Blogs from Cairns City, Cairns, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 14

Today was the day we had been dreaming about. Although we love Hilda and we were getting used to the humidity, the thought of spending 4 nights in an air conditioned apartment with a real bed was so exciting! What was even more exciting was that Gemma and Kieran were arriving tonight and after Christmas we would be starting out adventure down the East coast together. We had just one more thing to do before we could check in and we were hoping that it would be different from doing it at home. The people here are so chilled out that we were sure it would be. - we were soooo wrong! I now know that it doesn’t matter what side of the world you are on Christmas shopping is a nightmare and it turns even ... read more

It's really boring travelling by yourself. You only do what you want to do, so there's no waiting around in shops you don't want to be in for someone else. This sounds nice, but it gets really lame really fast. There was no one around the hostel today, so I spent most of the day walking around the city, which was nice, but it was too hot to be out for long. I can't wait to get to the Contiki hotel tomorrow. At least there I can meet the people I'll be hanging out with for the next 2 weeks, and maybe there will be something to do. There's no point going on any of the tours of the area since part of my Contiki tour is spent here. I spent some time in the fancy ... read more

Here's the "I'm here!" email I sent out to a few people last night: Hello hello! I've made it to my hostel in Cairns, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to suffocate in this humid air before I make it anywhere else! It is sooo hot! The worst part is that our room, of all the rooms in the hostel, is the only one who's air conditioning works during the day. Which means we don't get it at night when there's actually people in the room. The girls here have had the room for 3 weeks already, but they can't get it fixed :( The flights here were not too bad. I had window seats for all of them, two of them a whole row to myself, and on the long one (SanFran to Sydney), I ... read more

We arrived in Cairns from Singapore via Darwin Airport, it was not the worst flight in the world as for the second leg we had double seats to ourselves which meant I could get some sleep. The plan was to spend a few days in this “cheap” hostel which was $10 a night, more than I paid anywhere else since I’ve been away. But for that $10 you did get a free meal, a pool and the best showering facilities I’ve used since leaving the UK. First night I was there I went down to the bar for my meal and a beer, only to feel like the bar tender slapped me across the face when he asked for $6 from me for my pint. I had just finished my dinner when I was roped into ... read more

Arriving in Cairns was similar to arriving in Hawaii, or at least in a different country. The air quality had changed to take on that humid tone where you can feel the air as you breathe it in; everything was suddenly very green and very lush and not at all the red, red soil we had seen on the drive in or the dusty endless plains that accompanied the highways. We arrived at our resort, "The Lakes Cairns" which really was the definition of a resort, huge sprawling entry gates, sheltered parking and an apartment much bigger than my own big apartment in Copenhagen. The balcony alone was bigger than my bedroom. We could hear waterfalls but not see them since we arrived at night time and embarrassingly given all the luxury surrounding us, we had ... read more