Cairns

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Hello!

After a tiring overnight flight (which consisted of two flights, one from Singapore to Darwin and then a 3 hour break in the airport lounge in the early hours of the morning before the second to Cairns!) we arrived in Australia!

It was a comforting feeling to be back in a 'Western' culture and once we got over the tiredness we enjoyed wandering around the town for a few days. It was quite a lot smaller than we expected which meant everything was in close walking distance. Although there was no beach at the city, there was an impressive mountain-like rainforest backdrop.

We stayed in our first proper hostel (sticking mainly to hotels and guesthouses in asia) which had a kitchen meaning we could finally make our own food and not be forced to eat out all the time! This was fortunate, as the difference in prices compared to asia and even england was staggering - eg a regular pint costing roughly 14 times the amount it did in Vietnam... And the food was similar - we wandered around the supermarket struggling to find anything affordable. All the accommodation and activities seemed extortionate to us as well - we later found out that this is because of how the pound has lost its value on the australian dollar since the credit crunch.

The main thing to do in Cairns is the Great Barrier Reef, but we decided to wait until a little bit further down the coast before exploring it. It was nice just to walk around and get used to australia and such a change in surroundings.

After two nights we caught our first Greyhound bus down the coast to Mission Beach.

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