Aussie 2013: Great Barrier Reef

I want to be on vacation again. It's been about two months since my last vacation and I'm experiencing withdrawal symptons. *sheepish look*

I guess I was lucky enough that I traveled almost monthly from January to June earlier this year, thus July and August seems a tad miserable in comparison. Continuing from my travelogue posts, I shall now start on my Aussie 2013 trip.

It was my first visit back to Oz after my graduation in 2009, and I was excited, of course to be back there. I made the trip with my cousin, who also studied in Oz, so it was sort of a nostalgic trip for us both. We took a plane from Singapore to Gold Coast, followed by a domestic flight to Cairns, next to Brisbane, thereafter to Melbourne, before flying home.

I was quite excited to head to Cairns, cos it was my first trip to the Great Barrier Reef. We were going snorkeling! Yes yes, for those who know me well, me, who can't swim (yes, I know. *rolls eyes*) is able to snorkel (and survive to tell the tale).

Pardon the lousy meagre shots today. I didn't bring my DSLR with me on our day trip out to the reef, cos we'll be snorkeling and I didn't want to leave my camera behind on the boat and all, thus whatever you see here, it's taken using my iPhone 4S. I must say, being constantly behind lens, it was kinda refreshing to just be focused on the vacation time and not be concerned with snapping loads of photos for memories' sake. Though I won't have much photos to look back on for remembrance, at least whatever few I have, I can look upon fondly.

Cairns 2013

We had looked up on reef cruises prior to our trip, and after narrowing down to a few choices, we decided to go with Seastar Cruises. It was a pretty good choice. The reef boat wasn't too packed, say about 20-30 pax? We were brought to two locations (Michaelmas Cay & Hastings Reef) to snorkel, and I liked that the staff were pretty friendly people. Oh yeah, and the lunch provided was actually pretty decent. Overall thumbs up to the Seastar Cruises staff in making the day trip enjoyable.

Hello fishies!

Fellow cruise-goer in the water

As mentioned, I don't have much photos taken that day, much less any decent ones of me in the water lol. But here's a selfie of the cousin and I together.

Cairns, you were awesome. Thanks for showing me a glimpse of how beautiful the underwater world is. Maybe I should you know, pick up swimming or something so I can go explore the underwater world in the future. (#sayonly) Anyone has any hot swim instructor to introduce to me? ;)