The last days

Sitting in the Airport in Shanghai, China, I write this post to share the last stage of my trip with you all. In my short trousers and t-shirt it was kind of disappointing to leave the aircraft here a few minutes ago, experiencing extreme temperatures of 5 degrees Celsius. After all those weeks with sun and high temperatures my body is used to another atmosphere I guess. But since I will be back in Holland in less than 16 hours, I’d better get used to it already.

View from the plane, flying to Cairns

So, the end of the trip; After Alice Springs, where I ended my last blog, we flew to Cairns, a coastal village in the northeast of Australia. Unfortunately the weather in Cairns was wet all week because it is rain-season now, but that didn’t stop us from doing some great excursions. We went to a crocodile-farm, where we saw 5 meter giants jumping more than 2 meters out of the water, trying to grab a piece of chicken. We did a daytrip to Cape Tribulation, one of the oldest rain forests on earth (more than 300 million years old), a dinosaur-like environment with the biggest spiders I have ever seen. And last but not least, we went diving the Great Barrier Reef on a 2 day boat-cruise. Ofcourse the last activity was the best, so I will tell some more details about that one (unfortunately there are no photos because it was a little bit too wet for my camera). We went to the Reef with a boat called the Rumrunner and dived for 6 times (one of them even in the dark which was a very special experience sitting 10 meters below the surface on the bottom of the ocean in the complete dark). While diving I saw 2 turtles, a shark of almost 2 meters and a tons of beautiful colored fishes, like the famous Nemo. It was just great to finally see the Reef in real life and not on a 2D television screen. It is something you just have to experience and will not forget the rest of your life, all those colors and amazing creatures, it is just unbelievable it really exists. The only bad thing about the boattrip was that I got some motion sickness on the boat, but luckily that was not as bad as in New Zealand a month before. For the rest the food onboard was great, as were the crew members, and it was also kind of funny to sleep on a little boat in the middle of the ocean for the first time in my life. So if you happen to be near Cairns sometime in the future, just book the Rumrunner and go diving the Reef, you won’t regret it!

Feeding some sweet water crocodiles, they are kind of nice.

Feeding a salt water crocodile, they are NOT kind of nice!

A really unique lizard that only exists here on earth.

The biggest spider I ever saw, at least 20 cm long!

About Cairns; this village is almost similar to Blanes or Calella in Spain. For those who don’t know what I am talking about, just picture girls with loads of make-up, macho guys and a lot of liquor and you are there. Ofcourse this might be a little too easy to discribe Cairns, but for us it is very close to reality. Nevertheless we had a lot of fun here in our last week, even with the bad weather.

The last sunset from the plane.

So now my 6 months of traveling is complete. It has been a great experience, visiting all those interesting countries and cultures, it really changed my view of life. Again I can say that I really think everyone should travel more to get a much better view on the world we live in, there is so much to see. But as always I am also glad to go back home, being with my friends and family again, in the end that is what it’s all about.

Now I’ll head back to Eindhoven and try to finish my study in the next year. And who knows, maybe I will have some time for Asia when that is done… 😉 I will let you know!