Moreton & Fraser - Two Thirds of Australia's Sand Islands

Moreton Island - Spiders, Snakes & Sharks

I’m sure we looked like the walking wounded as 25 exhausted, probably hungover, and still asleep students practically crawled into the bus that would take us to Moreton Island. It’s always a rude start to the weekend when your alarm goes off at 5am and you’ve only been asleep for an hour two at best, but we all made due. A Friday morning is a tough morning for an early start...A few hours later, we had slowly begun to regain consciousness from our sleepless fog, and the bus began to feel less like a mortuary. Once I could open my eyes without some degree of effort, I took a minute to examine the vehicle that 12 of us were bouncing along in. It was one of those massive 4WD vehicles that you see traversing uninhabitable terrains such as the Sahara Desert and the deepest trenches of the rainforest. Am I going to Iraq? I thought as I realized that the wheels of said bus were probably close to shoulder height. We were up significantly higher than any other bus I had ever been in, and the walls of the massive tank like vehicle were made entirely of glass windows. I’m sure we looked ridiculous on the highway. By about 9am we boarded the ferry and were finally within the final stages of the epic pilgrimage to Moreton Island. An hour later, and once every driver had let the air out of their tires, the ferry literally cruised right onto the beach and came to an abrupt halt on the sand. One by one, the cars drove down the ramp, right on to the sand and set out along the beach that doubled as a highway. It was like the tropical version of Nantucket. Every car was stacked high with camping gear, fishing rods, surfboards, coolers - you name it, these “Weekend Cowboys” meant business. 

Our first stop was to our campsite for the weekend to drop our bags before heading out to explore. After a short ride down the beach with surf lapping at the tires, we veered to the left, directly into the woods and bounced along the crude clearing of a road for another two minutes or so. I had a lump in my throat upon seeing our alleged campsite. It was a semi-permanent little settlement with two rows of six battered looking tents, a few tarps, four picnic tables, and a massive fire pit. Semi-permanent camp sites mean one thing as far as I’m concerned: they’ve been there long enough for advanced colonies of spiders to take up residence. The bad news is I was right, but the good news is that I was relatively psychologically prepared for it. Within the first 15 minutes of people pairing off and grabbing tents, howls erupted from almost every other tent as someone came across a spider the size of a teacup - or something else that was poisonous with too many legs. Upon our first inspection, our tent appeared to have been spared in the way of spiders, so the color returned to Angie’s face and she tossed her backpack inside. I didn’t tell her that the walls of the tent were not actually connected to the ground and that they just appeared to be. I figured that it was best she not know about the two inch gap of zero barrier between us and the elements running around the entire perimeter of the tent. 

After settling in at Australia’s Hooverville, or shanty town, we piled back into the Jurassic Park buses and made our way to the Blue Lagoon which was just inland of our campsite. Contrary to it’s name, the “Blue Lagoon,” is in no way blue. In fact, it looked more like iced tea than anything else - partially because it was tinted due to the excessive tannins in the water. The water was unreasonably cold, but was allegedly good for you so we all forced ourselves in. After the lagoon and a quick lunch, we sort of parted ways with the other group of 12 and went on a pretty cool walk up to the island’s lighthouse and stood looking out at the ocean for a while. We watched as a few whales breeched and played below us on their way past the coastline, and headed back to the bus once they had meandered out of eyesight. On our way back to the beach, the driver suddenly slammed on the breaks and we all shot forward into the seat in front of us. Confused, we peered out the front window and there in the middle of the road, was a six foot black python making its way across the dirt road painfully slowly. Like any good tourist, we had our cameras out and pressed up against the giant glass windows instantly. The driver hopped out, walked around the back of the bus and opened the door for us to get a better view. I craned my head around the side of the bus, convinced it would somehow grow wings and fly straight at me should more than my head leave the safety of the vehicle. The snake was an unnecessary size and as if that wasn’t enough wildlife for you, its friend was coiled in the grass just to the other side with its big head raised about a foot over its body, ready to take down the bus’ left tire that it was fiercely challenging. Angie looked nauseous. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring a beach called “Honeymoon Bay,” named out of complete sarcasm. Apparently, that particular area had the largest number of known shark sightings, and therefore happened to also have the largest number of shark attacks. “That bay is no honeymoon,” is what our guide said while explaining the namesake to us. He thought he was a regular old comedian, but his comment was received only with a few wide-eyed looks and several groans of concern. Luckily, everybody lived through Honeymoon Bay and we returned back to our campsite to watch the sunset at the beach. Again, the east coast of Australia and the southern hemisphere denied us of a true ocean sunset, but watching it set over Moreton Bay in between the island and the mainland was close enough for us. 

We had a questionable dinner that night around the campfire, but spent the rest of the night lounging down at the beach under stars and picking one of the guide’s brains about the constellations and such. It was an early night for us intrepid and hardy campers, and we made our way back to the tents around midnight. I did one thorough and very extensive spider-check of our tent and declared it habitable after seeing no eight legged killing machines lurking the corners. Just as we were about to zip up the tent’s flaps, there was an honest to god scream piercing the darkness from two tents down. I heard shuffling in the boys’ tent next to us and darted outside with our neighbors to investigate the shriek. I didn’t have to look hard to see what the squealing was about. Someone was pointing to the door of their tent (still screaming) and both guides were desperately trying to coax a stubborn python out of the tent without losing a limb. I looked at the guy next to me and I’m sure that my expression looked strikingly similar. It was more of a, this-has-to-be-a-joke reaction than anything else, and we both started laughing at the mutual realization that we really were in Jurassic Park, and there was nothing we could do. What else are you supposed to do? All we could do was laugh, and hope that the snake didn’t have any friends. Nobody slept much that night. 

The next day, everyone was awake early, partially due to the sweltering early morning sun that was baking our little campsite, and also partially from someone else hissing that there was something crawling in her tent. I didn’t pay much attention to that round of chaos as I figured that it would probably only disturb me. That day, about half of us spent the better part of the morning and into lunch lounging at the beach, laughing in disbelief that this was our life right now. We tooled around on kayaks for a bit, watched some of the boys attempt to fish with no bait and avoided the occasional 4WD barreling down the beach. At around noon, we were standing in the water about waist deep when we saw the unmistakable form of a fin break the water about 500 yards from us. You know that whole concept of people not being able to walk on water? Yeah, that’s not true, I definitely watched three people run on water in that instant as they flew back towards the shore. I will admit - I certainly began to backpedal as well when I saw the confirming second tail fin break the water, as I didn’t feel like dying of blood loss that day. Luckily, I suddenly saw the second fin disappear and realized that it was actually two dolphins slowly cruising the beach and feeding; not Jaws. 

