Last week was my final week in Australia, making my way all the way up to Cairns. More than half my days were spent in the water either snorkeling and diving. The others were mostly relaxed recovery days with not much going on. Beach time came to an end, as further north in Queensland is crocodile territory and I wasn’t interested in getting chomped. All of the gals and I said goodbye at one point or another throughout the week, and it’s weird to be totally back on my own again. I’m excited for it, but I’ll miss the comfort and company of having them around every day. I ended the week with a flight to Auckland, and New Zealand is where I’ll be for the month of February!
LOCATIONS
- Airlie Beach / Whitsundays, Australia (Jan 22 – Jan 25)
- Cairns, Australia (Jan 26 – Jan 30)
ACTIVITIES
Whitsundays Boat Tour
(this week’s cover photo)
The last group activity our little gang did before we split directions was a snorkeling tour around the Whitsundays. We did two snorkel stops at different bays that were nice enough, but the last stop of the day was by far one of, if not THE, coolest beach I have ever seen. That last stop was Whitehaven beach. I think I’d seen a postcard or photo of this before, but I couldn’t have told you by name what beach it was. I didn’t even know what it looked like until we arrived, all I knew was people kept mentioning the name beforehand as a must see.
The beach changes dramatically with tides. Our tour timed it as the tides were shifting, which is prime time for its iconic views. We got to swim at the beach for a bit and saw some stingrays (the reason for the stinger suits we wore) and a few tiny sharks in the water. Seeing the beach from the viewpoint above though really was the best part. There was audible gasping coming out of my mouth as we walked up. There were easily a dozen distinct colors of water in different areas all swirling around each other. I’ve got the Whitehaven shot as the cover photo this week, so below you get a few additional photos of us from the day.
Great Barrier Reef Diving
My last big activity in Australia was a 3-day liveaboard diving tour on the Great Barrier Reef. I wasn’t sure if I was going to do this one as it was on the pricier end. But not knowing when the next time I’d be at the Great Barrier Reef was, I figured now was the time to do it. My wallet might not have thanked be, but every other part of me sure did.
Three days of diving is tough to fit into a few paragraphs, but here’s the quick and dirty. There were 23 of us on the boat. The ocean was rocking the boat more than any I’ve been on in the past, and our boat ride out to the reef was the closest I’ve ever gotten to being seasick. Some others weren’t so lucky and had to sit out a few dives to lay down and rest. We did 11 dives in 3 days, including two night dives. All of our dives were unguided, which was a new experience to me and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It was fun getting the map of what to explore below, and navigating on my own with my two dive buddies.
The coral on the reef is unlike any I have seen, from shape, to color, to size, to scale. It’s everywhere. Almost like its the Great Barrier Reef or something. Before our last dive, our dive master told us that this site contained his favorite piece of coral in the entire world. I was skeptical, but after seeing it, I got it. It was a piece of vibrant green rose coral dozens of feet across and down (this one is pictured).
The marine animals were active as well. I checked sharks off my diving bucket list, seeing around 10 whitetip reef sharks and a single epaulette shark (unique to the Great Barrier Reef). I saw the largest sea turtle I have ever seen (and am 99% confident I will ever see) in my life. Its shell had to have been at least 5-6 feet across. I saw giant trevally’s hunting at night, caring so little about us that I got the occasional bump from them on my leg as they hurried by. I saw some massive schools of fish, which still mesmerize me in the way they move as a school. One looked like a river with how many fish were moving slowly through the same current.
It was an exhausting 3 days, but so worth it. It was a memorable note to end Australia on. I once again did not get any of my own pictures, but here’s a few that someone else on the trip got. They don’t really do the colors and scale justice, but it’s the best I can give you. If you want to see the full video of this massive turtle (who even has a name – Brian), you can find it here. The Giant Trevally in that video (~22 sec) is probably about 3 ft long for a scale reference.
REFLECTIONS
Deep Questions
Now that I am in New Zealand, one of the ways I’m passing my hours of driving around has been with audiobooks. I started listening to a book called How to Know A Person by David Brooks. I hadn’t heard of it before, but the title intrigued me as a skill that I continually want to improve at and I figured I’d give it a shot.
There have been several points that have stuck out to me, one of them being that we dramatically underestimate other people’s desire to engage in conversation, especially around deep topics. To quote Brooks – “people are a lot more eager to have deep conversations than you think”.
He goes on to provide a list of his favorite questions he’s gathered from others. I’m a big fan of widening my repertoire of questions, and I wanted to share a handful of my favorites from him here.
- What would you do if you weren’t afraid?
- Can you be yourself where you are and still fit in?
- What forgiveness are you withholding?
- What is the gift you currently hold in exile?
- What are you most self confident about?
- What has become clearer to you as you age?
They hit hard for me, and that’s the point. Any question to which my initial reaction is “I don’t want to think about that”, I find is a good question for me to engage with.
My experience has been that questions are always more poignant when they are personal. What I mean by that is that you should have your own connection to the question you are asking someone else before you ask it. It allows you to be more empathetic to what answer comes out, even if someone else’s answer is completely different than yours. My encouragement would be to start by taking time to reflect over any of these questions yourself. After you have your own answers, you can start posing these questions to others. I haven’t yet had the time to reflect on some of these myself, but I plan to over the coming weeks.
I’d love to hear about any deep conversations you end up in, or any of the questions you find most thought provoking. If you have any of your own that you’ve been asked or enjoy asking, I’d love to hear those to.
NEXT UP
I am officially in New Zealand! Out of all the countries I’ve been to so far, this is the one I’ve been most excited about. Even more so after arriving. Driving around these first few days has already been so much fun, and it feels closer to home than anywhere else I’ve been on this trip.
It’s going to be a very different month of travel. Lots of driving, lots of hiking, with several Lord of the Rings related tours and a few other activities to fill in the gaps. Camping will be my primary accommodation, and although it might sound strange, I’m pretty excited to be sleeping on the ground in a tent for a while. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a “bedroom” to myself, and the introvert in me is not so secretly beaming with joy. I’m excited to see where my thoughts wander and what I learn from being back alone again after a few months of being constantly around other people.
Staying in a tent means I have to go further out of my way to get wifi, charge things, etc. Newsletters the next few weeks might be slightly off the regular rhythm, but I’ll do my best to connect back to the grid and build out some coffee shop time to keep you all updated.
As always, if you know anyone that you think would be interested in anything I’m writing about, I’d ask that you consider sharing this with them.
Thanks for being here. Talk to you next week.
– Trevor