I wrote this ages ago, but just realized that it never got published

After writing about Bundaberg I realized that I haven't posted since Queenstown, New Zealand. Queenstown was just amazing. The day after I wrote we went and did this thrill ride called the Canyon Swing. Its the adventure capital of the world, or something, so we had to do something crazy. The Canyon swing involves jumping off a cliff for a 60m freefall, after which you start to swing across the canyon, going well over 100 kms an hour. It was FANTASTIC! I was so scared to jump but once I did the fear was gone and it was only exciting. I sent the DVD home to mom and dad...so I can watch it again once I get home. Mom said her hands and feet got cold just watching it, imagine how I felt! You can go to www.canyonswing.nz.co(or .co.nz) to see what its all about. I would recommend it to ANYONE going to Queenstown. Also in Queenstown we hiked and went out to party. Its a town full of backpackers and has more pubs per capita than anywhere else I think. Its a town something like Banff I've heard. Its absolutely beautiful, like all of New Zealand!After Queenstown we went to Lake Wanaka, just for the afternoon and then onto the glacier at Franz Josef. Another absolutely amazing day. We did the full day glacier hike and spent almost 8 hours out on it. We found out later that we went higher up the glacier than any other guided tour has...it was the highest our guides had taken people, and they are one of only two companies that go out on it. The ice is blue...so cool. From the glacier we drove back through another National park, Aurthur's Pass, and made it back to Christchurch for our last night there. We went out that night to a few pubs with a friend, Mike, who we met in Melbourne(and I somehow made it home with only one shoe!).Overall New Zealand was absolutely amazing and I just can't wait to go back and see more and stay longer. I don't know when it will be but it will happen. From NZ we flew to Cairns Australia. Its on the far east coast in Queensland and nice and hot! After some chilly weather in NZ it was nice to have the heat again. We stayed at a hostel called Calypso, and after only checking in for 2 nights originally we stayed for a week. Our first day we met a girl, Michelle, from England and Cathy, from Montreal. Those 2 girls are fantastic and we had just the best time partying and laying around by the Cairns lagoon. We finally got our tans back that we lost in Melbourne. In Cairns they have a manmade lagoon because there is no beach, just mud flats with 'Warning:Corcodile' signs on them. Even if there was a beach you couldn't swim at it because of the stingers...Box Jellyfish. They are the most venomous/poisonous creatures to man and are all around the coast north of Hervey Bay. We went out on a sailing trip to Green Island/the Great Barrier Reef and although the only danger for the stingers is in coastal water, you still wear stinger suits for added protection. Anyway, we didn't see any, but we did see sea turtles, stingrays, reef sharks, lots of fish, coral and everything else truly spectacular. It was a great day(minus my sea sickness for the early part of it). It was hard to leave Cairns of course, although we didn't really do to much! We had a fantastic week there.From Cairns we went to Airlie Beach, which is the gateway for the Whitsunday Islands. We stopped in a town, called Ayr, for the afternoon with intentions of staying there to fruitpick but there was no work so we hopped on the next bus outta there. In Aerlie Beach we didn't do too much, again hung out by the lagoon...and then I got sick so I spent more time/money in the pharmacy than the pub. I was alright by the time we boarded our boat for a 2 day/2 night sailing trip of the islands. It was such a great trip. We snorkelled a couple times, went to a great beach(which we couldn't swim at without stinger suits) on an island and spent a lot of time socailizing on the boat. We met a couple from England, and 2 sisters from Ireland who we spent a lot of time with, and many others. When we snorkelled there we found Nemo! It was the icing on my cake...all I had done til then was swim around looking for him. We also saw everything we saw up in Cairns, plus dolphins. They came out to entertain us on our 2nd night on the boat and hung around for about an hour at least swimming and flipping and doing dolphin things. They were also fishing for sharks and caught one...just a small reef shark but still pretty neat. After the sailing trip we met up with everyone from the boat for a night out at Aerlie Beach....its a pretty lively backpackers town, which means nothing but pubs and tourist shops and the boat cruises. We saw Jay-Z's MASSIVE yacht docked there. It was quite grand...called the 'Lazy Z'.We then went on to MacKay for 2 nights, where everything was closed for Easter weekend and I was still sick, so it wasn't too memorable. Then came Bundaberg...oh this great city.Things actually looked up here today, we picked oranges instead, so there weren't any long spikes. Instead there were stinky rotten oranges and flys(maggots too) everywhere. It was so gross and we got absolutely filthy picking them. But you didn't hear me whinging like I did when picking lemons. We heard a story the other day about the guys finding a snake at our farm. It was a King Brown(3rd most poisonous!) and they cut it in half to kill it. Anyway, both bits were still moving and apparently the head attacked the tail. GROSS! Don't worry, only an isolated incident....there aren't Brown snakes crawling all over the place, and I only have one day left anyway! Also, rural aussie towns have the funniest names ever. Just on our way to work alone,we pass through Gin Gin, Goon Doon and Boongadoo! There are so many more and all so funny. Its good for a laugh on our 1 hour and 15 minute trip to work some mornings.Finally...when we leave here we are going to Fraser Island, via Hervey Bay, Rainbow Beach, Noosa Head, Brisbane, Surfer's Paradise, Byron Bay and then Newcastle again to stay with Steve, all before heading back to Sydney, destination CANADA, on June 10th. I wont be ready to leave, but I will be ready to see everyone again(then maybe will start planning my next trip for when I am finally out of debt). I can't believe 9 months will have gone by so quickly. I will always miss this place...and Vegemite sandwiches!
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