I Made Some Pretty Damn Good Australian Lemonade

 Most of you guys probably know that one of my missions has been to do lots of volunteer projects around the world on my year off. Well, I sorta got shafted from doing any biology related volunteering in Australia, so at the last moment I planned an impromptu trip up the east coast. When life give you lemons, make lemonade right?! Well, here's my Australian lemonade... it turned out pretty damn good :)



Well actually it didn't start out so hot. I went camping in the Blue Mountains, and the thunder rolled in and it started pouring right when I was setting up my tent. Notice the nice river flowing through the grass and under my tent on the right. Good way to test out my new gear anyway.



I am happy, really I swear! I love camping...
At least all my gear passed the test, nothing got soaked!



Woke up the next morning to the most beautiful view and sunshine, YAY!



So I went on a hike through the mountains. These are the three sisters, some cool kinda famous rocks.



I saw these kookaburras sitting in a tree



The views were spectacular!



So many pretty waterfalls



This Sulfur crested cockatoo was just chilling out by the waterfall, and there were tons of them flying around making super loud squaks the whole hike.



Then this guy popped out of the bush and started shaking his tail feathers at me!



The next day I went to the Jenolan caves. I love caves!

 


It was pretty commercial, but it was cool because they had some crazy lighting set up, making the cave look really dramatic!



Stalactite ceiling



This part of the cave ceiling looked like lots of bacon strips hanging down!



mmmmmm bacon.

 

Saw this parrot eating a french fry, mmmm french fries



A few days later I went to Fraser Island, it's the world's largest sand island. It's just basically over 100 km's of beautiful beach like this :)

 

Me and my group drove around in this 4x4, offroad!



We had beach story time



We heard about the story of this shipwreck that washed up on shore. Too bad I can't really remember the story, but it was a really important ship during the war, I swear.

 

We went swimming in this beautiful lake. It even had lots of giant catfish in it!



Then this funny looking Mohawk pigeon gave me the eye



This spider was gigantic!!!



Then I went on a sailboat for a few days to the Whitsunday Islands



The sunset was incredible.



I saw this badass Sea Eagle



Enjoying the sunshine on Whitehaven beach. I think I actually have a real live tan, for the first time in my life ever!!! I am pretty excited about it!



My sailing boat bro's



Whitehaven beach, isn't this one of the most beautiful beaches on the planet??!!!



We got to try hoisting the sails, really hard work!



Chill time



Sea turtle spotting at the beach



Poker and beer with my new Irish buds, life is good!



When I got up north in Cairns, I went for a rainforest tour. We saw this incredible cathedral fig tree that is over 1000 years old!



This pelican got photobombed by a duck



Enjoying the view of the giant scaly bark pine tree



It's a pretty cool view!

 

Took a swing on a vine, like you do in the jungle



Went turtle spotting in the lake



Swam in a freezing cold waterfall



We had a great group!



Amazing views of the Atherton Tablelands



And here's a funny pic I took of a very surprised kangaroo!

 That's it for now. It's been an amazing journey in Australia. I have an epic blog post coming up about diving the Great Barrier Reef which was one of the highlights of my life so far!!! More on that later :)