Day 21

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The plane landed in Cairns at about 8.30. We were greeted by thick black clouds and rain! We successfully made it through passport control and immigration having declared all our food, however Mel did get her packets of nuts and seeds taken off her!

We had a minibus to pick us up and take us to the hostel and on the way the girl who was driving informed us that it had been raining for weeks and all the roads out of Cairns were flooded! To make matters worse there was a cyclone heading our way!!

The hostel was really good (but not quite as nice as the picturtes on the leaflet made it look)and we were in a twin room. I felt ok having slept for most of the flight but Mel hadn't so we decided to have a nap. Mel thought she'd set her alarm for an hours time but about 2hrs later she woke up and tried to wake me... apparently she even tried shaking me but I was obviously in a deep sleep! Eventually I did wake up and we decided to walk into Cairns to find some lunch.

We had a walk around for a bit, picked up several hundred leaflets from the tourist information place and then on the way back we stopped at another hostel to see how the prices compared to where we were staying. The owner, Gloria (a little old lady, aka Grandma!) decided to chat to us for several hours and sorted through our leaflets, binning most of them! She gave us some cards for $5 off the first night if we stayed there and said that if we booked some tours with her she'd give us a night free. Since we wanted to go to Cape Tribulation we said we'd be back later to book the tour with her. As an extra bonus she gave us both meal vouchers for a free meal that evening!

We decided we might as well make the most of free food so we headed out later that evening to the Woolshed (an infamous backpacker pub!). On the way we booked our 2 day,1 night tour up to Cape Tribulation for the 8th Feb. We hoped that the weather might have improved by then!

After dinner we found an internet cafe to discuss our travel plans for the next few weeks and work our how long we wanted to spend in Cairns. I ordered a smoothie which was delicious but absolutely huge and a meal in itself!

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