Cheap Tuesday

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DAY 305


Andy was up before me this morning (nothing unusual there then!), I expected my muscles to be a little bit sore after yesterdays hike from Copperlode Dam to Crystal Cascades and back again, but no, we both feel absolutely fine.

I don’t think we are going to have a lot to write about today as today is more about sorting out our future here rather than the tourist bit.

We had an introduction to a local agency to help us with looking for work in the Cairns area or at least in the Tropical North Queensland, so Andy spoke to this chap first thing this morning and we suddenly have an appointment this afternoon to pop in and see them.

Now, I am not really prepared for interviews or anything at the moment, I have no smart work clothes with me, they are all in storage and my hair is a mess, the last hair cut I had was probably in Broome (don’t ask me how long ago), I have made a hair appointment but she cannot fit me in until next Thursday (made the appointment last week), so for the moment I am still very much in casual travel mode.

We do a few chores and a bit of research, nothing exciting but the morning seems to vanish fairly quickly. So we jumped in the truck and headed into Cairns CBD and Sheridan Street where we were going to find the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS).

When we were doing some research this morning we discovered a different walk that takes you from the Clohsey River to Copperlode Dam however it is a long walk, but we discover that you can drive part of it on two conditions, one you have 4WD and the second is that you need a permit, thus our visit to the QPWS.

Parking is terrible, we drive up and down the street a couple of times before finding a space, it seems really busy down here, but the office that we are looking for is quite and we find an exceptionally nice woman called Anne Chalmers. We explain to Anne how long we are in Cairns and what we are looking to and ask for the permit that allows us to drive on this 4WD track.

Anne is very obliging, she gives us the paperwork to fill out and then furnishes us with a guide for that area and in talking further she asks us what we want to do and where we want to visit in particular, so next thing we know, we have a bundle of paperwork, she has highlighted walks that may be of interest to us, especially when we asked about Cassowaries, although there is no guarantee that we will see them she has advised where we might see them, we also find out what to do if we encounter a Cassowary.

We dash over to the Post Office to post Sydney (with a Y) the Cassowary that is destined to join the Wallaby Wanderers in Darwin, and with that done we drive round to Cairns central, park up and then find the coffee shop next to Myers so that we can meet Terry and Pamela for coffee and a catch up.

We chat to Terry and Pamela for a while, but once again time moves on and we have to go to our appointment, so I discard with the thongs, put some heeled shoes on and off we go down the street to the agency.

The usual stuff occurs with plenty of paperwork filling out and of course passport production to prove that we are able to work under our visas and soon we are joined by Chris, he talks to us both at the same time.

We were both feeling quite upbeat when we went in there, but an hour or so later when we both left we felt quite deflated.

The truth is that work here may not be what we particularly want and the types of jobs that are available that would suit the competition is heavy. He questioned our commitment to Cairns, but that is the difficult one, we would like to live in Cairns and give it a good try here, however if we cannot get work here then how can we possibly commit? We cannot live on fresh air forever.

The only consolation we have is that it is Cheap Tuesday, yes the one day of the week that means Cheap Pizza and we have been told that Cheap Tuesday also refers to cheap cinema tickets, oh choices choices, so we decide that of course it has to be Pizza, doing both would be too extravagant.

We go for Dominoes Pizza this week, they are slightly closer than Eagle Boys and they do deserve to be tried out for comparison purposes, although they are slightly more expensive too.

We both agree that the Dominoes Pizza we had tonight was better than Eagle Boys pizza that we had last week, however sometimes different cities and the pizzas are all different, some much better than others regardless of whether it be Dominoes or Eagle Boys.

Andy watches an Austin Powers film and I do some Sudoku but time passes and it is time for bed.

Neither of us slept very well, with thoughts of today on our mind.

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