oh my gosh, i had such a great time at the barrier reef. the whole experience was great!!!
 the tourleader was young and so cool...(and hot!) and the people on the tour were so much fun.
there were two girls my age from england, we shared a room and it was supercool. they're were really nice to hang with.
and there were two guys my age from switzerland. they're so much fun just listening to!
they told all these stories in the most funny ways. we all had dinner and breakfast together and it was just supercozy. oh man, i loved it... and i feel really lonely now all of a sudden. tanya is gone too, in adelaide. and i don't think i'm gonna see her anymore, she's coming back when i'm in borneo and goes away again before i come back. too bad =(

but well. i'll enjoy myself still! and it's only a month til i come back home! i can't wait to hold my rats again. i can feel them everyday, feel their paws on me, their bodys as they run past my legs. i just miss them like crazy...

 i did see some cool animals at the reef. like the turtle above. it was amazing. just amazing. let me tell you the whole thing. :)

the trip started on monday. we were picked up in brisbane and then we drove for hours to get to agnes waters. i think it's called agnes waters... agnes something anyways. it's up north, at the start of the barrier reef.
we got there at around  3pm. i took a shower and relaxed and then at 5 pm we all went in the bus again to go on a kangaroo tour. it was just for fun. a very brief tour but we did see some kangaroos. a lot of them actually. moms and their babies, big kangaroos,  wallabies. so cute!
and then we headed of to see the sunset. beautiful. yeah, to beautiful for words. it was just perfect. we took a walk to see some rockformations in the water and on the way there (we're like walking on this really small trail through the bushes) the people in front of me stops and are like: ohh! oh i'm so glad i saw that before i walked past.
i don't see anything and i keep looking out at sea like, what are they talking about?
then i see it.
a big spider.
hanging from its web, dingeldongel right in front of us.
iewwwwww
i freaked. it was moving around superfast up and down its tread and you just didn't know where it was gonna go. then it stopped and people were passing. i runned passed it but i kinda felt like i went to close to it and then all of a sudden Luke, the tourleader is like: OMG IT'S ON YOU!
i shriked. but of course, he was just messing around. the spider was still in its web. puh.

on the way back. they spot another spider. this one is hanging right over the path. there is no way of passing underneath it without the spider maybe dropping down on you. most people passed, but me, Luke and an asian family stopped. the asian girl passes and the spider drops!! on her i don't know, but it disappeared. i almost started to cry. i was all freaking myself out, i'm not THAT afraid of spiders... or maybe i am. but it was dark and the spider could have been anywhere. i'm all like: no no i don't wanna go there, omg omg...
but then we just ran past and it was all good. puh again
no more spiders thank you!

anyways. day two.
at around 7.30 in the morning we drove over to the boat that was gonna take us out to lady musgrave island in the barrier reef. i was sooo excited. an asian lady shared her motion sickness pills and so i took one. we got onboard the boat and they gave us two gingerpills. i took them both and was all confident i was gonna be good on the way out. luke was like, i bet at least three of you are gonna throw up.
i was all like, hell no. i don't get sea sick. like, i feel sick, but i never throw up.
well.
the boat starts moving and i'm like, well, this is not bad, not bad at all.
what i didn't realize was that we were just cruising out from the bay sort of. when we hit the open ocean, MAN it was crazy! it was like all of a sudden being on a rollercoaster. the boat just jumped up and down on the waves. me and the english girls, fiona and amy, were like: holy crap! is it gonna do this the whole way out? (the whole way out equaled 1,5 hours...)
yes.
it did. it went up and down, splashing the waves. once in a while you would just get lifted off the seat and get plunged right back. it was crazy. and still, the sea was what they called calm. i can't even imagine what it's like rough...
i was good though. for the first half hour... i was thinking about things that make me feel good.
apples, people i love, animals and so on
then i started feeling my tummy going: ohoh.  i swallowed and swallowed thinking i could force the puke down but it didn't work. i grabbed one of the bags (the ones that looks like giant condoms) and puked. amy did too, she was first out. fiona did good for a long time, then she too had to go. i felt great after puking! i so thought i was gonna be good for the rest of the trip.
but hell no. half an hour later i was like, ohoh here we go again.
and this time was worse. i just puked and puked. my whole body like cramping up and vomiting. disgusting.
amy took the price though, she puked 4 times.
 man, did we laugh at it all at dinner that night! the swiss guys were so funny when they told luke about the boat trip. they're like: we were good, but people around us were all going bluuuaah bluuuuah!
the way they told it. man i was laughing so hard. it was good. i haven't had really good laugh in a while. thanks guys!

