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The flight from Darwin was only 3 hours, so I arrived in Cairns at 8am. As I had seen Border Control (Australian Customs Show) on TV before, I made sure that I declared my wooden artefacts that I had bought from various places in SE Asia and also the food that I had on me. I was sent to the customs area where they checked my declared items, which I had put in my hand luggage and said that they were fine and sent me on my way. Wow, they were much friendlier here than mast of the other border controls I had been through on my trip.
From the airport, I got a shuttle bus in to the centre of Cairns which luckily dropped me right outside my hostel, Cairns City Backpacker, which I had booked in for 2 days.
By the time that I got to the hostel it was around 10am and when I checked in they let me go straight to the room as it was empty. When I got to the room there was one double bottom bunk and 3 single bunks, so I went back to the reception and asked if the double was extra money and she said it's first come first served.....so I grabbed the double of course.
I did my usual thing and grabbed a map and went off for a walk around the city to get my bearings and on the way back to the hostel I found Ray's Outdoor store, where I bought myself a new small rucksack that I could use when I went off for a day or two trek (here or in New Zealand).
Back at the hostel I got talking to Sean, an Aussie guy up here looking for a change in life and a new start. I think he was running away from someone, probably a girl.
We headed out as a group from the hostel to the local bar where anyone from the hostel could get dinner for $5 and then I realised how expensive Australia was compared to SE Asia....no more cheap beers for me :-(
One good thing that I had noticed in Australia so far is that the singers are getting better and maybe it was just nice to hear people singing without the Asian accents, but this guy was not so bad at singing Kings of Leon’s Revelry.
The night turned out to be quite a session and we were out to about 3am in the end.
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