Cairns is the final, wistful stop on our Australian journey. It is with a bit of a tug to the heart that we finish up a mesmerizing 4 weeks of adventure. We are feeling so mentally settled and comfortable that it is hard to imagine jumping back into Southeast Asia. But both our itineraries and wallets tell us that it is time to move on, and so we indulged in 2 more final activities whilst in Cairns for 4 nights - 1 more reef trip, and 1 koala cuddle!

After breezing through 2 boat trips to the reef departing from Port Douglas, the journey out from Cairns proceeded to throw full-on boat madness of epic choppiness. BUT seasickness pills were dutifully taken before we left, and so the 1.5-2 hour journey for us mostly involved intense concentration on the horizon in an almost meditative state to pretend that we might be softly gliding over the waves, instead of thrashing about wildly. (Troy even managed to get up and walk down AND back up the stairs without being sick. Show-off.) Life got better once we got into the water, and Clare did 3 snorkel stints while Troy completed 3 more dives. We were lucky enough to spot a few more turtles, and Troy saw another white-tipped reef shark. (These only eat fish, so it is not as scary as it sounds.)

And we saved one of the sweetest experiences for last, taking the bus to Kuranda Koala Gardens, a small wildlife park about 40 minutes from Cairns. It was here that we had our "koala cuddle", which is really a very brief holding of a koala - enough time for a quick photo. It is so fast and you desperately want to hug and hold onto them, but there are luckily very strict rules in place about how much the koalas "work", and the zookeepers are very good about making sure that it is a nonintrusive event for the little ones. This trip seems to really have been characterized by special animal encounters, and we wouldn't have had it any other way. What a way to end our time in this glorious country!