Plans for Cairns

We had a nice easy morning with PB&J and bananas for brunch. After making our plans for the day, we treated ourselves to a second meal, this time heading to the kitchen area to make grilled cheese. Then it was off to the city centre of Cairns to book some tours for our 5-night stay here.

We found the Backpackers World Travel from Sarah’s suggestion and asked them about diving, white-water rafting, and a zoo visit. We ended up renting a car for the 30th to visit the Rainforest Habitat in Port Douglas and the Mossman Gorge, booking a diving day-trip to the outer reef that includes two dives and lunch for the 31st, and an all-day rafting trip to the Tully River on Nov. 1 that has level 3-4 rapids! After the successful tour bookings, we headed to the local Global Gossip to book camp sites for New Zealand.

By the time we were done, it was time to be picked up by our car rental company who was letting us have the car the night before our 1-day rental for free since it was available. They ended up being a half hour late for the pick-up, and then the paperwork at the office took about 45 minutes, so it was time for dinner after we were through. We got a tiny, white 2-door automatic with A/C and a CD player for $39.50 plus insurance, and Susan drove around a bit to get used to the roads before parking at our hostel. Driving was more confusing than anticipated since some things were backwards but others weren't. The gear shift was on the left side instead of the right, and the blinker was on the right, so Susan kept turning on the wipers when she was ready to turn. Luckily the gas pedal was still on the right, or we would have been in real trouble.

We decided to try the free meal arrangement that our hostel had worked out with a local restaurant for dinner. The restaurant is a bar/grill that offers our hostel 4 different options for free, or an upgrade of $5 to anything on the menu. We both chose the upgrade with Nathan getting a chicken schnitzel with mashed potatoes and steamed veggies, and Susan getting chicken parmigiana with a baked potato and salad, all for $10!! We decided to get a pitcher of Strongbow cider to go with our dinners and had a wonderful meal.

After dinner we walked around the part of the downtown that we hadn’t seen yet, and stumbled upon two movie theaters. We checked out the showtimes and decided on an Australian horror film called Wolf Creek that was shown at Sundance earlier this year. The movie was about 2 British girls backpacking in southwest Australia with a guy from Sydney when their car breaks down at a meteor crater in the middle of nowhere. A guy comes to help them, but it turns out he’s some psycho who enjoys torturing people in disturbing ways, and what was more alarming was that the movie was based on actual events. Eee…to lighten the mood after scary movie we turned on In the Mood for Love back in our room and fell asleep.