Cairns

Arrived in Cairns on Thursday after the most boring road trip from Darwin. 'Not much to see on the way' is a bit of an understatement although after getting out of outback Queensland and into tropical Queensland, the landscape changed dramatically. I had no idea the region was so green and mountainous.

Got to Cairns quickly dropping off our stuff at a hostel and getting the van to Britz at 3:01pm which was lucky as the drop off time was 3pm. Got the full $650 bond back and $250 for fuel. All in all, it only cost us (Finnish Marianne, Danish Thomas, English Tom, English Iain and me) about $60 each including food and campsites. Ended up with 2 cracks and a rather larger long crack in the windscreen from passing roadtrains chucking up stones. Good job we got insurance otherwise it would have cost us an extra $500.

Anyway, Cairns is wierd and pretty much how I thought it would be: full of stupid sunburnt backpackers who think Australia is the east coast and have never heard of Uluru(Aboriginal name for Ayers Rock). All the roads are really wide, there is loads of traffic and every street looks the same. There used to be a nice white beach here before the 1920s but they destroyed it with dredging etc so now the whole beach is a stinking muck fest. There is a pool by the beach complete with sand and grass, annoying little kids, tanned up beach bums and the occasional UFO (Unidentified Floating Object - no prizes for guessing this chocolate coloured log) in the pool so it gets
closed for an hour.

The hostel is really nice though and I have pitched my tent in the back. $11 a night and it even has a pool. The kitchen and TV room are locked up at 10pm and the lights go out about 1 hour later. Then they wake you up at 7am with the rather loud radio and bloody noisy birds. They even have organised nights as "we" are just too stupid to arrange anything ourselves. This is the "we" of the east coast Australia only. Some of us are a bit more laid back and social. Doh!

So as you can see I love it here in Cairns. Will leave as soon as possible but I only have 1 month left so am rushing back to Sydney.

Booked my flight to New Zealand for 5 November. Only cost $82 plus
$86 tax.

Oktoberfest (German beer festival) tonight just up the road from us
so will probably be dancing on the tables by the end of the night.