May 1

On April 21st, I spent the morning packing for my mid-semester break trip and didn't go to class because I didn't want to have to take my suitcase to school with me. I headed to the airport and met my parents in Cairns.

Here's the trip in a nutshell:
Cairns - Scuba Diving! What a blast. Perfect mix of challenging and fun, my favorite kind of activity.
Adelaide - Beautiful parks all over the very manageable city, and nice day at Henley Beach.
Broken Hill - small, old mining town. Ghost Town of Silverton where Mad Max was filmed, saw the most amount of uninhabited space I've ever seen on the edge of the outback, didn't quite find any evidence that it was my grandfather's birthplace.
Sydney - Madame Butterfly Ballet at the Sydney Opera House and then fancy late night dinner at Aria with awesome views of the Opera House and Harbor Bridge.
Tasmania - This was my favorite part of the trip. It was so beautiful! Pure blue waters, tan cliffs, green eucalyptus trees, quaint town of Richmond, awesome natural wonders like Devil's Kitchen, Tasman's Arch and the Tessellated Pavement. Also a thrilling ghost tour of Port Arthur (old prison) under a fantastic starry sky!
Melbourne - Modern city mixed with old churches and sandstone buildings, watched the Royal Wedding from our hotel room and had Afternoon Tea at our hotel

I said goodbye to my parents and flew back to Brisbane, not quite ready to start school again and feeling not very rested after traveling to 6 places in 10 days! Ugh. I definitely want to go back to Tasmania. I think it's one of the world's best kept secrets. Here are some photos. The formatting is wacky, so I can't figure out how to caption them. You'll just have to figure out what's what.

Scuba

Mom at the reef: