groovy Grape, a touring van that takes groups from Adelaide to Alice Springs, a city in the middle of the outback. It's been pretty chill, even a bit boring? since we're in the car so much, but it's been fun getting to know the others who are in the van with us (mostly Europeans and a kiwi couple as well). I've been able to spot some kangaroos and emus while in Australia, which is pretty sweet as well!

Oookay, that's it for now. Guess what I'm off to next?...feeding kangaroos! :D Pictures to come, hopefully