It’s a funny thing about dolphins - the second that someone says the name, people hit the water like lemmings thinking that it’s Flipper coming to play with them. It’s still a 600 pound animal with teeth...it’s just no longer a shark which immediately makes it accepted and loved, not shunned. The two dolphins hung around our area for a while which was a cool twist of luck and we all crowded together watching them circling and swerving after small fish. Later that afternoon, we headed back down the beach to the famous shipwrecks of Moreton Island. At some point in time, the government had decided that it needed to sink a line of fifteen ships to create a makeshift protective barrier reef (minus the reef part) around the little island. I don’t know how effective the barrier part is, but the ships eventually made a really cool snorkel site as all of the wrecks are very shallow and have made nice homes for a huge array of marine life. It was a great way to top off the day as the sun had just started to dip when we dragged ourselves out of the water. 

After returning to Spider City just before dark, we spent another evening around the fire and staring at the sky on the beach. That night was clearer than the first night and the moon was alarmingly bright, giving people’s faces a milky, washed out look. Under the illusion of feeling a little more rested, we stayed up later that night, something we regretted in the morning, but for the sake of being able to see the stars shifting above us, it was worth it. That night was relatively uneventful in the way of creepy crawlies, except for Angie’s anxiety upon discovering the 2 inch gap around the base of our tent. I was really hoping she wouldn’t notice it until at least tomorrow morning, but no luck. Anyway, we lived through the night and spent the next morning sandboarding before heading back to school. 

We knew we were going to have to hike up a serious sand hill in order to do this sandboarding (which is literally like hillbilly sledding on 2x4’s) but we were in no way prepared for this magnitude of this sand mountain. With a surge of determination, we all started up the hill which literally - I am in no way exaggerating - was a wall of sand. Halfway up, someone behind me gasped, “Sand does not have an angle of incidence like this!!” which sent the rest of us into an oxygen deprived fit of hysterics. The end was in sight and we struggled to the top, only to see another massive sand dune with a joke of an incline waiting behind it in the distance. I don’t need to go to Namibia or to the Sahara Desert anymore because now I know what it looks and like. It was actually eerie in a way, sort of like what you would expect the surface of the moon to look like, without the giant craters at least. It was just completely barren with nothing but the same color sand as far as the eye could see. After literally crawling to the top of the second hill, we had lost about half of the group who had thrown in the towel. Predictably, after scaling the second dune, there was a third small mountain waiting patiently to crush our waning spirits. By now, we were down to about ten people and 45 minutes after we set out into the sand, we finally reached the actual top of the sand mountain. 

Sand boarding itself is actually slightly painful. You basically lie on your stomach in a Superman plank position with your elbows pulling the front of the board up and your feet in the air to keep from dragging. If done properly, you can actually reach some pretty impressive speeds which is a ton of fun - provided that you don’t slide over footprints that were made on the climb up as this effectively and uncomfortably rearranges your spine whether you like it or not. A few people had some pretty massive wipeouts, but regardless of if you hurtled headlong into the sand or not - you were literally covered in sand from head to toe afterwards. The ultimate exfoliation. 

Fraser Island - Dingoes and All 

I was determined to make it to the famous Fraser Island immediately upon being accepted to Bond Uni. Since there are obviously no wolves in Australia, dingoes are the closest I can get to my beloved four legged friends, so I have been determined to see a wild one since the second I had a conscious thought in Australia. Angie and I left school bright and early on a Thursday morning on a bus to Brisbane and then met up with a small tour group to spend two days up at Fraser. It’s a long haul up to Rainbow Beach from Brisbane, about a four hour bus ride with no air conditioning, but it was definitely worth it. Like Moreton, the ferry to the island rams itself right up on to the beach and the cars just cruise along down the beach highway to wherever it is that they’re going. There isn’t much of a problem with people being on the beach and in the way of the cars like there was at Moreton because of the massive numbers of ill-tempered sharks in the waters off of Fraser, as well as the stingers which are now beginning to appear more frequently as we edge towards the Australian summer. 

Fraser is famous for its 75 mile beach that runs pretty much straight up the side of the island and is quite a sight to see because of the sheer magnitude of the beach. Our first stop on the island was to Eli Creek, the largest freshwater creek on the island with a swift little current flowing through it. The creek is flanked by a small but dense set of low hanging vegetation giving it a much more tropical feeling than it actually deserves, but it was a nice little touch. After wandering through the creek and enjoying the crisp fresh water, we headed out towards the iconic wreck of the Maheno. The Maheno was at one point a Japanese cargo ship that was shipwrecked on Fraser and used by the government for target practice in World War II, so it was pretty well fragmented up on the beach, but was still the distinct skeleton of a ship. 

After the Maheno, we began a long walk upwards and inland to Lake Wabby. What began as a long and relatively uncomfortable uphill walk in flip flops turned out to actually be my favorite part of the trip. The thick trees finally parted and we got a burst of energy as we thought that we had reached the end of the uphill trudge, but upon reaching the clearing, all we saw was sand and lots of it. It was like looking at the pseudo Sahara Desert on Moreton Island again - sand as far as the eye could see and confusion rained down over the group.  We were directed to head left around the outside of the giant sand valley and after another ten minutes or so of dragging ourselves through the sand, Lake Wabby finally came into sight. It was a perfectly green lake nestled right up against the side of the sand mountain with a ring of trees surrounding it on the other side. It was smooth as glass from being sheltered on both sides with the freshest water made pure by the sand it’s filtered down through. Being that we were hot, sandy and all around exhausted, we charged down the sand hill and crashed into the water. It was hands down the most refreshing dip into a body of water I have ever experienced. For a while, I was motionless floating on my  back in the still water looking up at the huge mass of sand that we had just come down from. If I angled my head properly, I could only see two colors - just sand, no shadows or different shades, and a cloudless blue sky. In that moment, life was good and the world was perfect. 

