We truly managed to squeeze a TON into our second week in Australia. After we left Airlie Beach, we made up way up the coast towards Cairns. We had a brief pit stop in lovely Townsville and were able to meet up for afternoon drinks on the water with our friend Ryan from New Zealand and his girlfriend, Jane (fun fact: we met Ryan just a week beforehand while we were at the hostel). It was nice to see a familiar face and to go on a little double date!

The drive from Townsville to Cairns was about four hours and we broke up the drive by visiting Josephine Falls and the Babinda Boulders. The falls were a little too wild to swim in (because of recent rainfall) but we were able to swim upstream of the boulders, which felt fantastic.

Josephine Falls:

Babinda Boulders/The Devils Pool:

According to local aboriginals, there is a legend about the boulders and the waters where they reside. (We’ve read some conflicting information about the actual legend but we’ll try to summarize).

Basically, there was young girl named Oolana who was married to a “respectful elder of her tribe” (aka probably a dude 5x her age, I’m guessing). Right after they got married, another tribe moved to the area and Oolana got the hots this dude, Dyga, from the the other tribe. Dyga had mutual feelings and soon they fell in love (which was not ok since she was, well, already married). So in order to be together, they decided to abandon their tribes and run away together (classic). Except they didn’t run away far enough because Oolana’s husband/tribe found them soon after. As they were trying to drag her and Dyga back home, Ooalana was like “I’d rather die than be without my boy Dyga” so she flung herself into the river and ended up drowning. Legend has it that her screams for Dyga can still be heard by visitors today.

To make it even more interesting, there are multiple stories of young men who have drowned in the river over the years after feeling a strange/strong urge to go swimming, then getting stuck in the rocks and drowning. Thankfully, the only urge Tristan had while there was to go get ice cream, so we left before he obeyed her calls (not today Oolana…NOT TODAY).

Eventually, we made it up to Cairns! The town is a major destination/port for venturing out to the Great Barrier Reef. Since we only had one day in town before catching our flight at 6pm, we were hesitant about trying to go snorkeling (since we weren’t sure about timing). But like most things we have been hesitant to do on this trip, we said screw it and we bought tickets. And let me tell you, no regrets here!

We saw string rays, sea turtles, sea cucumbers, rainbow colored fish and tons of incredible coral. The visibility was 10x better than it was when we snorkeled a few days prior. We also got back to town just in time to catch our flight back to Brisbane. As Australians say, we were “having a win, mate!”

We spent two nights in Brisbane and decided to get a rental car so we could have the flexibility to go to the Gold Coast (about an hour south) and it was absolutely beautiful. Tristan rented a surf board ($20 for the day!) and Taylor finally got to spend a few hours laying on the beach doing nothing (you’d be surprised how little of this trip we have actually had time to just sit and do nothing!).

Also, shout out to the cutest espresso shots ever:

Then before we knew it, it was time to catch our flight out of Australia. It as a quick two weeks, but we made the most of our time. Now, we are off to the next adventure…

Love and hugs,

T&T