The 7 Natural Wonders of the World!

According to Wikipedia, the 7 Natural Wonders of the World include:

• Harbor of Rio de Janeiro
• Mount Everest
• Aurora
• Parícutin volcano
• Victoria Falls
• Grand Canyon
• Great Barrier Reef

I am excited to say that I have crossed two of those off my list! First was the Grand Canyon in October 2010:

And now the Great Barrier Reef in June 2011! I am so lucky to be living in beautiful, sunshiney Queensland--home to one of the top 10 beaches of the world (Whitehaven Beach) and one of the 7 natural wonders of the world (Great Barrier Reef). Not too shabby!

To kick off a much needed 6 week holiday from uni in between semesters, my boyfriend flew to Brisbane from Los Angeles and we headed north toward warmer weather so we could sail/snorkel the Whitsunday Islands and snorkel the Great Barrier Reef. This is me in Airlie Beach, the closest beach on mainland Australia to the Whitsunday Islands. 

Beautiful sunset over Shingley Harbor. 

From Airlie, we took the Whitehaven Express for a day cruise out to Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island. Along the way we stopped at Hook Island for a bush walk to this amazing lookout point. In the background is Whitehaven beach. The water was just so amazingly turquoise and the sand so sugary white!

This is my view while laying on Whitehaven Beach. It was beautiful with the docked boats and the white sand under my toes, however since it is still Winter, it was a bit windy and chilly to be laying in a bikini or swimming in the surf.

On our 3rd day in Airlie Beach, we hiked around Conway National Park to the top of Mount Rooper.

In the background, you can see some of the Whitsunday Islands we had just been sailing around the day prior!

 

At the top of Mt. Rooper there was a wooden tower you could climb up to get the very best view of the Whitsundays! 

After our stay in Airlie Beach, we hired a car and drove (well, Doug drove...) 7.5 hours up the Queensland coast, through miles and miles (or kilometres and kilometres) of sugarcane fields to Cairns. On this Aussie roadtrip, we were lucky enough to pass one of "Australia's Big Things" on the side of the road--a big mango! There are apparently over 150 of these gigantic objects on the side of the roads throughout Australia, I guess constructed to give weary roadtrippers a little bit of a thrill every now and then, and a good group photo opp. They range from many other giant fruits, to a big axe, to a giant chook (chicken), a big bench, a big mosquito, a giant gold panner?, a big stubby (beer bottle?), and to even a giant Scotsmen, which was the original one built in Adelaide in 1963. Only thing I can really say about it is... it's definitely big!

The beautiful Cairns "lagoon"

On the MV Osprey boat... trying to pretend like I wasn't freezing my booty off before my first viewing of the GBR (which you can see the edge of in the water behind me!). Doug and I managed to avoid seasickness on the 1.5 hour rocky boat ride out by eating our body weight in ginger candies and tablets, plus taking these ginger-based pills provided by the boat staff. However, we failed to be so prudent for the way home and after the complimentary wine and cheese platter came around, we were not feeling so well. But that's ok, at least it was the way home and not BEFORE seeing the reef!!

Doug at the reef! 

Me on my way to the reef... 

Some locals and/or tourists claim that the only way to "do" the Great Barrier Reef is to scuba dive... however, certain parts of it are so shallow that you can see some really colorful, amazing stuff from just snorkeling along the water's surface. So I disagree with these naysayers of snorkeling! I am very content with having just snorkeled, especially since I did not want to risk another popped eardrum--that is not the way I want to learn about the Australian healthcare system during my time here.

It's really impressive we managed to take this dorky self-photo of ourselves while underwater! (Please note Doug's half-filled snorkel mask hahaha).

I am so happy Doug bought this amazing underwater camera specifically for this trip. We have entire videos of us snorkeling, for anyone who really wants to see what it was like! However, to watch them without getting seasick, you may need to eat several ginger tablets beforehand...

 We saw so many colorful fish--above are some UCLA themed blue and yellow ones! My favorite were these really large rainbow things! I wish I knew anything about tropical fish and could give you a better description or some scientific name, but they were just bright, rainbow fish that were... bigger than a breadbox? Whatever they were, they were my favorite. However, I didn't get any good pictures of them...they all turned out looking blue instead of rainbow from the water's reflection, I guess.

On our second day in Cairns, we decided to save some money and create our own one-day tour of Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation. An hour past Cairns, we stopped for lunch here in quaint Port Douglas.

This is us at Alexandra Lookout in Daintree Rainforest. I think the background is Cape Tribulation. We spent the afternoon walking along (nearly) white sand beaches, mangrove forests, and in the rainforest/jungle that jutted out to the sand. Everything was so green and unspoilt!

Ok, now 5 more natural wonders to go! No doubt, I will cross off all 7 in time :)