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Published: August 30th 2009
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Sunrise
up at 5 am to catch a flight to Cairns Day 4 -Wed Aug 26
Cairns! Got up at 5 to catch my flight to Cairns (pronounced CANS), and now i know I am fully acclimated to the 17 hour time change, because it FEELS like 5 am. I fell in love with Cairns from the window of the plane. Beautiful green lush mountainous coastline met with the most gentle, vibrant turquoise blue ocean fading seemlessly into a blue sky. I was so unbelievably excited for that first rush of warm air, and Cairns did not disappoint! After a cold 7 degrees yesterday in the Blue Mountains, we landed to a balmy 28 degrees (celcius), and instantly I was in heaven! We disembarked on the runway, and I swear to god, if I hadn't had to go back inside to baggage claim, I would've torn off half my clothes right there on the tarmac. The flights have been so bone chillingly cold that I began feeling flu-ish. That was instantly cured the second the door of the plane opened. Do we see a pattern here? just call me Tropical Tana. Cairns reminds me of Hawaii or Costa Rica- lush, green and tropical. If there really was a Garden of Eden, i
would imagine it looking like this. I didn't realize how much I didn't like Sydney until I realized how much I LOVE it here!
I finally got to my hostel around 2:30 and went walking around Cairns. They have this amazing "lagoon" right off the beach, which is a really big salt water pool next to the boardwalk. I treated myself to some expensive Vietnamese noodles and bought some groceries at the store. When I got back to my hostel, they were having a huge BBQ, complete with crocodile and kangaroo meat. Yuuuck! Don't we pet kangaroos? Anyway, it was a lovely patio party, with everyone congregating around which ended in a fire spinning show. And now i am completely in heaven. We got to practice spinning poi (sans the fire!) and had a Dijerido learning competition, all in this tropical outdoor courtyard that felt like it was right in the rainforest! For the first time I appreciated the hostel environment. Here I was being treated to a fire show, talking with travelers from all over the world, whereas, if i'd been in one of those posh hotels, I would've missed out on this. The hostel i'm at (Dreamtime)
Cairns
the boardwalk divides the beach and the lagoon has the community feel that Wake Up Sydney was lacking. It's designed to facilitate meeting people. The guy in charge (Chris), is fantastic. He knows everyone by name, and what they're doing each day. When i got there I was debating on a single room. He looked at the roster in the dorm room and said, 'oh well, he's out on the reef, they've got an early tour tomorrow....etc'. At night he greets everyone and asks about their day and then charms them out of their money by arranging the next's days tours. My dorm ended up having 5 girls and 1 guy the first night. I fell asleep and woke up to a big thud under me. The guy on the bottom bunk had stumbled in, and threw himself into bed. I woke up to pee a couple hours later to a full moon- and no, not in the sky. As I climbed down from the top bunk, I shuddered at the sight of the guy's naked butt hanging out of the covers. Quite audacious to go to bed naked in a room full of 5 girls i thought! In the morning I got up to find him laying
on his back, but thank god he had covered himself up. I did NOT want to see that!
Thus Aug 27
The Great Barrier Reef!
To be continued. I'm off on a night bus to the Whitsundays and out of time!
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