On our way back to the hostel late that afternoon, we thumped along the 75 mile beach into the sun’s glare but swerved to stop after the guide made a very, very important observation. I popped my head up to look through the front window and practically hit the roof with excitement upon seeing a real, living, breathing, walking, shedding, wild dingo trotting along the beach. He maneuvered the big 4WD right up next to the magnificent (and underfed) wild dog which immediately turned and headed in our direction. It’s true what they say about dingoes - how they genuinely expect to be fed, and it was clear that this one was no different. I was standing by the door of the van, and she walked right up to me and stopped about six feet away and just looked at me with that sniffer working as hard as it possibly could. After reaching the conclusion that I was of no use to her, she turned around and continued down the beach. She was nothing more than a skinny orange dog with a tracking collar around her neck, but for some reason, I was completely over the moon to have been so close to a wild dingo that any Australian would probably shrug at or shoo away immediately. 

That night over dinner that the hostel had prepared for us, our guide came over and said something about not walking over the dingo fence that runs around the property because it was electrified. I kind of tuned him out thinking obviously I’m not going to walk up to the fence and climb over it, but I quickly learned that I probably should have paid a little more attention. After dinner, Angie and I walked down to the beach to check out the full moon which was honestly the brightest thing I’ve ever seen. The fence clearly ran around the entire acreage but stopped at the property’s entrance where there was a ramp that cars could drive over to leave the sand and reach the road. We walked up to the ramp and stopped. The ramp was actually a strangely grated strip of metal with thin, oddly spaced grates running parallel down the ramp. We could clearly see that it was not built to be walked on, but saw no other option of how to access the beach, and the dingo fence distinctively stopped on either side of the grate. Feeling adventurous, and faithful that my flip flops were sturdy enough to balance on each grate, I carefully and not so gracefully bounced from one strip of metal to the next with my upper body flailing and threatening to topple over at any minute. When I reached the other side, Angie was standing motionless and I sensed a strange vibrating feeling making its wau up from my flip flops to my knees, but figured it was just because I had moved my legs in strange ways to make the treacherous crossing. After a few minutes of paralyzing confusion riddled with a bit of disbelief, we realized that I had just walked over the electrified dingo fence and was now facing the problem of how to get back to the dingo-free zone. Ultimately, we reached the embarrassing realization that there was a door for people literally two feet from the electrified grate that I had marched over...thank goodness I was wearing rubber flip flops...

Anyway, after that little fail of an IQ test, we finally made to the beach and sat with a few other people in our little group who apparently did not have the same dingo fence inabilities that we had. We sat on the beach for a while, with language barriers a-ragin’ between the two Americans, the French couple, one German and two Japanese guys, it was not a particularly insightful conversation. As we sat there, I was looking down the beach which practically had floodlights on it from the moon and was startled when I saw something move. I watched while the little form a dog ran around zig-zagging up and down the beach in the distant darkness. I wasn’t alarmed until another one showed up. And then another, and then the three of them started hustling down the beach in our direction. Immediately I was concerned as to what they would do when they got here, realized that we had no food and were probably pretty cranky about it. In a flash, we were all retreating back towards the dingo fence which instantly went from my enemy to my salvation. Of all the problems to have, I suppose being chased off a beach in Australia by their famous wild dingos isn’t the worst thing to have happen to you...

Cairns - Great Barrier Reef, Port Douglas & Cape Tribulation...oh, and Qantas...

We arrived at our hostel, Gilligan’s in Cairns at around 7pm on Thursday evening. Tired from a long afternoon of planes trains and automobiles, we shuffled down the hallway and pushed open the door to our new temporary abode. Nothing could have prepared us for the cast of characters that awaited us inside. To preface this, it should be noted that I have stayed in plenty of hostels, and there always seems to be at least one person that makes you raise your eyebrows for whatever reason...I have never encountered a hostel roommate that made my entire jaw drop. Our six new roommates consisted of six guys, all around our age, and all from the UK out of sheer coincidence. Five of them were relatively uninteresting, average, perfectly nice guys. Their accents and slang words were obviously near impossible for us to properly understand, so I just did my best to follow their thought processes while speaking to them, and let details and actual facts fall by the wayside. Now the sixth member of this perfectly motley crew is difficult to explain in any way that does him proper justice. Before I go on, let me first establish that he was one of the nicest, most fun and most personable people I have ever met in any hostels or even in any of my travels thus far. 

That being said, I want you to picture Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean, and somehow cross him with Aladdin. Now take off the hat, get rid of the sparrow tattoo, lose the monkey, and that's him. He had scraggly looking dreadlocks with an occasional feather hidden amongst them. He later explained to us that his dreads were actually fake, but were attached to tiny actual dreads of his actual hair which he was trying to grow out. That's a lot of effort for some pretty low maintenance hair if you ask me. He was tall and thin, had black nail polish on his fingers and toes, a not so dainty lip ring, a touch of Jack Sparrow's eyeliner and typically wore pants which he had clearly stolen from Aladdin. All in all, a pretty impressive hybrid as far as I'm concerned. That night, as we all sat around getting ready to go explore the town, someone asked Jack Sparrow if he had ever been to the States. He coughed a little into his drink upon hearing the question and then said, "Funny story about that..." Immediately the room was all ears. "...I'm not really allowed into the states for 25 years." This statement was at first met with a wall of silence, but eventually erupted into a chorus of astonishment, skepticism and concern. "Relax you ninny buggars, it's just a few misunderstandings along the way." Nobody paid too, too much attention to his bizarre response to a seemingly simple question and we laughed it off. "Well, if any of us go missing this weekend, my money's on this bloke." said UK boy #4 with a hint of concern in his voice. We never did find out why he wasn't allowed into the States. Ignorance is bliss...

The next morning, Diane and I were up early and walked the three blocks down to the marina in the humid morning sun. Being so much further north, there was close to a 15 degree difference in the air, humidity aside and it was definitely a nice change. After some brief but fairly serious confusion as to what boat we were supposed to actually be meeting, we eventually figured it out and boarded "Osprey V" for a day spent on the Great Barrier Reef. We left the dock at just before 8:15am and slid across to the reef amidst great conditions and almost no clouds. Once I had come to terms with just how many bodies that they had crammed on the boat, I was able to enjoy myself much more. I watched as young Asian tourists and fairly older German tourists stood at the back of the boat staring at the other snorkelers bobbing around the water. I'm assuming that their thought process was something along the lines of, "Hmm, looks easy enough." Which then led them to the decision that they too could easily hop in the water and everything would be fine, right? Wrong. I watched the following scene six times in a row: Uncoordinated tourist determines that they can swim, collapses (not jumps) into the water, disappears for a second or two, then reappears to the surfaces thrashing around inhaling water and screaming into their snorkel. Sorry, you still can't swim, and you clearly didn't learn in the past eight seconds. Someone would then either have to jump in and retrieve them, or they would throw them something to drag them back to the boat. SIX TIMES THIS HAPPENED! 

