Advertisement
Published: April 26th 2006
EEEhhhh i'm a wallaby likes!
Dave wearing Australian rugby gear.G'day!
Arrrived in Cairns on Sunday 16th April at 4.15am local time. We were soon to find out that this wasn't the best time to try and find a youth hostel. We met a couple of english girls, Sian and Stacey, at the airport, who tagged along with us in search of a place to stay.
We had a couple of places in mind, but they were either fully booked or the reception didn't open till 9am (Ahhhh, being jet lagged and generally knackered with a backpack on in parts unknown wasn't our idea of fun). As daylight was upon us we notice the "Lagoon", basically a big swimming pool just by the harbour, it's free to use and has barbecues set up all around it for everyones use. We decided to take a dip in there and take advantage of the shower facilities in the changing rooms.
Feeling refreshed, aswell as the shower i treated myself to a Donner Kebab for breakfast (It had been a while!!) ,and as it was approaching 9ish we went hostel hunting again- This time we managed to find somewhere (Corona Backpackers)- a 4 bed dorm was only $15 each and included
Cairns from above
Not quite as postcard perfect because of the weather. a free evening meal- back of the net!
The first day was basically used to catch up on some sleep. We emerged feeling fresh and ready for a night out. We ended up in the Woolshed, quite a cool place which is always full of backpackers, and had a great time. On the way to the Woolshed I heard someone calling my name from a bar nearby- I looked around only to see 3 lads from Sheff Uni (I only recognised one of them at first, it was Geordie Dave's mate Lake!) The sighting of some more Sheff Uni boys gave Jonny ample opportunity to use one of his favourite cliche phrases, "Its a small world!". We saw them later on in the Woolshed later and had a good crack with them about all things Cairns and all things Geordie Dave (One of my favourtie subjects!). Also watched Robbie Fowler grab his fourth in four against Blackburn!
Woke up the next day feeling a little worse for wear and decided a lie-in was the best medicine. To be honest I didn't feel that guilty to be "wasting my day" because it was absolutely lashing it down with rain
Cyclone Larry
Meant there were a few no go areas on the trails around the Botanic gardens and rain forest. outside and there isn't an awful lot you can do in a beachey typed place when it's raining.
We grabbed a bite to eat, in which everyone was still in quite a giggley mood from the night before. I told them that when I woke up in the morning i couldn't distinguish whether it was the bedroom fan i was hearing or if it was actually raining in "sunny" Australia (Apparently this story was quite boring, cue everyone taking the pi55!) My ribbing was soon to be replaced by the ever reliable Jonny coming up with some pearls of wisdom of his own though. One of Jonny's career ideas is simply to run a chain of coffeshops, Bully helped him out with the name for the said establishments, "Sprigwells". Basically the signature coffee of Jonny's shops is going to be the Sprigalatte, basically a layer of caramel, a latte, and....a Sprig (Aka a twig with a leaf on it?!?!?) How had no-one thought of such a coffee earlier? When Jonny noticed we found his idea a little comical he was bemused, and asserted that it was normal for people to name drinks after them insisting that the Latte was
probably invented by someone called...Barry Latte!!! (These early morning exchanges probs don't sound that funny when written down but at the time we were all in stitches)
Basically the weather in Cairns since we've been here has been pretty shocking. Cyclone Larry hit North Queensland a couple of weeks before our arrival, and the after effects of this have been tons of rain. Our days have tended to run in a similar pattern of ending up at the woolshed for our meal, and then realising that we might as well stay for happy hour, and ending up staying to the wee hours.
One of the benefits of the weather meant that when we went White Water Rafting, the river was really wid and had some really good rapids. We went with a company called Raging Thunder: we got up bright and early to catch the bus to the River Tully, about 1 and a half hours drive from Cairns. After getting kitted out in helmet and lifejacket we boarded our rubber raft, and off we went. Our guide who was in the raft with us was a Japanese bloke called Nori, aka the Mental Oriental! Everytime we'd go through some big rapids he'd start screaming like a mad man and we'd all have to do high fives with our oars raised up in the air before slamming them into the River- It made quite a splash.
I was certain i'd be taking a tumble into the river, after the Kayaking in Laos i thought it was a cast iron guarantee. However i managed to stay in the raft at all time, Bully took the prize for the most "Man overboards" with 2, once he was joined by Will aswell. Because theres 6 of you in the rafte and a guide you feel pretty safe and just enjoy the ride- It really was awesome. At one stage Nori was telling us all to look up to the trees by the side of the river asking us if we could see the Koala Bears-Cue all of us looking for the none existant bears as Nori led us backwards down this rapid, he's shitted us up big time!
The scenery on the river was pretty cool, we passed some massive waterfalls and even went through one of them. In between rapids we weren't even free from a soaking, courtesy of Jonny, ever the joker splashing all of us and every other raft that came near us. Were absolutely knackered on the bus ride back home, where they showed a bloopers video of people falling in to the river from previous groups.
