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After experiencing the below averageness of Darwin we got on another early morning flight to Cairns. Once we arrived we weere greeted at our hostel by Mr. Joe Gaytten. Joe has been living and working in Australia for the last 10 months (in Sydney) and decided it was time to have a look roundthe place, starting in Cairns.
We got lucky when checking into our hostel and managed to bag some $27 dorm beds for $18, Cairns was alrfeady better than Darwin.
Down on Cairns waterfront there is a harbour which is home to million pound yachts and the like and like Darwin, it has a man made lagoon area. The lagoon is basically an outdoor swimming pool but one side has a beah, with the rest surrounded by grass and BBQ area's. Kids, famalies and OAP's were all out in force, braving the chilly winter condiditons of blue sky and 25 degree sun.
Cairns is a fairly small city but is full of backpackers and ultimately, hostels. During our time we sampled 3 different hostels on offer, two good, one not so good. The two good were 'Gilligans' and 'Global', the one not so good was 'Asylum', which left little to be desired on the clean front, plus it seemed to be full of slightly strange people (guess the clue is in the name).
The upside of our stay in the Asylum was that myself and Belle got upgraded (for free) to a private double room, as our bunk beds in the dorm had disappeared, to the suprise of the person checking us in
"umm, there was another bed in here?...?...!"
Asylum was recommended to us by trusty old Jonas who was staying there and who we had again met up with. Despite this we forgave him and the freindship continues.
Our days in Cairns were mainly spent between the lagoon or relaxing at the hostel swimming pool (except Asylum). We also did some student style shopping, buying nothing but 'Coles smart buy' and also managed to book the majority of our East Coast activities one afternoon. One of these activites was a trip to the Great Barrier Reef, which we did from Cairns.
We woke up early and headed down to the marina, in the warm winter sun. After a short search for our boat we climbed aboard and were greeted with a cup of tea and a blueberry muffin, the trip was off to a strong start. OUr boat was called Ocean Breeze which was a fairly large, modern sail boat boat with an engine. We set sail and had the standard safety talk and explanation of the itinery for the day (which none of us heard due to the wind) as we made our way to the reef.
About two hours later we arrived at our snorkel / dive spot. We decided to snorkel and were issued our mask, snorkel, flippers and buoyancy aid basically a life jacket). Belle also took advantage of wetsuit hire for the day, myself and Joe didn't, a decision we soon regretted after jumping in. With me and Joe in the water, Belle made her way in. I should point out at this point that Belle is pretty teriffied of water, esecially water she can not touch a side or put her feet on the floor. None the less she got in the chilly water, defiently not being able to touch the floor and the only thing to hold onto was me and Joe.
Me and Belle have been to the beach before and swimming in pools but this was different, this was like putting a toddler (who has just found her feet) in a 100m race with Usain Bolt, the step, no leap was massive! Despite Belle's best efforts she could not quite get to grips with it and opted for the dryness of the boat, none the less it was a huge achievement. After a cool (temperature wise, although it was pretty good as well) hour of snorkelling in which we saw some fish, live reef and dead reef (quiet a lot of dead reef actually)it was time for lunch and attempt of warming up.
Lunch (seconds and some thirds) was followed by a trip to a small island just off the reef. We hoped on the small tender boat and headed across. We were told we coud walk around the whole island in about half an hour, so this is what we did. Walking on white sand an paddling in clear water we hunted for some wild life. Crabs, fish and a ray all showed their faces, but the main prize of a turtle was no where to be seen.
After heading back to the main boatand having another short snorkel it was time to start the return leg back to Cairns. Sailing back to dry land we saw some whales in the distance, so far in the distance though we could only see the sprays from when they came to the surface to breathe. To say we saw a whale would be clutching at straws slightly.
The return to Cairns equalled more food, this time in the form of cheese, crackers then cake. Alot of people on the boat didnt seem all that keen on cake, there were three people who were though.
A casual cruise back to the marina and that was that, Great Barier Reef...tick!
Another new experience we had in Cairns was that of 'goon'. This is a cheap alcohol which comes in bag form and is based (losely) on wine, it is also produced with the aid of milk and fish, tasty, I think you would agree. It is known as 'goon' in Australia, as 'goon' is the aboriginal word for pillow. When you have drunk your last drop from the bag (all four litres of it), you can just blow it up (like a ballon) and use it as a pillow where ever you have collapsed (its ok we haven't collapsed anywhere). It is popular with backapckers for one reason and one reason only, it's cheap! Therefore we joined the masses and sampled the classy taste of imitation wine from the box / bag on a few nights.
The nights we were not living the 'high life' we had film nights. This involved pushing three single beds together and huddling around Joe's laptop to watch (you guessed it) a film. If we were all feeling really adventurous two films. This would all be accompanied with some kind of chocolate or biscuits. Film nights basically boiled down to three people with a combined age age of 74 having a sleep over. Fun though and most importantly, cheap.
10 nights in Cairns and we were starting to feel like we had experienced all it could offer us on our budget. However we couldn't move too far down the coast as we were metting another friend from uni, Miss Kirsty Anderson (aka Koo) at the start of August.We had about two weeks to kill before we could move on to our next stop and after considering a few options we decided that we would go for WWOOFing.
Cairns is a nice smll city which has a lively nightlife and some nice chill out sopts in the day. There are also alot of nice looking resturants on the waterfront as well (although our budget wouldn't allow us to sample to food). Overall it served us well, but now it was onto the nxt experience of being a WWOOFer.
- comments
del very brave - wet suit or no wet suit. and what a relief to find alcohol in oz!!