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| Feeding a wallaby at Featherdale. |
It's been awhile since I wrote my last blog post so I guess I have quite a bit to catch up on. Before leaving Sydney I did manage to have a couple more iconic experiences in the city. One was traveling to the Featherdale Wildlife Reserve which offers lots of opportunities to interact with the animals housed there. We started off by petting a koala and eventually even got to feed wallabies by hand.
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| View of the Sydney cityscape. |
This was a cool way to get to interact with many of the iconic Australian animals since I probably won't be back to Australia for a very long time. I also went up to the Sydney Eye Tower which is the tallest building in Sydney. The entire top of the building is composed of glass so you can view the cityscape below. This was a cool way to spend my last night in Sydney since I got to see the city from a different view.
When we left Sydney, we headed for Magnetic Island which is about a 20 min ferry ride off the coast of Townsville. Unfortunately, I got a migraine as soon as I arrived on Magnetic Island that incapacitated me for most of the weekend we spent there. As part of a learning experience, I was
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| Relaxing in the turquoise waters of Heron Island. |
supposed to help recover seaweed from portions of the Great Barrier Reef by snorkeling. Instead I spent most of my time at the Bungalow Bay Koala Village where we were staying which was a very cool place. Most of it was open air and they had animals around that you could interact with most of the day. I fortunately was able to see several sunsets from the beach which were really beautiful. To leave Magnetic Island and get to Heron Island, we had to take a ferry followed by two
planes and concluded with a 2 hour ferry ride. My migraine was mostly gone at this point, but the travel exacerbated it once again. Everyone on my program took great care of me and we managed to knock me out for the 2 hour ferry ride so that I could make it to Heron Island. Once we stopped traveling, I recovered easily from my migraine and was able to enjoy my time on Heron Island.
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| A baby turtle that had hatched and was heading the ocean. |
Heron Island is one of the most magical places I have ever been. Our program was disconnected from wifi for a week on an island that you could walk around in 20 minutes so we got to know each other and our environment quite well. The first night and many nights/days after that I got to see baby turtles hatching and scrambling towards the water. We also were given snorkeling gear by the research institute where we staying. Since Heron Island is located 80 km away from shore, it has stunning Great Barrier Reef snorkeling. When I was
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| Throwing the AGD sign at sunset one night. |
snorkeling one day I swam over a 6 ft shark while I was swimming after a sea turtle. I eventually caught up to the sea turtle and was able to swim next to it which was a once in a lifetime experience. We also saw stingrays, fish, and lots of beautiful coral.
Even when I wasn't snorkeling, I got to lounge on pristine white beaches with turquoise waters laying in front of me. At night I would lie on the beach and watch the stars far away from human
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| Swimming with a sea turtle. |
influence. On nights when the stars were hard to see, I could watch the heat lightning on the horizon. Just to make this place even better, I saw 2 sunrises and sunsets every single night that I doubt I ever will match the beauty of. I really didn't want to leave, but after a week it was time to head to Fiji (I live a hard life I know). Getting to Fiji was a 24 hour ordeal that involved a 2 hour ferry ride back to shore, a 2 hour bus ride, 2 flights, and another 2 hour bus ride. When we arrived, most of us had been up for about 40 hours, but seeing the resort where we were staying erased a lot of that exhaustion. We are staying right on the beach with hammocks set up nearby along with a
volleyball court and a beautiful white sand beach. Right now I'm really just living the life blogging from a hammock for the next 2 weeks. After that, America here I come! Until I want to write again from paradise...
~S
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| A beautiful sunrise in paradise (there was also a double rainbow behind this view just to make it better) |
