May 5-8: Hello Cairns!

Hello Cairns! I made it! I'm offically back on the east coast of Australia, ready to act like a tourist. I'm super pumped because a couple of the girls from the Uluru tour are also in town, which means I'll have a couple of people to hang out with... Monique and Jente are Dutch teenage backpackers - working their way across Australia in the year between high school and university. I decided to bunk in at their hostel which (not surprisingly) is filled with teenagers from all over the world. It is difficult to describe feeling both young and old simultaneouly. I'm enjoying this colorful and unexpected flashback to my past.

Monique and Jente and I have had a blast working as a dinner team - pooling funds to buy groceries and make dinners together. Our dinner team made a quick day trip out to Cape Tribulation, part of the Daintree rainforest. With lush vegetation and mangrove swamps, it is spectaularily different than every other part of Australia I've seen so far. But stay off the beaches... there are crocodiles nearby!

Tomorrow I'm headed on a 3-day diving tour of the Great Barrier Reef. I'm trying hard not to contain my excitement - this is one of the big reasons I decided to come to Australia.

As I'm laying in a hammock on the coast in the Australian tropics, I'm starting to yearn for the predictability of sleeping in my own bed. After 4 months and a half months away from home, I'm starting getting used to the idea of heading back.

For those of you who are moms (most especially mine),
HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!

<>