Anyway, after the chaos had cleared and all of the hideously uncoordinated tourists had exhausted their limit of 12 minutes of exercise and retreated to the boat, I seized the opportunity to see more fish than people and hit the water. The stinger season (apparently) begins in the summer months, and being that it was the beginning of November, we were now toeing the line of their locational probabilities. In turn, this created hysteria amongst the uncoordinated population and also resulted in all of them squeezing themselves into bright blue full body stinger suits. I took my chances and nixed the suit, even though the Blue Man Group look seemed to be the predominant trend of the day. Call me edgy. 

The outer fringe of the Barrier Reef was unlike anything I have ever seen. To say that it blew my mind is an understatement. Before I even got in the water, I could tell that it was something special, and not just because it’s kind of a known fact.  From the top deck, it was reef as far as the eye could see, branching out in ever direction imaginable - including up. I hustled out of the deeper water and was immediately greeted with a blast of warmer water and life everywhere. For me, the most surprising thing about the reef was that it was not linear - it was just below me at a relatively shallow depth everywhere I looked, completely void of a stopping or starting point. The coral was more colorful than anything I was prepared for and at first I had to blink a few times to make sure that I wasn’t hallucinating. Massive spreads of table coral, sea anemones with clown fish darting in and out, little white tip sharks cruising by, enormous parrot fish - I could ramble until I ran out of names and had to just start describing things so I’ll spare you. Take home message: it totally blew me away. 

Tired and salty, we rolled ourselves back to the hostel around 6:30 and our charming roommates were already gearing up for the night. I was standing in the doorway talking to roommate #3 when Jack Sparrow came out of the bathroom. I moved aside for him to walk by and noticed his carefully applied eyeliner. I complimented him on his appearance choice and he responded in true Jack Sparrow form, “Aw, cheers, love.” 

The next morning was another early one and we were outside Gilligan’s by 6:50 waiting to get picked up for our trip to the rainforest. One the tour company retrieved us, the day’s first stop included the Port Douglas Zoo. Diane and I passed back out almost immediately on the bus as our delicate roommates (much like my Sydney roommates) were gifted snorers, aside from the fact that we were all out late to begin with. So the Port Douglas Zoo was a nice little zoo that broke up the long drive north on the way to the Daintree Rainforest and to Cape Tribulation. We spent about an hour wandering through their little exhibits with tree kangaroos, koalas, kookaburras and the usual Australian suspects. Considering that we were definitely the first people through the door that morning, the kangaroos were quite ravenous by the time we got to them. We spent some time hanging out with the roos, feeding them as well as the ducks which came in tow. 

After the zoo, it was off to Mossman Gorge which is hardly a gorge...more like a river with some nicely smoothed rocks. Either way, the walk into the “gorge,” was really nice and was the first real look at what an Aussie rainforest is like. I saw my first wild kookaburra in there which I mentally noted as a major accomplishment. Once we reached it, the river water in the gorge was crystal clear and quite cold, but had created some pretty cool rock formations along it’s path making the whole scene seem like it was ripped from a magazine somewhere. 

Next, we were off to Cape Tribulation for lunch and a little beach combing. We drove for another hour or two, deep into the rainforest but sticking moderately close to the coastline as we continued our northern push. Finally, we pulled into the Cape Tribulation Beach Resort where we had a great dinner of local fish and game before darting down to the beach. Again, totally unlike anything I’ve ever seen, the beach looked like something from a movie as well. There were a grand total of five people on the beach when we walked down, but they were tucked so far back into the shade of the trees it was as if they didn’t exist. The lush rainforest came crashing down to the beach practically right to the surf line. The wall of tropical trees shot up from the sand for several towering meters and at a few points, totally blocked the beach, forcing us to either clammer over fallen trees or venture out into the stinger infested waters to walk around. Talk about having your own private tropical beach. It was the type of beach that I could imagine it looking exactly the same for thousands of years prior to my tramping around it that day. It was totally untouched and even more untamed, as the forest that framed it was too dense to even make a few true steps into. 

After prying ourselves away from the beach, we went for a pretty cool little walk through the Daintree Rainforest and into the mangrove forest within it. It was unmistakably a rainforest, but not nearly as wet and dark as the Amazon or Panama and Costa Rica. The fauna itself looked similar enough, but there was a huge amount of light penetrating through the canopy and the forest floor was still quite dry. I suppose it was what an Australian rainforest would logically look like, considering the better portion of the country is entirely desert. Anyway, there were enormous ferns and palm leaves with vines dangling from the highest trees all the way to the ground. Of course, the spiders were abundant and we saw two spiders that were clearly amongst the groups of steroid-ridden arachnids dwelling within the continent of poisonous critters. What would a trip to the rainforest be without some semi life threatening animal sightings? 

The last activity that we crammed into that day was a swelteringly hot, but equally entertaining  “Crocodile Cruise” down the Daintree River. The river itself definitely looked like what I remembered the Amazon to look like. It was a dingy brown color with vegetation shooting straight up out of the water on either side with mountains in the distance. We saw two healthy sized crocodiles, one of them spotted thanks to yours truly and the other tucked up on the river bank located by the guide. Exhausted and a little sun-kissed to put it lightly, we again, passed out immediately upon getting back in the bus and slept for most of the long ride home. 

