Day 6- January 23

We all woke up at 9:00 (even Daniel) to enjoy the resorts complimentary breakfast. After eating we went back to the room and put our hiking clothes on before we hit the trails

We decided to get some physical exercise while enjoying the beautiful scenery by visiting Conway National Park (Natural Environment). Hiking the trails up into the mountains gave us some great scenery and caused us to see the more green side of Australia. We saw a lot of birds including the very common and very loud sulfur-crested Cockatoos as well as some egrets and herons. The hikes were very relaxing and peaceful as there were not as many people on the trails as we expected. It felt good to get out of the city for a while and enjoy the outdoor aspect of Australia.


After hiking we were famished so we hopped on a taxi 11 minutes to what our taxi driver recommended, a great lunch spot called the Little Vegas Burger and Bar. The spot was known for its great beer and quality street eats. I ordered the spicy fish tacos and we drank what they had on tap. Chris got a little tipsy and wanted to try the Little Vegas Burger and Bar Hell fire Wings challenge, if you completed the challenge you got the whole basket of ghost chili pepper wings free. Chris ate every single wing with a whole crowd of patrons watching, and then he immediately passed out. We had to get him up quickly because we were going to miss our fishing boat that set off in the next 30 minutes at 1:00 PM. Once we got him up we got a quick taxi to take us to the Coral Sea Fishing Charters (Ecosystem) at Abel Point Marina. It only took 4 minutes so we made our boat right on time.

Our boat ran from 1:00 to 5:00 so we got a lot of time to fish. Our captain promised we would see fish like Coral Trout, Sweet Lip, and Red Emperor. Our boat provided us with bait and quality fishing equipment as well as ice to put the fish on. Chris got a little sea sick during the trip so he didn't enjoy it as much as we did. We all got a couple of coral trout but ethan landed himself a huge Red Emperor that the captain said was one of the biggest he had ever seen. After docking at 5:00 we headed over to Fish D'Vine and got all our fished cooked to perfection. After that we went back to the Coral Sea Resort and got some sleep.

Day 5- January 22

We woke up late again at around 10:00 AM and went out to look for some food before our flight. We took a short 15 minute walk down to a breakfast spot called Campos Coffee. On the menu there were buckwheat pancakes, rye waffles, avocado on toast, and different assortments of eggs. I had a breakfast burger which is a burger with bacon, mayo, fried egg, hash brown, cheddar, and relish.

After we ate we headed back to the hotel and checked out for our flight to Hamilton Island. Our flight was from 12:40 to 2:20, a 1 hour 40 minute flight. After landing at the Airport to get to Airlie we had to take the 3:20 ferry. The ferry docked at 4:30 and we took a minute taxi to our hotel, the Coral Sea Resort. The room we booked had a beautiful garden view at a great price. We had some time before dinner so we put on our swimsuits and visited the Airlie Beach Lagoon, a free public public park and swimming pool. It was only a short walk away and a great time filler.The lagoon was a popular spot but offered water at the perfect temperature and a great view of the ocean

We went back to the hotel to put some clothes on and then we hiked 12 minutes over to Beagles Pizza. At Beagles Pizza we got the super deal, which was 2 large pizzas, garlic bread, and a 1.25 liter Coke. The pizza was delicious and a casual contrast to the more exquisite meals that we had in Brisbane and Sydney. After eating at beagles we walked back to the resort, admiring the amazing scenery of tropical Australia. When we arrived back at the resort we all went to sleep listening to the crashing of waves outside our suite.

Day 4- January 21

We got up late the next morning at around 10:00 AM but Daniel was still asleep and we didn't want to wake him up. We wanted to go out and enjoy the beautiful Australian morning with some coffee, so we took a 25 minute walk to Death Before Decaf. I got a mocha, Doug got a cappuccino, Cole got a hot chocolate, and we got Daniel a long black with a double shot. Death Before Decaf had great coffee, but the shop itself played constant heavy metal and punk music so we walked back to the hotel. Daniel wasn't up when we got back so we woke him and gave him his coffee. He was ready to go after a couple of minutes so we got a taxi and rode the 7 minutes to Gabba Stadium.

The game at the Gabba (Sports) at 1:00 PM was a WBBL league cricket match. The WBBL stands for the Woman's Big Bash League. This league was started in the 2015-2016 season to replace the WNCL Australian Women's Twenty20 Cup. The match today was between the Brisbane Heat and the Adelaide Strikers, two lowly ranked teams. Most of the time during the match we had no idea what was going on but when the Brisbane fans cheered so did we. We all filled up on concessions for lunch at The Gabba between innings. The heat barely pulled out a victory against the Strikers and it came down to only a couple of runs.

After all that excitement we wanted to do something a little more laid back, so we taxied 13 minutes to the Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium (Technology). The Planetarium was established in 1978 by the Brisbane City Council. We sat and watched a show in the Planetariums Cosmic Skydome and then took a tour of Brisbane's current night sky with an astronomer. During the tour and show we learned a lot about our current solar system and about Brisbane.

