1 Month Back In Cairns

We flew back to Cairns on Wednesday 20th June and arrived at the same hostel, Caravella 149 at around 6.30pm. Bizarrely we ended up in the same dormitory and the same beds as first time round!! We showered then headed straight out to the good old Woolshed, the bar in town that provides our cheap evening meals, then back to the Hostel for some goon. It was like we’d never been away. There were still some familiar faces around the hostel too, including Thomas the German bus driver and David a Brummie, so we headed off into town with them and it would seem that the Cairns partying was about to begin all over again.

The next few days consisted of sunbathing and partying, but on Friday 22nd June, I got a call from Aon in Cairns to say that they possibly have work for me, so I went to see them and bingo I had signed a 3mth contract with them. Guess I’ll be sticking around in Cairns for a little while longer .

So one week until work began. I’d have to make the most of the sun and the partying, as it would end when I started work. So me Nic, Thomas and David went out a fair bit over the following week and we also met, Lauren, Lauren, Stuart, Holly, Luke, Crawford & Carolina and a few more, so we had some pretty good nights out and David and I became pretty close and went out a couple of times on our own. Also during this week I excepted a job at the hostel which meant I could move out of a dormitory and into my own double room free of charge, get free evening meals, free soft drinks and half price alcoholic drinks….Life is pretty sweet!

Monday 2nd July came around way too quickly and off to work for me it was. Pretty funny getting ready for work in a hostel, I got some strange looks when I came home!! So the drinking has subsided. I went out for a few beers on Tuesday 3rd, as it was Luke & David’s last night. They were off to work on Fitzroy Island for 10days. Then had a pretty quiet week or so, a few beers at the weekend, but to be honest after working all week I was sooo tired. Think my body was in shock after doing pretty much nothing for 3 months. I did my first reception shift on Saturday 7th. It went pretty quickly, but anyone who has stayed at Caravella 149 will know Gloria, the woman is Crazy. If I had to work with her full time, I swear to God the men in white coats would be coming to take me away. When I woke Sunday morning I thought I was dying. I’d been up most of the night pretty sick and with really bad pains in my back. I went to the doctors and it turns out I had a kidney infection…Great!! So after a few days of taking it easy and a few antibiotics I was feeling much better, so a few of us decided to take a day trip to Fitzroy Island to see David & Luke.

We got the ferry at 8.30 am and I have to say it was freezing, but I get sea sick, so I didn’t want to sit downstairs. The journey took about 1 hour and when we arrived it looked like it was going to rain…argh! So we grabbed a drink in the café, the only thing on the island and met David & Luke. I tell you them two had the easiest job ever. The island is having a new resort built on it and they were just helping out labouring etc, but they spent more time with us that day then doing any work. We decided to go and explore the island in the hope that the sun would come out. It’s a really beautiful place and a shame they are building a big resort as it’s only a tiny island. It’s one of the continental islands of the GBR, which means it used to be part of the mainland before rising waters separated it. The island is basically a rainforest with a couple of small beaches, pretty amazing and untouched for now….

So we went to explore the rainforest for and hour, me, Nicole, Lauren, Lauren, Holly and Stuart. We saw a huge spider and Nicole decided it would be fun to poke it with a stick to see if it would move. 20 minutes later we all ran of scared that it was going to eat us!!! Nicole and I then had lunch with David & Luke before setting off to Nudey Beach, clothing optional, but we kept ours on. Also it was too damn windy, so we headed back through the rainforest and on the way back we saw our first snake. Needless to say we screamed like little girls and ran. After all that excitement we decided to chill on the beach for the rest of the afternoon and play on a trampoline in the middle of the sea, which was pretty awesome until Luke & David decided to skive off again and come and join us and jump around like lunatics on it. Our peace and quiet was over, but we did see our first turtle swimming around the trampoline.

4pm arrived far too quickly, our day on our little paradise island was over, so we said our good byes to Luke & David and headed back to Cairns. The next few days consisted of work and a few nights out. Then on Tuesday 17th July, day before my birthday, David took me out for the day. We went to Green Island, another tropical Island on the Great Barrier Reef. We went to the Marineland Melanesia a walk through nautical museum, which included crocodiles and turtles. We relaxed on the beach and David wrote Happy Birthday in the sand. Ahh Bless! We also went on a yellow submarine that took us around the Reef were we saw various fish, corals and turtles. Again this place was paradise, well until David decided to try drowning me in the freezing cold sea! Then once again our day in Paradise was over and it was back to Cairns for a drunken night out as it was David’s last night, he was heading back to sunny Birmingham tomorrow.


July 18th - My 30th Birthday
Mixed Emotions today! Yep it’s my birthday, but David goes home too. Day started well though with breakfast in bed. Then I opened my cards and pressies, most of which arrived from the UK in time. Then it was a lazy day by the pool. At 6pm, Thomas, Luke & Me, took David to the airport. A few tears where shed and then it was back to the hostel to celebrate my birthday. No goon today, bottles of wine and Vodka all the way! Really wanted Champagne, but it’s so expensive here, I’ll save that for when I get home and celebrate it all over again. Needless to say by the time we left the hostel and hit the town we were all a little worse for wear, but that didn’t stop us. Plenty of drinking and dancing later I collapsed in my bed around 4am.

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