The next day, we said an early morning goodbye to our roommates and headed for the airport thinking we were going home that day. Little did we know that we were about to become a participating party of Australia’s largest airline strike in history. Qantas, or more - Qantas’ president, Alan Joyce, was apparently quite fed up with the labor unions operating and protesting within his airline. In what I’ve deemed to be a not-so-mature response, he more or less threw his own hissy fit and grounded the entire fleet of “Flying Red Roos,” totally without warning stranding passengers all around the world. Including me!! So to make a long and very, very stressful story short, Diane and I got an extra two days in Cairns in a real person’s hotel, (the Hilton) not a hostel, and even ate real person food and not whatever was the cheapest thing on the menu with the understanding that Qantas had given us a stipend for every day that we were stranded. The first day however, was spent almost entirely on hold with Qantas, (and never getting off hold after 3 hours,) room service, frantic phone calls to anyone I could possibly think of that might have even a slight inkling as to what I should do to get home, and a desperate combing of the internet for any method of transportation back to the Gold Coast that wasn’t the 30 hour bus ride I so desperately wanted to avoid. Although we were in two crisp king sized beds and the world’s most comfortable mattresses, I slept very little that first night. All I could think about was the Qantas guy at the airport, the only Qantas employee I had made contact with, telling me that I had better sort things out quickly because the flights that were supposed to leave for Sydney that day weren’t going to get out until Thursday at the earliest. It was Sunday. At 4 in the morning I had the brilliant idea to call our Student Flights office back at school and see if they could help me. After that stroke of genius I slept pretty hard under the forced belief that they would definitely be able to help sort things out, and luckily that’s exactly what happened. The next morning at 9am, I called Student Flights and thanks to all things holy, we figured out a new route home on a different airline and on Tuesday morning. It was the biggest sigh of relief I’ve breathed in a while, as a Thursday departure date was seeming even more and more likely as the minutes ticked by. 

We spent all of Monday wandering around the little city of Cairns and exploring as we had no activities to occupy ourselves with. We were like new people operating under the understanding that the stress was over and we would definitely be going home - eventually, and not on Thursday. We quickly discovered that Cairns was riddled with gift shops, but also had the best prices compared to the other gift shops in other cities such as Surfer’s, Brisbane, Sydney and Airlie Beach. Needless to say, we did some serious Christmas shopping, and as I write this, I’m looking at the growing pile of trinkets in the corner of my room, wondering how I’m going to get these home...That afternoon, and night, we treated ourselves to two awesome meals at great restaurants on the esplanade in the marina. Thanks for paying, Qantas. I got to talking to the manager of the place where we had lunch after I practically asked to hug the chef who made my lunch. We chatted about Qantas, as it was all anyone in all of Oz seemed to be able to talk about, and he helped me to get a better picture of what had actually happened within the airline. He basically confirmed my assumption that my anger should be directed entirely at this Alan Joyce character for pitching a fit and making what even the Prime Minister condemned as a “rash decision.” It can’t feel good to be trash talked by the PM. 

Overall, Cairns was a great place, and we had an absolute blast aside from the little set back from Qantas. It felt less like an American city the way that Surfer’s can sort of feel like Miami and there was always something to do everywhere you looked. There were restaurants everywhere, bars and nightclubs were not exactly hard to find, the lagoon down towards the water was packed with locals lounging around with their families and the people were friendly as always. It was nice being able to see the city from the point of view of a backpacker traveling on a budget and trying to see as much as humanly possible, but then also seeing it from a more laid back, vacation style approach, once Qantas told me that I had a certain amount of money per day that I was entitled to. I think it says a lot about a city when you can see it from two totally different points of view and love each side for different purposes. As a backpacker, I loved the nightlife, the activities, the little shops scattered around the town and the scenery. As a vacationer on Quantas’ dime, I loved the food, the atmosphere and the feeling that it wasn’t just a tourist town after seeing families running around down at the lagoon and in town. 

Skydiving Byron Bay

On Wednesday evening over a weekly Skype conversation with my parents, my mother asked me what I was going to get up to over the coming weekend. I paused, weighed my options of possible responses, then quickly filled the silence with a convincing, "Oh, nothing..."

 I lied...

Seriously...?

Three days later I was on a bus heading down to Byron Bay with seven friends, and it quickly became obvious that nobody's parents were aware of the day's itinerary. We pulled into Skydive Byron Bay's headquarters just after 9am and immediately were handed heaps of paper work, all of which obviously released the company from any bodily harm or immanent death should Lady Luck turn her back on you that day. There was a comfortable amount of confusion surrounding the proper conversion from pounds to kilograms, but luckily somebody had an iPhone and the crisis was quickly resolved. After quite literally signing our lives away, we walked outside to the grassy area outside of the airplane hanger. There, the "professionals" were frantically running in from the landing strip, refolding their chutes, strapping back up, and running right back out to meet the next plane for another dive - all within about a 15 minute turn-around. As they hustled back out to jump on another plane, the first time jumpers slowly staggered back to the hanger behind them, completely red faced, wind blown, and disheveled but visibly on a huge adrenaline high evident through the toothy grins all around. It was comforting seeing just how much of a science these guys had their jobs down to, to say the least. We watched the ebbing and flowing of professionals and first timers for a few "loads" before our group finally took to the air. As we killed time until our turn, we kicked a soccer ball around and lounged around in the hot Aussie sun. Angie, in between heart palpitations, suddenly stopped mid stride and looked up. "Look." She said wide-eyed, "People."Somebody laughed, and somebody else asked her what on earth she was talking about. Monotone and groaning, she pointed upwards and said, "People. People are falling from the sky." We all looked up and at first couldn't see what she was looking at, then, all of a sudden, there they were. Six tiny parachutes emerged literally out of the blue and began their graceful spiral down to the landing strip. Somebody started singing "It's Raining Men." There was no,"hallelujah" in response from the group which was suddenly paralyzed in silence by the weight of reality.

Diane and I harnessed up before boarding the tin can plane. Note the oversized pants and t-shirt that I was given, and the world's shortest pants that Diane got stuck with. 

Angie, Dean, Kristina and Emily were the first of our group to take the leap of faith. As soon as they landed in one piece and still breathing, Diane and I climbed into the less than sturdy looking airplane accompanied by our personal instructors. The plane had two rows of benches positioned parallel to the walls, and we sat one behind the other in tightly packed rows of quiet first time jumpers and chatty instructors. I was seated next to the giant hole in the plane which was apparently the exit and flinched when they slid the screen made of plastic and duct tape down over the door before take off. As the tin can plane gained speed over the grass runway I was practically in my instructor, Adam's lap. Allow me to clarify something at this point - yes, I am a terrible in planes, but that has nothing to do with my ability to EXIT said craft in a timely manner. I am unhappy in planes to the point that I was practically breaking down the little plastic screen just to get out of that oversized paper airplane. Anyway, upon reaching 9,000ft the first jumper was about to be let go. Suddenly, Adam's arms were crossed over my chest holding on to the harness straps on my shoulders in the tightest bear hug ever. "Don't want ya getting sucked out when they open the door." He said with a less than reassuring chuckle. My jaw dropped a little and I think I pushed myself further back into his lap - anything to avoid getting "sucked out" of the damn aircraft before intended. A few seconds later, the DZ (drop zone) light was illuminated over the exit and the screen door suddenly flew open and rattled the entire plane. There was a rush of air into the little cabin and I was quite happy to have someone else hanging on to me. There was movement behind me and an instructor and jumper made their way to the exit to take the 9,000ft plunge. Here's what they don't tell you about skydiving - it's not graceful. I watched as the duo lumbered over to the door, and sat down on the edge of the exit with the jumper's feet dangling outside of the plane and the instructor kneeling behind. A split second later, they literally rolled out of the plane in the least graceful way possible. I watched, probably with eyes as big as teacups, as the pair hurtled backwards, past the plane. I was shocked to see them fly backwards and not down until I actually took a moment to consider the force involved, which no, I had not done prior to that moment. the forces involved. They tumbled, spun and flipped, and then were gone. I looked at Diane who was sitting on my left and saw the mirror image of what I sensed my own expression to be. It wasn't fear, neither of us were scared, but it also wasn't necessarily pure excitement on our faces either. Instead, the two of us were in a strange state of purgatory as far as our emotions went, and I don't think either of us, in that moment, quite knew what to feel.