It was time to eat by the time we left the planetarium so we took a 5 minute taxi to a restaurant called the Deer Duck Bistro. The restaurant featured modern European cuisine at a very expensive price. I ordered the slow roasted suckling pig with caramelized shallot puree which was the best thing I had eaten the whole trip. The restaurant was very crowded so we had to wait over an hour for our food, but we fortunately had bread to tide us over. We left the the Deer Duck Bistro at 9:00 PM to go back to our hotel and got some sleep before the flight the next day.

Day 3- January 20

We checked out of our hotel at 10:00 AM and drove over to the Sydney airport for our flight to Brisbane.We dropped off our rental car and boarded the 11:00 flight which was a short 1 hour and 30 minute plane ride. Sydney is one hour earlier than Brisbane so when we got there is was about 11:30. Our bags did not show up and the airport staff said it was backed up for a couple of hours so we decided to explore.

The second most popular sport in Australia is Cricket (Sports). Cricket is played similar to baseball and involves a bowler (pitcher) attempting to hit a stump behind the striker (batter) to prevent him from scoring runs. We wanted to visit a cricket stadium for the first time so we took a short taxi ride to one of the most popular stadiums in Australia, The Gabba. The first ever cricket match at The Gabba was in 1866 and since then thousands of people in Brisbane go to watch cricket every year. Unfortunately, the game that day started at 6:30 PM so we took the tour instead. The stadium was very large with a maximum capacity of 42,000 people and oddly the stadium itself as well as the field was completely circular. The tour guide let us all pretend to be bowlers and strike the stump but none of us managed to hit it. Overall it was a great time and we promised the guide we would be back tomorrow to see a real game

After that interesting experience we decided to look in to getting a hotel, but first we had to get our bags. We taxied back to the airport, picked them up and found a cheap option called the Snooze Inn 9 minutes away from our location. We taxied there and booked two rooms for two nights. After that Daniel realized that we hadn't ate as his stomach made a huge grumbling sound in the lobby, which caused the other guests to look at us strangely. Luckily there was a Vietnamese restaurant called the Green Tea Restaurant just a short 8 minute walk away. The menu had a large arrangement of items like specialties, sharing portions, soups, Vietnamese beverages, and desserts. I even wrote a review about it!


We had heard about the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary (Natural Environment) from the receptionist at our hotel's front desk. Its the worlds first and largest koala sanctuary with over 130 koalas. The Sanctuary itself is 44 acres big and exhibits all kinds of animals such as pythons, platypuses, and dingos. It was a only a 23 minute taxi ride away, and when we go there we waited in line for admission for about 40 minutes. During the tour our guide permitted us to hold the koalas to get an up close experience. It was a really fun time and was a must visit for the trip as koalas are an iconic animal of Australia.

We decided to go back to the hotel to take showers before dinner

because we all smelled like koalas. We saw a restaurant on the way back from the sanctuary close to our hotel called Lucky Egg. It was advertised as a fried chicken restaurant and we were all already homesick for American food so we tried it out. They had my favorite food on the menu, chicken wings, which we got 3 orders of. The crispy chicken sandwiches were excellent as well as the Dorito popcorn chicken. We came across another group of tourists from the U.S. and we chatted with them until pretty late. When we returned back to the hotel we all were dead tired and instantly crashed at about 10:00 PM

Day 2- January 19

After we landed at Sydney we ate breakfast in the airport and rented a car from Thrifty Car and Truck rental. We arrived at our Hotel, the Meriton Serviced Apartments and dropped off our bags.

We took our car and drove 16 minutes to the Sydney Opera House. The Sydney Opera House (History) is an icon of Australia and a big part of its history. It was opened in 1973 by Queen Elizabeth II and it was designed by danish Architect Jorn Utzon. Today almost 8.2 million people visit the Sydney Opera House a year.

Cafe Sydney

After visiting we decided to go back to the hotel to get our swimsuits to take a dip at Bondi beach. We rented surfboards at manly surfboard rentals and attempted to surf for two hours, The beach is the most popular in all of Australia because of its crystal clear water and distance from the city.




We were pretty hungry after that so we decided to have lunch at Cafe Sydney (Culture). Cafe Sydney is one of the most popular restaurants in Sydney and represents the food culture of Australia. Items on the menu include Chorizo, Swordfish, Salmon, Prawns and a  various assortment of Oysters.


Our waiter at Cafe Sydney recommended we visit the Sea Life Aquarium. We got the behind the scenes pass and visited the sharks and saw the food preparation kitchens. For the rest of the day we just walked around Sydney. We looked around places like Culture Kings Sydney and even got some wild new haircuts. For dinner we had Ethiopian food at Aaboll Cafe. With all the walking and jet lag we were pretty tired, so we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep.

Day 1- January 18

Me and four of my friends are going on a 13 day trip to Australia. Since we are going to Australia during January (which is an Australian summer), there should be very nice, warm weather which is great for what we plan on doing there. (Weather) We made sure to check the forecast, and fortunately there was no rain in any of the places we were visiting.  At 3 PM, Wednesday January 18, our flight left the Raleigh area. We arrived at Atlanta at 4:30 PM and had to wait at the airport there for an hour until our next flight was ready. So at 5:40 PM our next flight was ready, so we flew to Los Angeles and had to wait at that airport for 2 and a half hours for the next flight. We got on the last flight at 10:10 PM and just slept on the flight until the morning, 7:45 AM when we landed.

Itinerary: https://goo.gl/immdhJ