Arrived Cairns airport at 19:00 after the sun had set. Being the first to be dropped off from the shuttle bus we soon realised the hotel was not at Cairns Central!
Acacia Court Hotel had been recommend by a guide in Uluru and was $45/ person / night and included full English breakfast. This was cheap for Australia. As we were not sure about the standard of the hotel we had opted to move for the next 2 nights to the package accommodation offered by the Pro Dive deal which included a free upgrade. Fingers crossed for "Hotel Cairns"
Bags sorted we had to find 2 cheap towels for the dive course the next day. The pressure was on. Having found the centre of town we also discovered the night market, multiple night bars, street entertainment out side McDonalds and more tattooed people than you can shake a stick at. In fact Cairns was throbbing with everything except towel shops although we did manage to find 2 great beach towels before returning to the hotel.