The view looking down at Byron Bay - high enough to see the curve of the Earth!

The door slammed shut again and the DZ light turned off as the little plane began the slow climb up to 14,000ft. Diane and I started laughing entirely because we just didn't know what to do with ourselves by then. As we passed the last band of clouds, I saw someone cross themselves out of the corner of my eye and felt a chill of morbidity. "Half way." Yelled the pilot, half turning his head in our direction. A few of the instructors began to clip into their jumpers' harnesses and within seconds Diane was singing Bon Jovi. "Waaaaaa-Ooohhh! We're half way theeeereeee -" we belted off key, and with audible cracks of anxiety. As if we had planned it out beforehand, we were joined by our respective instructors for the rest of the chorus, "Waaaa-Ooooh! Livin' on a prayer!" Someone crossed themselves again, and I quickly turned away.

A few minutes later I was strapped so tightly to Adam, that there was no way he was getting rid of me even if he wanted to. The harness was so tight that it was slightly hard to breathe - but that was fine - I intended on breathing after this experience, so I deemed a little bit of restrictions for the next six minutes to be acceptable. The DZ light lit up again and Diane and I looked back at each other as the door swung open and the cabin shook. A second pair was already at the door and gone into the abyss within seconds, spiraling away out of control. Before I could even register what was happening, I felt myself sliding forward on the bench and watched my feet dangling outside of the plane as I sat on the precipice of what very clearly looked like life and death at that point. I stole one more glance over my shoulder at Diane who, despite the holy-shit-you're-really-about-to-jump-out-of-the-plane, expression in her eyes, was smiling like a hyena. Adam's hand was suddenly on my forehead, pushing my head backwards to rest on his shoulder into the required "jump position," which more closely resembled a seizure convulse than a safety position. I stared at the top of the door and the clear blue sky above and felt him rock once, twice - then I moved my head out of visceral instinct to look at the ground below me and he stopped instantly. Again, he pushed my head on to his shoulder and said, "No," as if talking to a badly behaved puppy, "stay." I could hear Diane laughing at my inability to follow directions. Just then, the plane hit a little bump in the air, and I immediately pinned my head against him and though, okay, let me out, let me out LET ME OUT! Upon my cooperation, I felt him again, rock once, twice, and then we were gone. Falling, tumbling, hurtling, barreling towards the earth into a  completely out of control and unguided free fall.

Truly falling through air is different than the feeling you have on roller coasters. Even on those rides when your stomach lurches and you think that you feel no gravity, the back of your mind still knows that you're attached to something, and reacts accordingly. When you're rocketing through the air, completely unattached to anything, your subconscious is painfully aware of this as well. In an instant, the butterflies in my stomach had turned into missiles, all of which were exploding and/or crashing into each other at once. I knew I was screaming something terrible, and probably cursing like the angriest of sailors but I couldn't hear myself over the wind that was screaming past us and was thankful that Adam couldn't hear me either. Then, as quickly as it came, the chaos inside my head and body was gone. I felt myself stop screaming bloody murder, and suddenly felt peacefully calm. Immediately, I recognized the familiar feeling of a true adrenaline high, and in that moment, I was the happiest person alive. (Still alive.) By now, we had reached "terminal velocity" which meant that we were no longer gaining speed and falling out of control. Instead we were hanging in suspended animation while rocketing towards the earth at an unreasonable speed, and it no longer felt like falling. I could feel my cheeks flapping in unbecoming directions thanks to the wind rushing by me, and tried desperately to close my mouth as it went painfully dry from the huge smile that was plastered to my face. We stayed like this for a full minute and ten seconds, watching clouds rush past as the Earth quickly came into focus. Whales breeched directly below us in Byron Bay and both of us pointed simultaneously, followed by two big thumbs-up from Adam. A few seconds later, I felt his body weight shift backwards and I knew he was reaching for the rip cord. As if on a rope swing, we quickly swung forwards and hung vertically in the air as the parachute deployed (successfully) and jerked us back up towards the clouds. For the next six minutes, everything was totally silent. Initially, I was fairly certain that I had gone deaf and destroyed my bad eardrum from losing over 9,000ft of altitude in about 80 seconds. Luckily my ears soon popped and the brief pain disappeared and my focus returned to the most incredible view in the world. We glided in silence for a minute or two, and then spotted more whales which provoked an uproar of chatter from both of us. He pointed out Mt. Warning in the distance where I had been only a few weeks earlier while wandering around Nimbin. Without warning, he destroyed the serenity of the moment by flipping and spinning us in the air, just to prove that he could do it. I can't say I protested. I watched the whales popping up every now and again until we were too low and the ocean had disappeared behind us as we circled into the big X on the grass landing strip. With much more grace than our exit from the aircraft, we touched down to terra firma as if nothing had happened - I was alive, and I had never felt it more than I did in that moment. On shaky legs, I stood up from kneeling on the ground as two other professionals quickly unhooked me from the harness, adrenaline still coursing through me, rattling my hands. I hugged Adam, this time without the nagging concern that my life was about to be in his hands, and thanked him excessively for not killing me.

The seven of us got back to school at around 4pm still riding the adrenaline high and quickly parted ways to send triumphant survival e-mails to our unsuspecting parents. My guess is, that nobody was ready for the announcement that their child had just fallen 14,000ft to the earth from a functional (barely functional if you ask me) airplane, but come on, did they really not think that we were going to do it? To us, skydiving was not a matter of if - but was a matter of when, and that when was today.

