Day 28 Melbourne to Cairns (7 January)

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We spent the morning packing. We had wanted to go to Cook's house but guess what - we got up late 😞

We took the train to Balaclava in order to have lunch with Sylvia and Michael (our friends from the cruise). We went to lunch in the equivalent of Hendon at a dairy restaurant called Savion. It was very nice and we even got to bring bagels back with us for the flight.

They brought us back to the hotel and we got a cab to the domestic airport to take a Jetstar plane to Cairns. The airport was a complete balagan. The whole thing made Ovda airport in Eilat seem like the epitome of civilisation. After being shunted from one queue to another, four queues later we got checked in and boarded our flight to Cairns.

Thankfully the flight was non-eventful and was a mere three hours. When we arrived at the airport Don went to sort out our Hertz car as our luggage is always the last to arrive. We honestly thought that the service agent would purposely put it on the plane to China as we were complaining so much. However, we were bags 2 and 3!

We picked up the car and started up the coast to Cairns. We are staying at the Pacific International in Cairns. The down side of Don's job is that he is away so much, the up side is that we get to stay free nights in hotels. These three nights come courtesy of one of his credit card points!

We just walked around the town which is like any seaside town. In one square the cacophony of sound from the birds was overwhelming! (We have just found out that these birds are fruit bats).

The second language here is Japanese. All signs and notices in the shops and in this hotel are in Japanese as well as English.

We had an earlyish night as we were tired from the travelling.

We would like to publicly thank Sylvia and Michael for their hospitality.

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Photos

Michael & Sylvia Goldhirsch of East St Kilda area
pictured on the ship, not in their villa