Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Cairns
The bus rumbled into Cairns at about quarter past 6 on Friday morning. The first major task of the day was breakfast. The price of street cafes and the lack of shops open at that time in the morning made it rather difficult. We eventually found an open shop and had to fork out a hefty $4.20 for a litre of milk to have we wir donation musli. Again thank you Germans! We ate that and then lay about in the sun next to a lagoon, where we watched about 40 odd folk jumping aboot in the water for a free aqua aerobics session. There were several free sessions put on most days and anybody could join in. It was quite cool but we never actually got around to going wirselves. Wir next task was the familiar one of finding a hostel. We walked for ages, asking about rooms and prices wherever we found anything that looked okay. Eventually we found the Woodduck which looked perfect! At $50 for three nights, it was cheaper than all the rest we'd seen and included free breakfast, tea and wifi! Of course it was all booked out. So we had to settle for the Reef Backpackers next door. It wisna bad at $20 a night we free breakfast an wifi. But it was a dump. We wir put in a room we all boys. Smelly boys. The one in the bed next ta wis seemed to be nocturnal, sleeping all day then rolling noisily in, knocking stuff over in the middle of the night. Nobody spoke to each other either, they all just sat around on laptops. So not wir favourite hostel ever. The lass on reception wis fine though, an telt wis all aboot this "bar hop" we could do of we fancied going oot. It involved paying $20 to get free entry into 5 pubs and a free drink in each. You went around with everybody else who was signed up for it and played games an things in each place. We thought we might as weel give it a go. Next on the list was to book a diving and boat trip to the reef, since that was the main attraction for wis in Cairns. We went back to Wicked Travel where we'd booked wir Fraser Island trips etc. in Brisbane. We'd already had a look at some of the leaflets for a bit of research on which trip we wanted so had an idea of what to go for. One of the ones they offered was one of the ones we had already decided we liked the look o. It involved a beginners dive, 5 hours snorkelling in two locations and a barbecue denner. We decided to go for the Sunday rather as Saturday, due to wir pub hop commitments and the early start in getting to the boat terminal. We got it all booked and paid for then headed down to the lagoon to relax for the rest of the day. Then at 9 o clock after showering and attempting to make wirselves as presentable as we could out of a suitcase full of crumpled clothes, we headed off to P.J. o'Brians. We were given wristbands and telt aboot the offers of the night: $7 jugs. So we ordered wir free spirit each along with a jug of cider atween wis, fae the extremely scantily clad barmaid. (No sure at which point tiny kilts and tied aroond your belly shirts became a thing of Irish pubs, but oh well.) Spent a nice relaxing half an oor or so, sitting at the bar, speaking to a couple o folk (more Germans), afore realising we couldna see anybody else we bands... We had no idea who else wis on it, so didna have anybody specific to look for. We tummed the rest of the cider fae wir jug inta wir glasses an wandered ower to the door, where we were telt by the bouncer to, "neck your drinks ladies, you've missed the hop." Fabulous. Thankfully the next pub was only across the road and even me and Karis we wir appalling sense of direction, couldna really miss it. This was the best one, The Woolshed. We got wir free drinks again and headed over to the dance floor where something seemed to be happening. This was the start of the games. Somehow, Karis managed to get herself hauled into the group of contestants, and very nearly ran for the hills when it was revealed the competition was a dance off. The DJ would play a song of his choice and the "volunteers" had to dance to it. Whatever song it was. Walking out of the line up to calm herself by dooning the rest of her vodka in preparation, she managed to miss her go. Much to her bitter disappointment. Lol. All that excitement ower we, it was time to move on. This time we managed to go we the group. Unfortunately though, the next pub was s***e. I canna even mind the name of it. We hung aboot a while, this time opting for shots as wir free drink, but very quickly got bored. Bar the group that were on the hop, the place was empty. And the music was awful. At this point some sort of strange decision was made that what we really needed was to go to Macdonalds, despite the fact we both hate it. But we went and got some dollar fries and chicken bites, which were a lot better than expected, possibly due to wir slightly intoxicated state. We decided we should probably try and find everybody again, so consulted wir free drink vouchers to work out which pub was next. This was more of a task than it should have been. R.J. O'Brians? No wait. Back to P.J. O'Brians? Dir canna be two O'Brian pubs can dir? Was pretty much the way wir conversation geed. So back to P.J.'s we headed, which was thankfully the right decision. Having said that, we didna find any o wir fellow "hoppers" in there, so had to make the last journey by wirselves again. To Gilligans. Gilligans was a bigger club, and happened to be hosting a famous Australian DJ that night apparently. Me and Karis, no keening much aboot these things, couldna tell if he was famous or no? The music wisna really brilliant an we still couldna find any o wir group so we didna hang aboot long. So in conclusion: we missed all hops but one, missed all games but one, didna even participate in the game we did see but had a brilliant night anyway!
- comments