Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Getting into Cairns in the early hours of St Patrick's Day, having had no sleep on the plane from Singapore, the dorm bed was the first thing we wanted to see in Oz.
We were forced into seeing the local sights of Cairns quicker than anticipated, however, as the hostel check-in time wasn't until 2pm; when we finally did manage to get some shut-eye, we woke about 7pm and the day was all but a write off. There was still time to sample the Cairns nightlife, though, spending most of the night in the local Irish Bar with Caz and Joe for the Paddy's Day celebrations.
Most of the next week in Cairns was spent round and about Gilligan's Hostel, mainly in the pool and the various pubs in the city, although we did find time in this busy schedule to visit the Great Barrier Reef and the nearby town of Port Douglas.
'It's like the most beautiful garden you've ever seen', is Rosa's description of the Great Barrier Reef and most accurately describes what we saw. Although we're told the reef has been badly damaged by the tourist industry, it still looked amazing as we spent the day snorkelling with around fifty other tourists on our trip. The two hour journey each way wasn't the best experience, however, as myself and many others found the rough waters made us very sea sick. While Rosa was wise enough to take the strong prevention tablet, I was left rueing my earlier arrogance.
The pictures tell the story a lot better than I can but, as you can see, the marine life is amazing. The only slight disappointment was not seeing any reef sharks (apparently harmless...), turtles or stingrays; Rosa was also foiled in her quest to find Nemo.
We stayed in the nearby upmarket town of Port Douglas last night, while spending today on its beautiful sandy beaches. Although not quite as backpacker-friendly as Cairns, we found the free public BBQs especially enticing at the beach, enjoying our first barbecued steaks of the trip.
We'll shortly board the Greyhound bus for the overnight journey to Townsville and Magnetic Island, we'd never heard of it either but we're told that the pictures we'll take won't look real, they'll be so good. On that note, I'll sign off knowing that we're sure to be disappointed by the pictures having said that.
Kev
- comments