Day 13 Off to Cairns

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So today is another travel day. We are flying to Cairns to do our next 'bucket list activity' - the Great Barrier Reef.

So not much to say on the blog, and absolutely NO photos. Headed back to Sydney airport in a taxi, or should I say an airport transfer bus who was obviously having a quiet day and snatched me from the arms of a taxi driver whilst Ian was at the ATM. Still at only $35 it was nearly as cheap as the train fare and much cheaper than the fare a couple of days before. Flying Jetstar who had a much shorter queue for bag drop so scored 9/10 from Ian as their kiosk check in also printed baggage labels. I would have said that it was just cos it was a Saturday morning but actually Virgin Australia still had a massive queue. We have a couple of flights still to go with these two airlines so I'll get a consolidated view to you at the end.

Flight to Cairns was fine. I would have thought I was in easyjet, even down to the brand colour. Main differences. You could hires iPads for entertainment which seemed a nice idea (Virgin Australia are a bit ahead here - they have wifi onboard and an app you can download on your own tablet). And the snack of the day is the Australian staple, the meat pie.

Arrival at Cairns, where Ian informed me he knew the retail manager from his Edinburgh days (it's a surprisingly small world in the airport business). However we didn't go looking we just jumped in a cab to our hotel, the Pullman Cairns. On the way the taxi driver explained the bat problem they have in Cairns. Looking up you could see that every tree in the esplanade was FULL of bats. And we're not talking small ones. I am very glad to say that I never got a picture over the next couple of days as we were staying the other end of town.

Dropped our bags and headed out into town for some lunch and to look at getting our tours booked as we had decided to leave it till we got there. In Sydney We found an official visitor centre who were really helpful. Cairns appears to have more of a private venture feel - information centre every couple of shops, all selling the same tours. Our problem was that Ian is a strong swimmer but I am pretty rubbish so we needed somewhere that had glass bottom/non swimmer option.

We did decide that we would also do the kurnanda/sky rail tour which we booked for Sunday. Two reasons, we wanted to do it then as we had a very long journey by train on the Tuesday but actually it was closed for maintenance on the Monday so there was no option! Meant that it was busy though so we were lucky to get booked on.

Cairns itself I have to say did not have an instant wow factor as we wandered around for somewhere to grab lunch. In fact, it felt a bit like Blackpool with sunshine. Lots of tourist shops interspersed with a few tacky bars and very few people. We stopped in one of the bars and after a pizza and a couple of pints of lager it felt a bit better!

For dinner we went out around 8 and found it very different. We wandered down to the port where it was absolutely heaving. Having spent a couple of Saturdays in Australia we have decided that it's definitely the night all the natives go out! Lots of nice harbour restaurants as well as family BBQ /picnics going on in the park behind. It's set up for this with washing and BBQ facilities so definitely part of the outside culture.

We finally managed to squeeze in to a restaurant after a 1/2 hour wait to a place called Ciao Italia. Lovely homemade pasta and a wine called 'Sticking Pig'. Early to bed for our tour tomorrow.

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