Relative Hospitality

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Cairns Adventures
Margaret Ashley Love Denise and Graham came and picked my up from the airport with a little sign that said "Ashley Love" on it. haha. we laughed and laughed, but we actually recognized each other anyways. They drove me into Cairns telling me all about it and dropped off all my stuff at this hostel, then we went down to central Cairns to walk around and had a great dinner, went to the night markets, then dropped me back off at my hostel and arranged to meet up in the morning at 9. We hit the road and drove up to Port Douglas, about an hour and a half away, had a nice breakfast and walked around Port Douglas which is a great little beach town with a lot of resorts in the surroudning area so it was a mix of beachy, but a bit posh. From there we hit the road again and drove up a little further to Mossmon and turned off the road into the Daintree rainforest! We went in and did a few little walks and climbs, Denise and I, not Graham, he had an accident which scared his brain and he's got some bouts with depression and short term memory problems. But he has been so wonderful this trip, according to Denise, she scouldn't stop thanking me for coming becuase he was in the best mood and spirits in months! He was singing and laughing and they are so cute together still. We were just at the gas station and Graham got out to pump the gas and Denise started saying how she handles all the money now and things, then she got out to pay and Graham got in the car and started telling me about how Denise handles all the money now, haha. It was precious.

Anyway, the rainforest was magical. There was a cool humidity in there so it was like there was a presence all around you of something giant. There was a river that went through the middle of the trails which was icy cold seeing as it runs down from the surrounding mountains. There was a bridge to get across that was a swing bridge and litteraly swung whenever someone walked on it. You couldn't have more than 20 people on it at once, which wasn't really a problem seeing as the trails were fairly empty. Magical, really magical.

From there we drove back toward Cairns and up to Kuranda, which used to be a big hippy town with lots of markets and shops and places to eat, but it was a national hoilday that day and it has been changing hands over to the Japanese so it was all closed and barran. We had a meat pie to eat then drove back down into Cairns to have a glass of wine from the wine vendor we met the night before. She had all kinds of crazy wines! Passionfruit, Chili, coffee, banana. We finally decided on Mango which was actually best served with ice, as she recommended. Delicious and SO different.

After that we went in and went to the food court by the night markets where there are about 10 chinese and Thai vendors where you buy a certain size plate and fill it up as high as you can get it. I PILED mine with rice and chicken and scooped most of it into a tupperware container to put in the fridges at the hostel. I might delve into that soon actually. Today they picked me up and went to Hungry Jacks for brekky. It's basically Burger King, bleh. I just ate an apple that I brought with me. They knew of a great fruit market on the side of the road. Got two GIANT oranges and 3 bananas for 4 bucks, which is about 3 bucks American. Dropped off my stuff at the dive place and now I'm spending some time at internet and will go wander around until I have to go to the dive place again at 4:30.

I can't believe the hospitality they have shown me since I landed. It's absolutely mind boggling. SOOOO sosososo so thankful.

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