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Today, we’re on to our final “uncharted” destination before returning to the United States: Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef!

If we’re on schedule I’m on Qantas Flight 702 right now. Unfortunately, at the time I wrote this I wasn’t able to find a site that would track this flight live (they all seem to have a USA-only bias), so my dad has agreed to update this post as-it-happens. Of course I’ll be sure to tweet when we land.

Going from Melbourne (in the south…closer to the pole) to Cairns (in the north…closer to the Equator), is going to be a lot like going from Buffalo to Orlando during Spring Break (never actually done that…that’s just what my dad said). Cairns is subtropical, and a lot warmer than any place we’ve been so far in the “Land Down Under.” My dad’s going to post screen shots of the weather in both places the day we travel.

Here’s our itinerary:

• We bid farewell to Melbourne and catch our flight to Cairns (said that already!)
• Touch down Cairns: a cosmopolitan city nestled in Far North Queensland, amid two of Australia’s most treasured World Heritage destinations: the Wet Tropics Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef.
• We’ll “encounter Australia’s unique fauna”, including more koalas(!), kangaroos(!), crocodiles (!!!!), and wombats (lol…the word makes me laugh…like “kumquats”…also one of my dad’s favorite MadLibs words), as we visit a wildlife sanctuary.
• We’ll even get to have our photo taken with a koala. I’m uncomfortable about holding them though…I hear it shortens their lifespan :’-(

View P2P Australian Discovery Tour Travels through Australia in a larger map

Weather in Cairns, today