We arrived in Cairns a day later than we had planned due to a storm over Brisbane airport which caused our flight to get cancelled. However once we got to our AirBnB we settled in and headed out to the grocery store to get food for the next few nights. On our first full day in Cairns, we took a walk down the front to the lagoon. We found out that during the summer the sea is off-limits as a result of the box jellyfish, which is near-invisible and can be deadly, so everyone goes to the lagoon to swim. We relaxed there for a while before heading back via the Greyhound Bus office to get information on where we had to be and at what time for our ride to Airlie Beach.

Our grand adventure in Cairns consisted of a snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef. We departed early in the morning from Cairns Marina and headed out to the reef. We had to wear neoprene bodysuits while in the water to protect us from the box jellies, and we looked around two different reefs. We saw fish of all different colors and sizes, including some clownfish in an anemone. From the boat we also saw a number of sea turtles and dolphins!

Snorkeling in the reef was definitely one of the highlights of the trip, it’ll be difficult to top!

The bus from Cairns to Airlie Beach was around five hours, but it flew by as we were excited to arrive in one of the most idyllic towns in Queensland. We arrived around midnight and went straight to sleep at the hostel.

The next day we began to look around the town. It was comprised of one strip, which held shops, restaurants, hostels and a lagoon. We spent a lot of our time in Airlie Beach at the lagoon, which was busy but still very nice. We also found a small shop that sold bubble tea, which we visited a couple of times before leaving.

We weren’t looking forward to our next bus ride, which promised to be fourteen hours to Hervey Bay, but we loaded up on snacks and headed there anyway.

On the bus to Hervey Bay, we met a couple also traveling Australia, Ian and Elle (funny enough, Elle was English and Ian from the States), who were staying at the same hostel as us. So we split a cab from the bus station to the hostel and went to bed as it was almost 3am by the time we arrived.

The next day we explored Hervey Bay and discovered that there wasn’t a great deal there, which presented a problem as we were scheduled to stay there for almost a week. Our stay in the Bay consisted of trips to the town center, the beach and the ice cream shop down the street from the hostel.

The bus from Hervey Bay to Brisbane was due to be shorter than the previous one, and we were due to spend Christmas in Brisbane, so we were looking forward to it.

We arrived in Brisbane on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas Day we traveled to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. There, we saw kangaroos, platypuses, lizards, wallabies, and of course, koalas. We even held one!

The next day, we got the train up to Australia Zoo, where we spent the day looking around at all the animals both native to Australia and the rest of the world. It was such a cool place, everything was dedicated to the late Steve Irwin.

The next day, the Greyhound took us an hour south to Surfer’s Paradise, where we stayed with the Rice family, a family friend. We were there until the 6th of January and while there, we participated in a sky walk from the top of the Q1 Building, the tallest building in Australia. We were able to see all miles down the coast and all over Surfer’s. It was stunning from the sky!

We also took a day trip to Byron Bay, which was a really cool place. It was a cool, quintessential Australian place; everyone looked like they would happily go from whatever they were doing to surfing in an instant. We explored the town all day and headed back to Surfer’s in the evening.

On our final day in Surfer’s Paradise, we went down to Burleigh Heads, where we met Ian and Elle for lunch. They were studying in Surfer’s Paradise and travelled the East Coast of Australia during their summer break. After lunch, we went to the beach and then headed back.