In the jungle, there’s lion and monkey and elephant...

Song: "Into the Jungle" by Alphabeat

April 24th

Today was jungle surfing day. We woke up got ready and made our way to the bus to jungle surfing. What is jungle surfing you ask? It's awesome.

Before we left our hostel though, there was this super creepy man carrying a stuffed animal unicorn around and another stuffed animal in his backpack. Terrifying. Becca thought he was a pedophile. She was probably correct.

Anyway, we left there and went to jungle surfing. I loved it. We got harnessed up and swung through the Daintree Rainforest like monkeys. The only thing I was mildly upset about was that I had the SpongeBob Squarepants helmet instead of the cooler ones (Tinkerbell, Stifler's Mom, Smurfette, etc.)

Our guides were from Malta and Australia and were incredibly amusing. The Australian used to be a scuba diving instructor for years before doing this jungle surfing stuff. I found this interesting.

If you look closely you can see the water:

From Cairns

Basket fern:

From Cairns

Rainforest feet:

From Cairns

Me, upside down. Whee!:

From Cairns

I really enjoyed swinging through the rainforest, if you couldn't tell. We did have to leave though, and once we got back, we rushed down to Rainforestation for our meeting with the animals. I took a few pictures on the way.
Cassowary warning signs:

From Cairns

Kangaroo warning signs!

From Cairns

We made it to Rainforestation without hitting any of those things. Once there, we held some koalas. All our Australearn friends from Macquarie did it, and we did too. Someone told me koalas smelled bad, but this one just smelled like eucalyptus. And it grabbed my shirt with its claws. Too cute.


Then we saw the other animals. This was a perfect picture:

From Cairns

So was this:

From Cairns

Yep, that's me feeding a kangaroo. My Australian life is now complete.

After we saw the animals, we did a tour on an army duck boat thing. Um, this:

From Cairns

It was ok. We learned a lot about tropical fruits and saw a few lizards of different varieties.

Once we got back, we bought a variety of tropical fruits and tasted them. Some were much better than others.
The girls picking fruits:

From Cairns

We left there and hurried back to Cairns because we had to hand our rental car back in. We were kind of worried that we had gone over out 2200 km limit, but we were much more worried about cleaning out the car. We took it to fill it up with gas and spent a good 20 minutes getting a car wash, vacuuming the insides, and doing some interior cleaning. We made that thing look spiffy. Bernie had fun with the vacuum.

From Cairns

After cleaning it to our satisfaction, Becca smoothly drove it in to the rental car place, where we were given the ok to head off. We clocked in at exactly 2200 km. Can't even believe that. We caught a taxi back to the hostel and hit up the market that happened right behind where we were staying. I bought an avocado and ate it along with free tomato samples. Delicious. Then we all decided to buy two pineapples and have them cut for us and eat them together. Great decision. They were delicious pineapples.

From Cairns

These things were at the market too. This picture turned out well. I think they're a type of fruit. Rambutan, maybe?

From Cairns

We then got dinner at a sushi place and ran into Erik, from Fraser Island. Our Fraser Island friends kept popping up all over the place. We saw him again that evening at our hostel's bar. We also met up with Barry and Lisa, the awesome couple from Ireland there as well. Barry had been to Cairns before and told us stories of this place called The Woolshed, where people dance on tables. We decided we wanted to go to there. So the four girls and our Irish friends went there.

Barry and Lisa, Ireland's finest representatives:

From Cairns

Dancing on tables. I love my life.

From Cairns

We eventually called it a night. Sort of. It was the night before Anzac Day, which is a major holiday in Australia celebrating the Australia New Zealand Army Corps and a battle they knew they were going to lose but fought together in anyway back a long time ago. Anyway, it's a pretty sacred holiday, so all the bars in Cairns closed at midnight. Sort of. Except the Casino, so we went there...