Australia: Summarized

Destination 1 - Melbourne City

Amazing vineyards - Yarra Valley

Obscure alleys in the middle of Melbourne City

Melbourne Central Railway Station

Destination 2 -Launceston, Tasmania

Outdoor markets

Postcard-worthy architecture

Friendly Tasmanian (devils)

Destination 3 - Hobart, Tasmania

Lord of the Rings scenic views

Salamanca Place - Great restaurants and bars

Bruny Island tour - Landformations and seals on a cruise

Destination 4 - Sydney

Sydney Fish Market and Cooper's Original Pale Ale

Amazing Wildlife at Australia Reptile Park

The Sydney Opera House - late night

Destination 5 - Cairns

Snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef

White water rafting at Tully River

The Ultimate Party, Cairns

Hot air ballooning

Destination 6 - Gold Coast, Brisbane

Amazing beaches and waves

Surfer's Paradise Beach front

Brisbane Floods - Community Recovery Centre

Catch-a-crab tour

Tropical Fruit World's Fruit tasting

Day 17: Goodbye Australia, Brisbane

It was the hardest thing we had to do in Australia - leaving it.

Got up really early, looking forward to our postponed skydive in the morning but due to continued bad weather conditions, it was cancelled yet again :(

Nevertheless, we made it back to SG in one piece. Definitely going to be missing it all: pseudo Clarke Quay, friendly shopkeepers (unlike the ones here. Try smiling or saying hi to the cashiers!), the awesome people we met (i.e. Harry, from our White water rafting trip in Cairns, who inspired us further to help out with the Brisbane floods; Linda and her boyfriend from Switzerland who made me realize even more that taking risks in life makes "life"), the clean beaches, the laid back lifestyle, the intense rauncy parties, amazing azn food they actually have, the shopping, the accent and slang (crikey!), the architecture of every city..

Also managed to bond with my sister during the trip. Never would I thought I'd travel with Jess (till maybe we're 35 at least..), and learnt some new stuff about her.

Sistuh hood

Defo wouldn't have been able to say "YO DUDE I'M GOING TO AUSTRALIA FOR 2.5 WEEKS WITH MY SISTUH" without Campus Magazine and Tourism Australia :)

It's been one of the awesomest 17 days, ever

Day 16: Surfers' Paradise, Gold Coast, Brisbane

DUE TO WEATHER CONDITIONS, OUR SKYDIVING WAS CANCELLED :( Definitely devastated since Aussie apparently has the best skydive location and equipment in the world!!!!!!

Will be making up with some partying tonight then!

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Do visit: VANITY CLUB (for all ladies!). Believe it or not, there's a hairdresser and make up artist in the ladies' toilet - for no charge! Computers are also available in the make up area for you to log on to Facebook. Whhhaat!??! Pretty sure most girls spend most of their time in the toilet rather than on the dance floor:

Hair stylist/make up artist

Sausage fest much, thanks to the toilets? 

But manwhores are available to get the ladies back on the dancefloor (only on ladies night!)

Day 15: Ipswich, Brisbane

From December 2010 to February 2011 a series of floods hit particular parts of Queensland including the capital city of Brisbane. Much of Queensland was declared a disaster zone due to the flooding with 35 lives lost and approximately 200,000 people affected by the floods state wide. While this was a devastating natural disaster, Brisbane, along with the other hard-hit regions, is well on it's way to recovery.

The army of volunteers made national (and international) news, demonstrating to the world just how much Australians (and Queenslanders in particular) care for their neighbours, with many of Brisbane's streets, suburbs and businesses back to pre-flood condition in no time!

-Brisbane Australia, City Council

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Queensland floods

 With no clue where we were headed at first and wasting about 4 hours travelling and deciding on where exactly to head to, we finally decided head for the city of Ipswich.

Public transport was free-of-charge for the week as a relief effort by the city council. Took about 1.5-2 hours before we arrived in Ipswich, which was like a ghost town.. We asked around, and found our way to Ipswich showgrounds' community recovery centre to help out with the first aid team.

