Australia Part 1 - Cairns

I have heard people say before that if you waited until you were completely ready to have kids, then you would never have any of your own. There is just no way to completely prepare yourself for what children bring to your life, both good and bad. Jennifer and I always wanted to start a family, but we were stuck on trying to get everything in our lives right so that we could be the parents that we needed to be. We both had jobs, had just bought a new house and were working on paying off some of our school loans and other debts. We then decided that once we had kids it would really put a damper on our worldly and stateside traveling. Jennifer and I came up with the decision that we would take one last big vacation and then we would concentrate on adding to our family. One place that we had always wanted to visit was Australia. It really wasn't that difficult of a decision for us to both agree that this was the best possible destination. After trying to figure out hotels and travel for the both of us we decided that it was in our best interest to maybe book a trip with a group travel agency. We ended up booking our trip through Go Ahead Travel. This took away a lot of the work planning the vacation and allowed us to just worry about what to pack for a 15 day adventure in the Land Down Under. The day of our departure finally arrived and we headed to the airport for what was going to be a very long day spent in airports and airplanes. We traveled to Los Angeles for a little layover before boarding our long flight (14 hours) to Australia. During the flight we actually crossed the International Date Line which meant that we actually lost a day on our journey, which we would get back when we traveled back home to the USA.

The first stop on the trip was Cairns. You might not have heard of this city but I am almost sure you have heard of the tourist attraction that is near this city, The Great Barrier Reef. This was by far the best part of our trip and I could have stayed here the entire time. I told Jennifer that after the first 2 nights that we stayed in Cairns and visited the reef that we could have gone home and I would have been OK with the price that we paid for our vacation, which was a pretty penny. On both of these days we traveled out and snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef. It was so amazing seeing the underwater creatures and animals.

They had a professional photographer that swam around and took all kinds of pictures and of course wanted you to buy them. We couldn't say no to the picture of the both of us because it is so hard to take a selfie under water.

Another of the professional shots. This just shows how close we actually were to the reef. We were actually floating right on top of it.

My beautiful wife and I with a red variation of the Australian flag. It is normally primarily blue in color. This was an early variation that was used in the early 1900's.

Surrounded by fish. It was so amazing seeing all the different types of fish and other animals. 

Jennifer with some of the fish. Thankfully we bought an underwater camera before we embarked on our journey. We were able to take a lot better quality pictures than we had on previous snorkeling trips with the disposable cameras.

We even found Nemo while we were out exploring. 

We also spotted Spongebob's friend Patrick.

I just really thought this was an awesome picture. There is just so much life and then just a few feet away from this was complete open water. This also got me a little paranoid because I just kept wondering if any sharks were going to swim up in the open water area and attack. Thankfully none did!

If you look closely you can see the outline of a sea turtle. This might have been Crush.

I enjoyed diving down to see things just a little closer. We thought about doing an introductory scuba course, but we were both a little terrified about it so we just stuck to what we know which is snorkeling.

Pictures just could never do justice to how beautiful this place really is. It truly was one of the most amazing things that I have ever seen. 

I just had to try the local fare. This is crocodile and kangaroo kabobs. Kangaroos tastes just like a really lean steak.

Meet Harvey. He is a koala that we got to meet while in Cairns. Apparently in some parts of Australia it is illegal to hold a koala, but not here. This was something that Jennifer really wanted to do while on our trip so I am glad that we were able to do this. After we got the picture and were looking at it we said it looked a lot like a family photo. If we had only known that in about 9 months we would be able to take our first real family photos!

If you ever have an opportunity to travel to Australia - do it! They have some really amazing things to offer and I guarantee that you will have a good time. This was only the first 2 days of our trip. So I can't wait to tell you all about what other adventures we got into on our trip. Thanks for reading and God bless!