Mission accomplished.

Nothing brings people together like Bon Jovi and putting your life in the hands of a stranger. 

Sailing the Whitsunday Islands

Thursday morning started way too early. 4:30am to be exact. In exhausted silence, the six of us dragged ourselves, half asleep and totally incapable of forming words into the van to begin our pilgrimage up to the Whitsunday Islands for the weekend. The van ride down to the train station is relatively foggy, and it’s completely possible that I had actually managed to sleep walk throughout the entire experience, but nevertheless, Team Bond Uni made it to the airport by 7:45 for our 8:55 flight north and landed (happily) at the Whitsunday Airport by around 10:25am. From here, our travel movements were characterized by communal confusion as well as an entire lack of any form of information on the whole, however between the initial six of us from campus, as well as several other off campus students who we met up with after landing, we managed to sort things out. A weathered looking man in his mid 60’s retrieved us at the airport, hustled (and I mean hustled) us into van number two for the day, and took off down the dirt roads in a crappy stick shift van/bus easily reaching speeds upwards of 80kmph complete with passing on turns and hills as well as the most aggressive tail gating that I have seen in quite some time - and I’m a New Yorker. Molly was borderline positive that this was the end of our lives - a thought that was by no means entirely out of the question. Apparently road rage exists in Australia as well and lord help whatever poor tourist this lunatic scared the life out of. As if driving on the left side of the road from the right side of the car wasn’t life threatening enough as it is. Eventually, we lived through the drag race of an airport transfer, and after much confusion and a few raised voices, we finally made it to the correct hostel, instead of the strange hostel down the road that our angry driver man was convinced we were supposed to stay at. Sorry buddy, you were wrong, but thanks for playing. 

Base Hostel was an awesome hostel. Each room was basically a little bungalow set back from the road with four rooms with five beds to each building. Each room had 2 bunk beds, one solo bed, it’s own full bathroom as well as a half kitchenette thing. This being Molly’s first hostel experience, I had to break the sad news that not all hostels were quite like this one - if they were more like this one, I would never stay at a hotel again. Actually, that’s a flagrant lie, but you get my point. Lacy, Molly, Emily, and one other girl who lives off campus and I were in one room, while James and Kristina bunked with the other three off campus students who we didn’t know at the time, in the room next to us, making an ideal configuration even though it was only for one night. By 11:30am we were already exhausted not only from being up at such an unreasonable hour, but from the combination of travel itself, the death defying van ride, and especially the brief episode of chaos in which nobody seemed to know where were supposed to spend the night. In an effort to wake ourselves up as well as calm our recently frazzled nerves, we set off in a group to explore Airlie. The town itself was pretty cool, consisting of basically one long street that ran parallel with the ocean, littered with bars, night clubs, pubs, pizza shacks, tourist trinket shops, surf shops, and local clothing stores. We settled on the open air bar with big fans and a massive long wooden tables as a place to grab a quick but comfortably greasy lunch. Kangaroo as well as crocodile was on the menu, but I figured I had better save my first kangaroo/croc ingestion experience for a place who’s tables were not still sticky from the night before. After recharging our batteries with some healthy deep fried food and several Pure Blonde pitchers - or, sorry, jugs - for the table, we split up and wandered around Airlie for the better portion of the afternoon. Lacy, Molly and I checked out the iconic Airlie Beach Lagoon even though it was a bit cloudy and then weaved in and out of the maze of little stores throughout the main strip. By 5:30, it felt like midnight and we decided that dinner time had arrived, even though nobody had invited it for such an early hour. We met back up with James, Emily and Kristina and, too tired to put true effort into searching for a nice dinner spot, we defaulted for the first pizza shack we found and inhaled a sizable amount of several different pizza species. We took our time from here and waited until happy hour to make our slow crawl back towards our hostel for the night. At some point, we found ourselves back at the same bar which we had lunch at, except by now it was absolutely packed to the gills and had $10 jugs which was enticing at the time. Worth noting at this point in my recap, is the group of around 15 Australian guys all wearing matching blue tank tops proclaiming that they were a footy team on their end of season break, in Airlie “to get pissed for the weekend.” Translation: they’re a rugby team spending the weekend in Airlie to drink for four days straight. I’m sure their doctors (if they even have them) are psyched. So, with this in mind, the six of us, plus one random German who we had picked up somewhere along the way, were sitting at one of the back tables, talking amongst ourselves and couldn’t help but notice that nobody was on the dance floor even though there was a live band. And by live band, I obviously mean a guy with a a guitar, a microphone and a laptop that plays all of the other necessary instruments for a band, and probably also projects the words to any given song as well. Anyway - it was better than a bad DJ any day. So, seeing live music and an empty dance floor, Lacy and I couldn’t resist but to go claim the dance floor for ourselves and see what happened. At the time, it seemed like a good idea for me to do “the worm” across the dance floor in an effort to get people’s attention and get some more bodies out there. It worked. After picking myself up from my extremely physically taxing worm display, I was instantly greeted by one of the guys in blue who felt the urgent, pressing need to show me up - I might as well have had a bull’s eye on my back. He proceeded to do the worm, then a backflip, front flip, break dance, and some other acrobatic move I can’t even come close to describing. What kind of trained gymnast prays on poor white girls who think they can dance? Rude. Regardless of my bruised pride, and semi broken knee caps from the cement floor, the dance floor was soon packed with most of the guys in blue as well as some unworthy overly intoxicated floaters who would appear here and there before stumbling away. We had some competitive swing dancing maneuvers as well as a lot, a lot of lyrical interpretive dance, to songs like Summer of ’69 and Wild Thing. All in all, it was a bizarre night in a casual way that made it one definitely worth remembering. It was no surprise that Team Bond crashed no later than 11:30pm that night - we had all been awake for far too many hours as it was, and the insane dance riot that we had ignited definitely took whatever energy that was left in us right out. 