We ended up helping out behind the bar counter, manning food, water and baby supplies. It was hard seeing how people had to live there with their homes inundated as well..  And as much as we wanted to use our "able bodies" to help out on the actual field, we were glad we were given jobs at the recovery centre.

  

This sort of made me realize how "real" natural disasters are. Seeing things happen on TV seem unreal compared to seeing it actually happen or listening to someone's stories (like how they lost everything in their homes...)

Won't be too pleased if that's your car

I guess Singapore is really a "boring" safe zone, but I'm pretty glad I live there..

Day 14: "Taste of Paradise", Gold Coast, Brisbane

Got up at 7 in the morning and got ready for the only guided tour we were going to have in Brisbane - The taste of paradise.

The shuttle picked us up and made a random toilet stop near Danger Point, which had amazing views:

Then we headed for the catch-a-crab tour on the explorer cruise.

Thought we were going to be throwing nets out to catch the crabs, but  we were just pulling cages up the boat

Also, I thought they were going to be tiny, but they turned out to be huge ass.

I had to pop the question of the day as well: "so, do we get to eat those crabs?"... the tourguide smiled and said, "yeahhh ;)" YES! Been craving them since I didn't manage to have any while in Sydney's Fish Market

Before that, we got to catch baby shrimps/prawns for bait for fishing as well! The lady showed us how.. Basically needed a pump like pipe, force it into the sand underwater, and start pumping the babies out. Never knew they lived underwater-underground as well!

Did some decent fishing, though the catch wasn't too decent. Didn't manage to bring anything up, but our beers defo saved the day, as usual!

When we were done, it was time for the highlight of the day:

We also had a bowl of crab noodles when we disembarked the boat. The crab was awesome, but the soup/noodles were absolutely awful!! Hardly any taste in it, but we were glad we had the huge crab pincers before lunch. There were oysters as well to our delight and that definitely made it way better!

After, we headed for the tropical fruit world! Saw so many different fruits and the type of plant they actually are (dragonfruits are fruits from cactuses!!! :O).

Also learnt about the miracle fruit, where apparently it makes anything taste good! Too bad it wasn't in season, and apparently can be imported from Africa, but costs a bomb..!

The miracle fruit's.. soil

Fruit tasting!

Other than some fruit tasting, we got to interact with some random animals as well :) Again, for someone from the city, seeing farm animals is always exciting!

 Sherman the horse

 Eeyor

Miniature train!

It'll be a tiring day tomorrow since we've decided to help out with the Brisbane floods.. Hopefully we'll do some good!

Day 13: Surfers' Paradise, Gold Coast, Brisbane

Rushed over to do some jetboating after landing this afternoon. Practically dropped our bags off and took our first cab of the entire trip.

At the jetboat place before boarding, we realized there were tons of kids who are going to be on the boat with us. Ahhh family thing? AKA un-exciting, too boring? So we thought..

When we boarded, we told the captain we wanted to be on the best and scariest seats to make up for it. He gave us the seats right next to him, and fastened our seatbelts, ready to just be a lil seasick as it headed out to the open waters

That was when the guy starting speeding up, and our boat was literally skimming above the water. The next thing we knew, we were headed straight for a pole in the middle of the sea with lightning speed, and missing it by just an inch. Honestly, AN INCH

Paradise Jetboating.. Yeh~!~!

And then to our horror (actually, delightful horror, if that makes any sense), he headed for yet another one and again, missed by an inch before signalling to us that he's going to be doing a 360 spin which basically got everyone on board screaming and wet.

"What if he miscalculates and hits the pole?"

"What if the boat can't take the force of water and breaks apart?"

"What the landing goes terribly wrong and smashes into billions of pieces like the Youtube videos I've watched?"


Those were just some of the questions that ran across my mind. Thankfully I'm still alive today.

Had to take a chill one for the evening. Spent the entire time lying on the beach, swimming in the ocean (okay, the waves didn't really make it chill for us considering their massive sizes and strength).

Defo needing a rest now!