Vacation to Australia!

Overview

I recently traveled to Australia for my annual trip with my friends from SD. Specifically, this trip was with Josh, Divya, and Alan. We visited 3 locations (each of which in its own biome!).

A Brief History

Australia has quite an interesting history. Several hundred years ago, the UK decided that they had too many convicts so they dumped all of their criminals into Australia. Today, Australia has a lower crime rate. They also had several racist laws until fairly recently, trying to keep the nation white. I actually somewhat felt the effect of this, as the only people who went out of their way to help us were asian.

Sydney

Sydney was a pretty nice, bustling city. There’s some spectacular downtown spots that highly consisted of thai, sushi, and bars. We also met a girl on the flight who talked about some of her study abroad experiences at the University of Sydney. On the first night while wandering around and looking for night life, we stumbled upon a private concert by Flume celebrating the opening of the new Louis Vuitton store!

Cairns

Cairns was beautiful as well. Driving along the coast felt like living a music video. The great barrier reef is definitely not doing well, but it was my first time seeing so much biodiversity. At one point, I even saw a shark while scuba diving! Scuba is really interesting because being so far under water actually feels quite foreign, especially with all of the equipment involved. We had to go through training to learn how to get water out of goggles and how to get the respirator back in after it got waterlogged.

Cairns also had Hartley’s Crocodile Park, which was absolutely mind blowing. Crocs can survive for up to a year on a single chicken, and they show feedings literally feets away from where you are. Crocs have an insanely high bite force, so hearing the jaws clamp is awe inspiring. Hartley’s also acts as a sanctuary because they collect the eggs in order to supply the croc industry. They also had a really fun nocturnal exhibit where we saw kangaroo mice and tons of other weird rodents!

Uluru

Honestly, we spent a little too much time in Uluru. It was around 105 degrees every day, so we spent a ton of time in our jail cell-like room doing random shenanigans. Riding camels was quite fun, and digideroos are incredibly difficult.