Category: Cairns

There’s supposed to be free internet at the hostel but I’m damned if I can get it working. Sorry for the delay in all these, but I’ve been busy, and my reliable internet connections have turned out not so reliable. Hopefully things will improve henceforth. I think hanging with the frenchmen and their general disregard to sticking to a schedule has taken its toll, but we part ways soon. Management would like to thank you for your patience.

Last day on the water was choppier than the day before, unfortunately. That said, I slept pretty good, and thankfully didn’t get hit with any seasickness.

Went snorkelling again in the morning (better equipment overcame the poor conditions, and it was better than the first time out. Maybe experience helped too), then swam. Did some jumping off the dock. Saw a bunch of fish, jellyfish, etc. Some of the divers saw turtles, but not me.

Back on land now, and getting things sorted. Quite difficult when my brain still thinks it’s in the water, and the room is spinning. Lots of emails to answer, blogs to post, possibly pictures to upload. Plus laundry and booking a flight out of Cairns. I’ve got more pictures, but I probably won’t get a chance to upload them all until I get to Sydney again. Just talked to Gregor and it looks like we’re meeting up in Sydney on the 29th, so I have a fair bit of the east coast to see now! I’m off to Brisbane at an ungodly time in the morning.

Up at the crack of dawn to head down to the marina to catch our boat, the Rum Runner. Had to wait for the hostel to open up, and then a mad jaunt down to the esplanade.

Managed on board with a bit of time to spare, and settled into our bunks.

Took about 3 hours to head to get to the reef, where we did some snorkelling. Not so great conditions. Still able to see a fair bit, but not without getting some salt water into the snorkel. After a bit of time we headed to another reef, and snorkeled there.

Spent the evening on the boat with a good group and crew. Crystal was our hostess/cook, and did an excellent job, then Karl, J.P and Lee. Group was divided among some Canadians (Vancouver), Rainy and Nicole; Mark from Alaska; David from Columbia; a bunch of English folks, Chloe, Katie, Simone, Natalie, Geoff and Wendy; plus two Swiss, Simon and Angela.

Evening was spent with some guitar played by the Captain, and general socializing.

Happy Birthday to Louvelle. It’s nice to be able to email her and not have to worry about the time difference factoring into the equation (although we are an hour off here in Cairns).

I was the early bird, as usual, this morning. I read my book outside (it’s good!), then woke up the rest of the gang an hour before checkout. We had breakfast at the hostel (leftovers from the day before), then we drove to Mossman Gorge and had a swim in the refreshingly crocodile free river. On the way back to Cairns we took a detour to Kuranda from Cape Trib, and checked out the Barron Waterfall. Nothing much compared to Niagara, but not too bad.

We dropped the car off then headed to Asylum where I’ll bunk for the night. Definitely not as nice as Gilligan’s, but it’ll do. Headed into town to get some more sunscreen (I’m going through a boatload of the stuff) and some Gravol (or the like), but they only had the sunscreen, so hopefully I’m okay tomorrow. Sky was filled with fruit bats heading who knows where. We’re taking the Rum Runner out overnight to snorkel and dive (for Max and Jon). The frenchmen also rented an underwater camera, which might be cool. I’m hoping to book my way out of Cairns for Wednesday night or Thursday morning. Probably the latter.

I was hoping to get these last few updates up Monday evening, but it isn’t looking too good as the hostel internet is terrible. I’ll try in the morning if I am able.

Got up early and picked the girls up at their hostel, then the boys up at theirs. We drove north to Port Douglas, which is a small cottage town, with not much going on. There was a market, so we checked that out, and the girls both bought bikinis, but there wasn’t much for the guys to do.

Next we made our way to the Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation. Had to take a ferry over the Daintree River, which was quick and fairly uneventful. Sadly no crocodiles spotted in the water.

Our first stop was a Rainforest Walk. It was pretty informative, but at $25, a little steep in price. We managed to see a couple of birds, and a giant walking stick thingy, plus plenty of spiders. The rainforest is abuzz right now with cicadas calling for their mates, which can get a little deafening at times. There was also a bit of thunder, but we managed to avoid any rain.

From there we checked out a few hostels, before deciding on PK’s Jungle Hostel. A tree had collapsed and taken out the bathrooms at the second place we checked out, but thankfully this place was unscathed. The girls had bought some food for the trip, so we checked in then walked through the rainforest, down to the beach and had a bit of a picnic. Sandwich meat, cheese, bread, spreads, vegetables, etc. Tasty, indeed. Managed to spot some lorrikeets while we were eating, but unfortunately my camera was back in the room.

After lunch we all hopped into the pool and played some volleyball with some of the other guests. We were all pretty terrible, but I think a fun time was had by all.

The hostel was licensed, which means we couldn’t drink our own alcohol on the property. Not a big deal for me, but the frenchmen needed their wine, so we headed back down to the beach, gathered some wood for a fire, and spent the rest of the night down there. As far as I could see we had the entire beach to ourselves. Other than the three hundred (I lost count) or so mosquito bites I had (they bite through clothing down here), it was definitely one of the better nights I’ve had thus far.

Theresa and I headed back to the hostel at about 1am, with Barbara, Max, and Jon following an hour or two later and kindly waking us up by dragging their bunkbeds to the other side of the room to be closer to the girls.