In the days after the Rafting Bully took a day to meet some of his family who live here whilst Jonny done a five day Diving Course- after some intial teething problems, in which Jonny was getting pi55ed off with his Swiss instructor (Who incidentally sounded Irish from Jonny's impression of her?!?) he said it was amazing- Might try it in future. Me and Will didn't get upto that much, the weather was still pretty crappy. I did visit the botanical gardens though, i love looking at a good bit of fern or a plant as much as the next person, but it was pretty dull really. Next to the Botanical Gardens there was a couple of trail walks through a forest that you could do, some of the paths were closed off though; because of the Cyclone they were quite dangerous- falling trees etc. I did one walk, which only took about 40 minutes, mostly uphill! I got a good view of Cairns from above, if it wasn't such a grey day it would have been better though.
I had a good night out on my own with some folk from the youth hostel on Saturday (22nd). It was one of the Swedish girls in the room opposites birthday so me, English guy Dan and another Swede called Ted played drinking games with them- It's such a myth that Binge drinking is purely an English trait- They were getting battered! Dan had his guitar out and the Swedes were loving his rendition of "London Underground" to the tune of The Jam song "Going Underground". He said he must know how Chesney Hawks feels, they were getting him to play it over and over again! Ted was spot on, he knew loads about English music and used to be A Champ Manager addict so we had some good crack, he's from the same city as Freddie Ljungberg, Halmstad (I remember them from Champ Man) and said his sister dated Freddie's brother a couple of times.
Ended up in a cool pub called Mad Cows, in which there was a crazy Ozzie in Trousers and tucked in shirt doing comedy dance moves and trying to get everybody to copy him (If you've seen the film Starsky and Hutch, he was like the guy doing the dance off with Ben Stiller-Was hilarious) I can't mention Mad Cows without commenting on the toilets there (sorry guys) but they had a urinal with a one of those mirrors that you can see out of but people can't see you! Felt so paranoid taking a leek when you could basically see the crowds of people on the other side of the mirror (at least i hope it was one of those mirrors!)
After Mad Cows we made our way to the Woolshed for 2.15am to watch Liverpool Chelsea in the FA cup, I was so nervous. Is it merely a coincidence that when I arrive in Oz, Harry Kewell starts playing like the Wizard of Oz?! "Go on Harry!!"-the aussies love a bit of him. Thought we were awesome for the first hour and then basically screwed for the last half and hour- Can't believe we went through, Maureeno wasn't best pleased?!?
Me, Will and Bully went snorkelling on Monday (24th) in the Great Barrier Reef. The weather was much better out at sea than it was on the mainland. The journey there was horrendous, the water was so choppy, I was thrown all over the place at one stage cos of the rocking boat- managed not to be sick though so thats a success story. Seen some pretty cool fish whilst snorkelling, Nemo et al, but never seen any sharks or sea snakes- Thank God! The Barrier Reef was really cool (apparently it's the only natural wonder that can be seen from Space, apart from Holtby of course- Banter!)
Yesterday (25th) we got a knock on our hostel door at 5ish, it was only bloody Flannagan and his mate Chris from Uni! He'd told us he was coming but it was weird just to get a knock on the door. Marty was showing us his photos of the Neighbours Night he went to in Melbourne, I cannot wait to visit Ramsay Street. There was a picture of Marty with Connor, you couldn't tell the difference, also was one of Marty giving Lyn Scully the evil eyes- looked class! Went out for some scran, i decided to get Crocodile- it was quite nice and like most meats you've never tried before it tasted just like Chicken, i polished that off quick snap! (5hit, theres another Spriginsism) Had a few rounds of The Ring of Fire (drinking game), Will appropriately picked up the card that meant he was snake eyes and everyone who ever looked at him had to take a drink- needless to say the serpent in him came out and he was catching me out all the time. Another rule was that you weren't allowed to laugh- cue Jonny putting his cap on sideways and giving it the old finger signs (He looked like the guy out of the Offspring Video, "And all the girls say hge's pretty fly for a ginger guy")-again he kept cathching me out. After polishing off the cheap wine we ended up in the Woolshed again. Marty's off on some daytrip today and we'll be moving on soon, but we might bump into him somewhere else down the east coast.
Today i've just watched the repeat of Arsenal going through to the Champs League Final, with a bit of penalty drama at the end, i hope they go on and win it and that Terry Henry stays in the Prem. Tomoz we're hoping to say goodbye to Cairns and Hello to Townsville, six hours south of Cairns. We've been in Cairns longer than any place so far and despite the weather it's been quality.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.22s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 14; qc: 79; dbt: 0.0972s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Tubs
Dan Holtby
The funniest thing i've ever heard!
Barry Latte - What a retard!