The next morning, we checked out of the hostel, grabbed a quick breakfast at the cafe on our street and then headed down to the marina to meet the boat called Wings 3 that we were about to spend the next two days on. Wings 3 was a 50ft catamaran captained by a Kiwi named Pete, who governed a support staff of two. There was the dive master, Rich, or “Richie, Richie Rich, Richster, RichMan” or whatever other self proclaimed nick names he addressed himself as, as well as an American girl named Amanda who kept us shockingly well fed throughout the trip. After boarding the boat, and after the understandably necessary but equally painful, if-the-boat-sinks-and-or-all-hell-breaks-loose-procedure lecture to sit through before we shoved off from Airlie Beach and finally headed across to the Whitsunday Islands. It was such a breath of fresh air (literally and figuratively) to be back on a boat for more than a few hours and I had an avalanche of Geronimo memories come washing over me as if I had locked them away for a while and then they were suddenly triggered to come racing back to the front of my mind. I hadn’t thought about that trip for quite a while so it was nice to sort of re-live it all in my own way. So anyway, after the we made a quick 2(ish) hour beeline for Hook Island and dropped anchor promptly at a dive site called Mackerel Bay upon arrival. 

Once here, we had our first chance to hit the water and get a taste of what Australia’s famous Barrier Reef had to offer. The answer is jellyfish. Australia has jellyfish to offer. Thanks to National Geographic’s seasonal special entitled, “Killer Jellyfish,” every single one of us on the boat had a quiet, nagging concern about the lethal box jellyfish - you know, the one that sends you into cardiac arrest within 3 minutes? Not good odds, but thanks for playing. Before we finally worked up the courage to jump in, someone squeaked out a question about the chances of seeing one of these nasty little stingers. The response was not to worry - they only come after the rains. There was a long, pregnant pause before James said in a very monotone voice, “It rained yesterday.” Luckily it was eventually clarified that “the rains” referred more to the seasonal rains, not the daily ones, so we were apparently in some sort of a safe zone, or at least thats what they told us. I would lie to us too at that point. The visibility was not exactly Bahamian clarity, but it was still clear enough to see what needed to be seen. The coral was incredible. I’ve never seen coral so huge, so colorful and so alive, but then again, I’ve never spent time on a Pacific Ocean reef, let alone on the Barrier Reef, so I suppose it’s to be expected. This is not to say, however, that the coral I am used to is sub - par, because it’s quite above par if I do say so myself, it’s just totally different from this and, and I was in no way prepared for such vibrant life to be pouring out of each coral head. I saw giant clams with blue lips for the first time, real life Nemo’s popping in and out of their anemones, massive parrot fish and groupers, eels, turtles, the list is endless. Despite the water being absolutely freezing, it was an awesome introduction to the Barrier Reef. 

On Saturday morning, we were up to see the sunrise around 5:30am which is always a rude hour, but it was definitely work dragging our tired bodies out of the bunks for. Since the sun doesn’t set over the ocean here, (thank you, southern hemisphere,) a sunrise was the closest thing we’d get to the colors of the oceanic sunsets that we’re used to at home. Shortly after the sunrise photo shoot of some very, very overtired students, we stuffed some breakfast down our gullets and were underway to the most iconic beach of the Whitsunday Islands. We dropped anchor just behind Whitehaven beach around 8am and first set foot on the trail up over the ridge and down to the famous beach on the other side not long afterwards. Whitehaven beach was incredible. 7km of completely untouched natural perfection. The sand at Whitehaven is completely unlike anything in the world as it’s almost entirely made up of silica - not coral, not rocks, and not volcanic sediment - silica. To say that this sand is white would be an embarrassing understatement. The sand is blindingly white - a lot like the choppers of those overly faked tanned women who are simultaneously addicted to teeth whitening, making their teeth into laser beams of light. We spent the next two or three hours being slowly fricasseed by the sun, no thanks to Australia’s apparent lack of ozone layer, as well as exploring up and down the beach and dodging in and out of the crystal water. I remember thinking that the sand was literally like flour as I walked back to our towels from the water. I have never seen sand so fine and so powdery. I chuckled to myself quietly out of guilt as I thought about my roommates, friends and teammates back in Chestertown. Initially I felt terribly guilty that I was basically frolicking on one of the world’s most perfect beaches, while I knew that they were back at school grinding through the daily routine on the other side of the world; and at that moment I would have given anything to have transported them to the beach to share the experience with me. Places like this are proof that nature, entirely in itself, is perfect, and I sincerely hope that at some point in everyone’s life they have a moment where they can see that for themselves. 

Later that afternoon we were back in the water to explore a reef on the back side of Hook Island. The visibility was not quite as clear as the last site, but the coral was far more dramatic with huge coral heads and deep crevasses that were too dark to see all the way through. The life at this site was also much larger with parrot fish on steroids as well as octopus (not the blue banded, thank goodness,) and more Pacific giant clams. I was hovering a few feet above a massive sea anemone watching the clown fish pop in and out when all of a sudden, I felt something cold slide underneath my wetsuit on my neck just behind my left ear. Instinctively I thrashed and swatted at my neck but it was too late, and I immediately felt a terrible burning and stinging sensation where the nasty little gelatinous critter had slipped in. I knew it was a jellyfish, and also knew that this meant that I either had 3 minutes to live, or, I was going to be totally fine, and probably end up with a small rash to whine about later. I calmed myself down and patiently waited for the immanent cardiac arrest to set in as I slowly made my way in the general direction of other people should all hell break loose within my cardiovascular system. After the longest two and a half minutes of my life and no signs of heart failure, I determined that I was going to live and went about my business and quickly distracted myself with what I thought to be a sea snake - another mean spirited Australian animal  that I hope to never see again. Once everybody was back on the boat, the long line for the most claustrophobic shower on earth began to form, and took a solid 50 minute chunk out of our evening in the name of hygiene. That evening, I sat with the captain for quite a while, talking about Australia in general, about sailing, whales, New Zealand and my not-so-extensive knowledge of rugby. As the sun went down the stars began to pope up out of the dusk, brighter than burning torches on a beach at night. The first, and brightest orb to appear in the sky was Venus, made visible by the distinct size and orange tint, as well as its low lying position just above the horizon. By the time the sun was totally gone, the sky was alive with unfamiliar constellations as well as the famous Southern Cross. In that instant I really felt like I was on the other side of the world. That night, I looked up to the sky and did not recognize one constellation, and even the moon was upside down. Whenever I travel, or am away from my friends and family, it’s always a quite comfort to know that when I look up at the stars and the moon, it’s the same night sky that they’re looking at wherever they are - plus or minus a few clouds. Suddenly I was alarmingly aware that I was looking up at a full sky that was totally different than the one that blanketed them in their night 10 hours prior. It was like realizing that the largest commonality I could think of, being the night sky, was no longer common, but was something totally alien and different - and I was fine with it.