hey!

so things have completely turned around and i'm having an awesome time! i'm getting along with the group much better now and everyone has sort of become a weird multi-cultural big family. things are good, we're finally bonding....

so what i have to tell you guys about is long island...i didn't want to leave! we stayed at this really nice resort and our group got divided into two, some people went to stay on a boat for two nights when everyone else stayed at the resort and just went sailing for the day.

one really awesome thing about the resort is that there are wallabies and curlews just chilling everywhere. you could walk right up to them and take pictures and watch them all day, so awesome.

the other day, a bunch of us went sailing on a beautiful boat called camira and it was awesome!!!!!! they kept feeding us all day and drinks and alcohol was everywhere for free, had two little bottles of wine, yummy, and went snorkeling around some reefs. i had such a blast snorkeling, i was just in heaven. i saw tons of fish and the coral was amazing! there were so many fish i can't even name them but the one that i do remember is a napoleon wrasse. i emptied out my mask, looked back down and there he was, right underneath me and i literally said holy s*** in my snorkel out loud, hahaha. he was huge!!!! i kinda chased him around for a bit and then saw some barracudas underneath me too. oh man, just amazing.....i seriously didn't want to get out of the water! now i really can't wait for tomorrow.....that's when i'm gonna be snorkeling in the great barrier reef! it's gonna be awesome...i'll let you guys know about that later. so excited!!!!! plus i'm gonna get an underwater camera so we'll see how those shots turn out.

then the next day, i just laid out on the beach and finally got a tan but!!! unfortunately, now i know what heat rashes are and i'm so bummed! i look like i'm diseased or something, i've got heat rashes all over my chest and down to my stomach and a little bit on my arms, it's really gross. i hope it goes away soon because i can't stand looking at myelf, it's just so disturbing. the good thing is is that i'm not the only one that got it, some other girls got it too so at least i'm not a complete weirdo. but still, it sucks.

so now we're in cairns, just got in about half an hour ago. tomorrow is the passions of paradise package where we go snorkeling and then on friday, we go on this skyrail thing through the rainforest then get to go to this aboriginal cultural show at night. it's crazy to think that the trip is almost ending, for some people, their trip is over after cairns and then we're all separate and i'll be joining a new group to check out the northern territory. it's sad but i'm also excited to meet some new people too. just trying to enjoy our last few days together, should be good.

i'm really excited about the northern territory. get to check out ayers rock and for additional activities, hopefully camel riding and an atv tour, woo hoo. we'll see how it goes and of course, i'll update everyone then.

almost dinner time so i gotta run. hope everyone is doing well, miss ya!