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Published: August 19th 2007
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The Land Down Under
You know you have landed in Oz when you start seeing these signs We left Bali at 10pm to catch our flight to Darwin at 12pm which was a 2 hour flight then we had a connecting flight to Cairns from Darwin which was another 2 hour flight, mad that it takes 2 hours on a plane to fly across the tip of one country, you just cant believe the size of Oz its absolutely huge.
We landed in Cairns about 6am and jumped at a taxi to the place were we were staying called Gilligans backpackers resort. We got told it was the best place to stay in Cairns for backpackers. When we arrived we got told that we couldnt check into our room untill 2pm, i felt like crying we were so tired from travelling but what can you do? So we decided to go and withdraw some money out of a cash machine. We asked the lady were the nearest cash machine was and she told us a five minute walk up the road. So off we went and walked for about 10 mins untill we found a cash machine that would take my card. I put my card in the machine and pressed the amount in and a message
The Land Down Under
Man playing the didgeridoo in Cairns came up saying they could not complete this transaction contact your bank, so i thought oh here we go again they put another block on my card so i went into the bank to ask the woman why the machine wouldnt take my card, she looked at it and said try again it shud take it. We tried it again, and again it wouldnt take it so Neil tried his card and the bloody machine ate it (one of us have deffo broken a mirror before we came on this trip or sumthing). Luckily for us the machine was connected to a bank otherwise we would have been up sh** creek. Neil went inside the bank to explain what had happend to the lady and i had to stay by the machine just incase the card came back out. The lady got the card back out of the machine but couldnt give it back to him unless he showed her some ID, so i had to march all the way back to the hostel, i was not a happy bunny i was literally falling asleep on my feet. I came back with his driving license she gave him back his
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Sally by Cairns lagoon card but said he couldnt use it for 24 hours because the machine would have done sumthing to his card, great no money my card wont work and now Neils, can you believe it? Luckily enough Steph (sallys friend) had given us $60 so we had a little money to get a phone card and ring my bank to see what was happening and they told us it was that machine that had messed my card up so they fixed it and we could withdraw some money huray.
We finally got into our room at 2pm and went staright to bed, it was a 6 bed dorm and we were sharing with 2 irish lads and a chinese girl. The room was ok, a little on the messy side but we were sharing with 4 other people so we wernt too botherd. The complex was brillaint though it had big T.Vs on each floor, a swimming pool, a gym and a big nightclub (which we were right above).
Cairns is a nice place but very expensive as is all of Oz but Cairns has still yet to be beat. The next day was my birthday and we decided
The Land Down Under
People playing the bongo's in cairns to hire some bikes and go and look at campervans. We thought it would be a matter of going in telling them what we want and they would show us around a few and bobs your uncle. Nope, we couldnt have been more wrong. We needed one for the monday 6th august and the first place we went didnt have any available, the second place we went was closed and the thrid place we went the one they did have available that we wanted worked out way too much for us so we were gutted to say the least then Neil spotted one called 'The Hippie Camper' and asked for a price and to see if any were avialable. The man checked and there was one available and it was within our price range so he said come to the back and ill show you it. I was expecting some old thing with all worn out stuff inside, just something to get us from a-b but we were pleasently suprised. The one he showed us was brand new and had only done 3000km at last something that went right for us. So we decided on that and we could pick
The Land Down Under
Didgeridoo shop in cairns it up on the monday.
On the Saturday night, my birthday night we decided to have a nice meal and i actually got a bit dolled up it felt lovely to put a bit of slap on and wear heels haha. We went to an Italion place and i had my first brandy for 2 months i was in heavan and after the meal we decided to go to the nightclub at gilligans and we had a really good night. The next day we went out on the bikes again and had a ride down the esplanade which was lovely but our bums were killing us, the saddles on the bikes were not the comfiest.
On the monday we picked up our camper and got some shopping in and headed up to Port Douglas which is a lovely little place. There wasnt all that much to see so we headed back to a campsite and decided to head for Mission beach in the morning. We had been told not to drive in the dark because Oz is fall of kangaroos and wild pigs which just jump out on you in the night and can just wipe your car
The Land Down Under
Sally on cpt Cook Highway out, you see dead kangaroos along the road side every few miles. It went dark really quickly and we found ourselves on the worst possible road, it had signs for kangaroos and signs for cassowaries which are birds the size of men. We were cacking ourselves but we finally got to the campsite and had a look around mission beach the next day.
We headed for Townsville after mission beach which was quite a big town compared to the other places we had been. We had a walk around there city centre and a look at their beach but that was all there was to it really. These are all just little towns that we pass through to get to the main parts we want to see. After Townsville we decided to head to Airlie beach which was one of the main places we wanted to go because of the Whitesundays which are a group of 74 sand islands which are out of this world, we will wright more about them in our next blog but before we got to Airlie beach we stopped at a place called Ayr as we were going to do a dive there but
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Sally with a stuffed kangaroo Neil picked up a cold so we couldnt do much as the place was the size of Tuebrook.
We will fill you in on the rest of our Oz adventures in the next blog.
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wardie
non-member comment
Oh my god its so good to hear from you both me and jemma were worried! i cant believe your bad luck even travels with you sal! still sounds like you are having a fab time even through it all. I cant believe you are even diving wrecks and neil is eating in seafood places! happy belated birthday to you anyway sal cant believe were 24 so old lol! had a great time in ireland with shurie and jem ill put the pics on facebook. love your camper van by the way, oh yeah almost forgot to mention me and mr cross have a dog! her name is jessie she is a black lab X collie sal you would love her! anyway enough of me rabbiting on take care and speak to you soon, missin ya both Sarah and crossy xoxo