See and experience as much as I possibly can
A story modeled after a reading assignment:
One Fish Two Fish. The 10 day spring break adventure from Brisbane to Cairns. I had been told this trip is the highlight of the entire Australian semester abroad. The adventures are extreme and the sights are breathtaking. It is unlike any experience you have ever had or will ever have again.
Knowing all of this going into the trip, my expectations were set pretty high. I wanted to do everything and see everything, to take it all in and never forget it. However, attempting to capture these memories in photographs turned out to be a more difficult feat than jumping off the bungee platform. I snapped endless pictures, trying to capture the perfect beauty before me from every angle so I would never forget these pieces of paradise.
But how do you capture the thrill of a boat running through white water rapids? The awe experienced awakening after a grueling 12-hour, puke-smelling, overnight bus ride to the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen? The surreal experience of walking neck craned upwards to see the entire milky-way lighting up the sky? The fear of seeing a massive fish swimming too close to your legs in clear blue waters? Each destination brought new experiences and sights to capture along with new emotions to record with the photographs. I was reminded of this challenge at every stop, each place carrying its own beauty waiting to be appreciated.
Carlo Sandblow and Rainbow Beach
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| Carlo Sandblow |
After a two hour bus ride complete with multiple communal bags of wine passed around, games being played, new friends being made, and the initial excitement of finally being on this amazing trip still lingering, everyone was in an exceptionally happy mood. Our first stop was to the Carlo Sandblow in Rainbow Beach. Chatter filled the air as we made our way through a small bit of forest until we reached the end of the walk and were silenced by the amount of sand in front of us. Straight ahead was a mountain of sand that looked impossible to climb, to the right we could see the blue water in the distance, and to the left a steep decline to a cliff overlooking the rest of the water.
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| sand shadows |
I pulled out my camera and began to take pictures, of sand. No picture could capture the vastness of this sandblow, or the thrill of running down the mountain of sand so fast that you feel your limbs becoming disconnected from your body, or the anticipation of what this trip would bring felt when looking over a cliff out into the blue Australian waters. Instead we took goofy pictures of our shadows in the sand and pictures that made it look like we were jumping off the cliff, the sand and waters framing our bodies midair.
The next day as everyone was finishing dinner, my friend Carol and I had some time to kill so we took a walk around the small town of Rainbow Beach. We pondered why it was called Rainbow Beach as we walked; maybe there was a rainbow when it was first discovered, maybe the guy who found it was gay, maybe he really liked Skittles, maybe it used to be a big gay party beach turned quaint retiree village; but it wasn’t until we reached the water that we understood. Somehow every color of the rainbow was present during this sunset hour. The reds, oranges, and yellows were muted and fading away with the sun; the greens and browns and tans were in the sand and the trees behind; the blues and purples and whites were all mixed in the water. The colors weren’t distinct, but they were definitely present and the name Rainbow Beach could not have been more fitting. We kicked ourselves for not bringing our cameras, knowing how hard it would be to describe the fascinating display of nature’s beauty we had just stumbled upon.
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| wild dingo |
Fraser Island
The world’s largest sand island, complete with freshwater lakes, rainforest, wild dingos (one really did eat a baby), a shark feeding ground, roads that can only be navigated by off-road vehicles, and a highway located on the sand where waves hit your car and sends you flying. As our tour guide rattled off facts about this unique little place I tried to take a few pictures out of the vehicle window; however, the sand roads were so bouncy and uneven severe carsickness set in and I was unable to get any photos that weren’t blurry. When finally on steady ground, I couldn’t capture how giant and powerful the waves were crashing behind me, or how clean the freshwater lake was, or how dense and old the rainforest felt surrounding me. This strange little quirk of an island intrigued me with what secrets could be hidden deep in the sand or in the depths of the rainforest, igniting a sense of adventure that the few pictures I had at the end of the day would never show.
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| our transportation around the island |
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| driving along the highway |
The Whitsundays
The most beautiful place I have ever seen. Hands down, no questions, 110% the best. In awe, I snapped away on my camera knowing that my point-and-shoot Panasonic could never capture the subtle variations in the blues and greens and whites in the water. That you would never be able to see the silvers of white poke through as the water shallows and a sand dune appears in the middle of the ocean in a picture from so far away. That the white sands would look like shreds of paper, not diamonds scattered catching the sun in ways I didn’t know sand could. That the pictures of the coral washed up onto the shore would never truly show the fascination I felt looking at the intricacy of each piece of the sea. I knew you would never be able to feel the life teeming from the dense green foliage on the islands clustered through the water. I knew the sunset over the water would not show how happy I was to be witnessing this natural beauty with great friends. I knew that seeing a little white dot on the corner of the picture would not bring the same sense of disbelief that I felt when I saw a fancy yacht coast by and thought how could I possibly be on the same island as these millionaires? I took a new picture every few steps anyway, in vain hopes that one may contain something the others didn’t to help me tell others about this paradise.
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| White Haven Beach |
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| South Molle Island Sunset |
At the end of the day, the most frustrating part was not the inability to capture these beautiful places in a photograph, but that they were so indescribably amazing that I was actually at a loss for words. But I try. I try so that these memories will be preserved forever. So that maybe one word or one picture will trigger the plethora of emotions I felt during this trip and I will feel again the out-of-body happiness that was One Fish Two Fish.
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