Day 10

• What I did today

Our last day in Cairns seemed like the first... Time is ticking away and we don't even know it. However, I don't want to think about tomorrow, but live in the time of today and the excitement it has brought!

Early in the morning, after waking up and eating our last Aussie breakfast, we took an Old-style train, called the Freshwater Railway Station, to the top of the mountains. While on the railway, we passed through some amazing sights, seeing beautiful trees, flowers, mountains, and waterfalls... Pretty much everything! I could see the view of Cairns, or at least most of it, and as we rode up higher and higher, it became more breathtaking and simply beautiful. It was so cool to see the city from one of the highest peaks of the mountains!

I even had fun inside the train, too. The train inside was pretty calming, with a lot of space and a lot of colors... My friends and I even blasted our iPods and began singing songs like we never sang before! Full of emotion and passion, all high-spirited... We knew this was going to be one of the funnest days ever!

When we got to the top, we got a chance to walk around the small village of Kuranda. It was gorgeous! Palm trees, animals, exotic flowers... The smell, the atmosphere, the look of it all... All just simply stunning! Even the "Welcome to Kuranda" sign was welcoming and full of personality, in my opinion! While there, Zach, Nishant, Scott, Katie, Shelby, Steven, and I all went to go eat lunch at this rainforest-y cafe... There were sooo many good food choices to pick from, it was impossible to pick, especially because it was our last day in Australia...

But as soon as I saw "Kangaroo Pie" on the menu, I couldn't help but take a shot at it! And it turned out to be delicious! It was sort of like a pastry-like dough-thing filled with meat inside (I wonder if it actually was kangaroo, or not)... but it was delicious! And that's what matters.
Full of food, we began walking around the village and we came across this Aboriginal store where a real Aborigine made and sold real Aboriginal arts. He even told us to give a chance playing the didgeridoo! I have to say, playing a didgeridoo looks like the easiest thing in the world; all you have to do is pick it up, and blow into it, and hopefully it will make beautiful sounds. But no... It's actually the hardest instrument I ever tried playing! It was fun... Blowing into the didgeridoo, I began to make some sort of sounds, but I'm not exactly sure if they were right.

I was actually able to manage to hold the tune for a couple of seconds, which made me proud! I was glad I was able to try playing one, since the didgeridoo is known country-wide! we walked around for a little more, but then we headed to the front of Kuranda, where we took a gondola back down to Cairns.
Along the way, we stopped at this rainforest where a tour guide led us all around it, explaining the most important and most interesting parts of this particular rainforest! It had giant trees! And many other plants and bamboo-like sticks, and even leaves that attached to you when you came up from behind them in a certain direction! I thought it was actually pretty cool... In the giant trees, there were branches and leaves piled in one area, making it give an appearance as if it were a nest. But it actually wasn't, which quite surprised me. It was a way for the tree to capture and gather food, water, and minerals, like after a rainfall or something, in a case where in needed it.

There were wild spiders in the gondola station too, making humongous webs on the ceilings... I thought it was pretty cool to see them, but some people were REALLY scared and didn't even want to look that them. I was scared too, but I never saw spiders like these before, so it was pretty fascinating. We continued to take the Gondola back down until we reached an Aboriginal site and village...

Here, a couple Aboriginal villagers took us around their village, telling us everything about their culture from day to day. This was pretty cool to see how differently they live from us. One thing I remember the most and cherish up to this day, is the fact that I was able to try to throw a boomerang and a spear. The boomerang actually made a full circle, but then died down a couple feet away from me... Second try and I was almost a master! Throwing the spear was not easy at all; it was so hard to angle everything with everything in the right position... I don't know how they do that! But at least I tried, that's what counts. Then the Aboriginal men had a show for us with their cultural dances and them playing didgeridoos! It was pretty neat!

After coming back to the hotel on our last day in Australia, Shelby, Katie, Steven, and I spent our free time going to stores searching for last-minute souvenirs and also went to the same restaurant as the night before! Ironically, we even had the same waiter! After asking him a bunch of questions, we found out his name was Bailey and that he was actually from Wisconsin... Small world, right?! As for my last Australian meal, I had "Kangaroo Steak" with some vegetables as a side. It was actually pretty delicious!!! It's not everyday you get to try kangaroo... It tasted like soft steak, actually! I wish I could get more...


Well, this was my last day here in Australia... It's kind of sad, but at the same time, I cannot believe that I was actually here and saw unique things that I never would've thought of seeing. I saw a different side of cultures, and to sum it all up, I couldn't have asked for a better trip with such great friends!