Woke up early craving some yoghurt, so I headed to the grocery store. Sadly the entire dairy section had gone kaput, so I settled on a croissant, and headed back to the hostel. En route I stopped at a book shop and traded my book in for a new one, “Gone Baby Gone” by Dennis Lehane.

Headed to a travel agency to get an itinerary of sorts for the East coast portion of my time in Australia. I was hoping to do the Whitsundays, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. I’ll do a reef tour here in Cairns instead, then head south to Brisbane, before getting back to Sydney (most likely with a stop in Byron Bay, or elsewhere, if time permits).

Met up with Theresa, Barbara, Jon, and Max at their hostel. From there we headed to another travel agent, and booked our reef tour and a car for Sunday and Monday. Spent the rest of the day with Jon and Max, then picked up the rental at 6pm. Just Barbara and I are driving, but I got the first go behind the wheel. Wasn’t as difficult as I thought it might be, driving on the left and all. The wipers and the blinkers are on the opposite ends here, and I still look to the right when reversing, but so far I’m still alive. My new mantra is “left left left”.

Headed to the Woolshed for dinner in the evening to meet up with Barbara and Theresa, then headed to the hostel, read a little, and went to bed early since my roommates (a Swedish girl is in the room now, but I’ve yet to see her) need to be up at 4am to catch their plane.

Got up with the intention of checking out of Dreamtime and making my way to Gilligan’s. I figured Jon and Max were here, with Theresa and Barbara arriving in the evening, plus reviews had been outstanding.

I dropped my bags off at the hostel, then headed out to see about getting my memory card working. Back at the internet cafe, I downloaded some recovery software and set it to work. It took well over an hour, but nearly everything seems to have been recovered, thankfully.

Checked my email while the recovery was underway, and found out that Jon and Max are now staying at another hostel. Theres is a little cheaper, but apparently dirty too. Where I am is about as luxury as you can get for a hostel – better than some $100+ hotels I’ve stayed in, but for the same price as a hostel. Not sure how they’re making money, but I’ve got a nice deck, there’s a huge pool, air conditioning (which Dreamtime didn’t have – hence the move), and a great location. Wet T-shirt contests on Sunday to boot. Apparently you can win $500, so wish me luck.

I was supposed to meet up with Jon and Max at noon (midday), but because my card was still being recovered, I couldn’t make it. I walked around Cairns (quite a small town, and 90% of the shops are tourist related), hoping to find them, to no avail.

I had my first meal since the plane – I’d completely lost my appetite after losing all my pictures, but, like the pictures, it was back with gusto. Grabbed a burger in the nice air conditioned restaurant (did I mention the humidity? It’s my way of getting around complaining about the heat – I’ll just complain about the humidity), and looked out the window, hoping to see Jon or Max walk by.

After dinner I checked into the aforementioned hostel, and grabbed some stuff to go swimming. Cairns has no beach, but there’s a man-made lagoon that will do in a pinch. All set, I started walking to the lagoon when I stumbled on Jon and Max (I mentioned Cairns was a small place, right?). They’d been researching diving/snorkelling trips and Cape Tribulation, which was what I’d have been doing if I wasn’t stuck in an Internet Cafe for so long. I was going to suggest renting a car and checking out the Cape on our own, but they mentioned it first. We popped into a few travel agencies and got some prices. Should be quite feasible, and a lot cheaper than doing it with a tour. We’re going to arrange things with Theresa and Barbara when they get to Cairns tonight.

Back at my hostel, my two roommates have returned from their trip to the reef. They are two German girls – Julia and Lina, but I haven’t talked to them too much as they rushed off to dinner shortly after I arrived. They seem friendly enough, though.

In the evening I headed to Asylum to meet up with Jon and Max and the two arrivals from Cairns. We’re going to rent a car on Sunday and head up to Cape Tribulation and the surrounding area for two days.

Got to sleep in today. Still up at 7:30am or so. One of the girls in the room works in the hostel, so she was up fairly early, which roused me.

No real agenda for the day. Did laundry when I got up, then met up with the tour mates to exchange some photos, as one of the girls, Kristina, dropped her camera at the first stop on the tour, rendering it unusable. A few people left before me, so I said goodbye, then headed into town to get some food from the grocery store. sHeaded back to the hostel to go for a swim, and did some reading by the pool. Airport pickup was at 3:30pm for a 4:40 flight to Cairns.

Flight was quicker than I expected, as I thought Cairns was in the same time zone as Sydney, but was in fact only a half hour ahead of Alice Springs, and still an hour behind Sydney.

Got a drive into Cairns to the Dreamtime Hostel, as recommended by Emma. Walked into town from there, and am sitting in an internet cafe now, about to copy these journal entries to the blog. Cairns is very humid, so it feels hotter than the desert. I think I’m going to switch to another hostel in the evening, as John, Max, Teresa and Barbara are staying there. It’s a pretty luxury hostel, but costs the same as Dreamtime, whose biggest downfall is a lack of air conditioning in the room. I’m meeting John and Max at noon anyhow, so I can check in then. I’m off to get some dinner now, then I’ll probably head back to the hostel and read.

So where are the pictures? I inserted my camera’s memory card and all of my photos from Uluru are gone. This is not very good. I’m going to try downloading some recovery software and hope for the best. Wish me luck. Or pray, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Update: Photos recovered! Phew!