well, when we docked at the pontune at the reef, we were all good. first up, we went on a boattour to the lady musgrave island. a glasbottom boat. we saw fishes, turtles. i was stunned. here i am, at the great barrier reef. ME. it was so cool. i felt really blessed in a way. and i couldn't wait to get into the water and snorkel!
we went on a tour on the island. so cool. it's basically made of birds and their poop. they created the island by pooping on it. all the vegetation comes from the seeds in the bird poop.

after the tour that only lasted like 20 min or so, i was so ready for snorkling! i don't like being under water but i did pretty good. first time i went in i just swam around looking at the fishes. then i realized that because the way i snorkel, ( i don't use the actuall snorkel, only the mask ) i get exhausted having to hold my breath all the time. so i got up and got myself a flothing vest. it was so good.
i could just float around and look at the stuff and not lose energy swimming. i saw fishes, small, big, skinny, fat, striped, yellow, blue. the reef wasn't at all like in nemo though. it's not at all that colorful. mostly greyish with some pink, blue and purple coralls on it.
i snorkeled for a while. it was so good. i saw a turtle swimming at the bottom and i swam over it, just right over it following it for a while. it was cool!
then after probably an hour, i was freezing. i was on my way back when i saw another turtle. a big one. the most beautiful turtle ever. it was big and had the most amazing patterns. and it was sitting on a big corall, just watching me. its eyes were big and black and i just fell in love with the creature right there. i swam really close to it and just watched it. sooooo cool.... it was surreal to be there, and see this gorgeous animal.
then it started moving towards me and i was like, oh crap. i got to close. it's gonna come and nibble on me!
but it didn't. it just slowly swam up. and i watched it. like in slowmotion it swam up, all the way to the surface. i poped up too and there it was! its head with the beautiful eyes over the surface of the water! amazing! it looked around and then slowly swam away. 
i was soo happy at that moment. i got to come that close to a turtle. a big turtle. the other two i saw were way smaller.
thank you life for being so good to me and letting me experience all this!
the boatride back was good. i slept. no puking.

and today, last day of the trip. i went surfing. it was so much fun!  it was awesome. the hot tourleader was our private teacher. that was good. for many reasons. ;) he's a surfer, he has a surfer body. and i like that. a lot. hope he never finds this blog...
we rented boards and drove to the beach.  it was only me and three guys that went. so that was cool, i could get all the help i needed from our teacher.
i did good though. i managed to stand up and ride the way several times. i did get knocked by my board a bunch of times, i did have people surfing in to me and crashing, knocking me right off. and i did get too confident and swam too far out, thinking: if i'm far out, i can ride the wave longer and i won't have to walk back out as often. 
let me tell you. getting out in the water is the hardest part. you have to fight against the waves to get out. wave after wave just slames right at you and you just gotta hold on to the board and try to walk out further. it just draines your energy.

but what i didn't think about was the fact that further out, the waves are bigger and break harder than were i started.
so i'm all ready on my board, balanced, paddling and am so ready to ride the wave. and the wave just breaks right over me, knocks me off with this enormous power and for seconds it's like being in a laundry machine. just noisy, wet, spinning and the board just keeps hitting you. i ended up underneath it, had it knock me right in the face and so on. i did this a couple times before i realized i'm not ready for the big ones yet. i took a break on the beach, just full of salt water, had swallowed so much. urk...
hung out with fiona and amy on the beach. and then luke talked me into getting back in the water with him again. that was good. he helped me and i stayed closer to the beach this time. so i didn't get knocked off. but then the thing was, all these people SWIMMING on the surfside of the beach. what a heck? you can't really surf when you have to constantly watch out for all these little kids swimming around there. i'm not a good surfer, i don't know how to steer out of the way. it goes fast on the board, it's not like you can push the brakes. man, i could just imagine going straight at a kid, just knocking them right in the face. awful! so i took it farely easy the last 40 min. managed to stand up a few more times and had a lot of fun. 
then i was drained. my muscles were shaking. we got ready and got on the bus. and like 7 hours later, here i am back in brisbane! i'm really sore and it's probably gonna be worse tomorrow.

i had plans for the weekend, but i don't know if i wanna do them anymore. i was gonna skydive, but i don't wanna do it alone. i wanna share that cool experience with a friend. so i'm gonna save that for home.

i also wanted to go to fraser island. but they don't have any tours that fit my schedule. i thought about going on a one day tour but the swiss guys and luke said it's to intense. you can't really enjoy the island in that amount of time.
so we'll see what happens! something fun for sure :)