Sunny Cairns

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How's it going? I've been in Australia for about two weeks now, all of which I have spent in Cairns. I arrived in Cairns on the 9th of May and met up with my friend Kelly and his brother Aaron. It was nice to be somewhere warm again, although it was pretty cloudy it was nice and humid. Cairns is very touristy, it's full of bars, hostels/hotel and restaurants. The hostel we stayed at was good it was only $15 a night, which included a free meal (although is was small you could upgrade for $5 to something good). It seems that lots of people get stuck in Cairns, there were tons of people at the hostel who had been there for over a month. For the most part life in Cairns is pretty routine; wake up at about noon, go down to the Lagoon and sit in the sun, go out for your free meal and come back to the hostel and drink "goon". By the way "goon" is the name for these 4L boxes of wine that you can buy for about $9. It not really wine, it's just awful, but beer is really expensive and so is hard alcohol. After about one week of this shitty routine I finally did something worthwhile. Myself and a few others from the hostel rented a car and went to Cape Tribulation and a few other spot along the way. At cape tribulation the rainforest goes all the way into the sea and is really beautiful. We risked croc/shark/jellyfish attack and went swimming in the water. We found a coconut on the beach and used a couple rocks to smash in open, it was awesome. The next day we found a place to go wake board. It wasn't behind a boat it was on a cable which loops around a man made lake. I tried the wakeskate and got hooked. I went again on last day in Cairns which was Sunday. I took the night bus from Cains to Airlie beach last night and I'm going snorkelling on the great barrier reef two three days. I was sad to leave Cairns because I met I a lot of cool people, it was warm and there was a lot to do. Of course it's raining in Airlie beach, but I shouldn't complain!
P.S. I sold my van in New Zealand a couple after arriving in Australia for $1900!
Cheers, Ian

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Photos

Watch for Crocs!
We entered croc country as we crossed the we river on the way to Cape Trib

Sunny beach
Simon, Ben, me and Jodi on a beach on the way to Cape Trib

Beautiful Cape Trib
We got to Cape Trib as the sun was setting it was perfect

Cracking the Nut
Castaway cracking the coconut

Beach at Cape Trib
Ben, Simon and me on the beach at Cape Trib

Comments

[Emily Kydd]

Fraser Island
Hey Ian, So glad you're in Aus, I had an awesome time when I was there. I hit cairns for st. patty's I'm sure you can imagine. You've probably already heard about fraser island, but i'm just making sure you get sufficient peer pressure to go. It's a ridickulous two night camping/4X4ing/drinking cask wine gong show. you get put in groups of about 12 and they basically just let you go wild, in a big jeepney on this huge sand bar that has natural oddities and shipwreaks and, well sand. Just trust me, it's so much fun it was definetly a highlight! Have a great time out on the whitsundays!