Okay, so since I stopped in a bunch of different places on my two week break, I’m going to make the entries as I stopped. I’m sorry I didn’t post as I went, but it takes time to write and me without a laptop + $3 an hour for internet (usually with an impending countdown at the top of the screen), is just not conducive.
So! I booked my trip to Cape Tribulation through Adventure Tours the Wednesday before I left (just so I would at least have some idea of what I was doing when I got to Cairns). My flight left at 7:45 AM out of the Sydney Airport, and I tried to sleep the night before, but to no avail. Between spending well over an hour on the phone with the Transportation Infoline trying to figure out how I would get to the airport at 5am (the first person I spoke with was a young guy more intent on making small talk with me and I didn’t have a good feeling about the bus times he gave me, so I called back at night and spoke with a woman who confirmed my feelings that the bus times didn’t exist and sorted me right) and getting woken up at 3am by my doorbell being bombed by an Australian friend who had gotten smashed at the bar across the street, I didn’t sleep. Cab came at 5am, got me to the train station, took the train to Central in Sydney, and got off at the Domestic Terminal…. Of course, you would think that a flight from Sydney to Cairns, all within the same country, would be taking off from a Domestic Terminal, wouldn’t you? No, of course not…in the small print on my ticket, they had only written the Terminal Number, which turned out to be in the International Terminal because it was a connecting flight to Hong Kong. So a confused backpacker couple and myself banded together, and one bus ride across the tarmac later, I ran into Mike and Rus being on the same flight as me. Attempting to make small talk, I said I was travelling myself, and Mike chimed in (right next to his buddy Rus) that he prefers travelling alone as well… it’s beyond me what he was thinking. Mike was a dick last time I saw him, so anything that was between us is off, so thank goodness we sat far, far away from each other on the plane. After trying to eat my fridge clean the week prior, I will admit the meal I got on the plane was probably the best I had gotten in a week.
Cairns was hot when we touched down, around 85 degrees for 11am in the morning, and I took a shuttle to my very first hostel, Caravella’s 149. The location was pretty cool, right on the Esplanade, but thanks to foam mattresses I didn’t sleep much that night either. That was only the beginning to my 2 weeks of impending sleep deprivation. Met a cool girl named Kerry from the UK who took me to lunch and the lagoon, and later that night, the Woolshed (free dinner). I wandered around Cairns, listened to music at the lagoon, walked the Esplanade, checked out the ginormous Australian pelicans (they seriously have about an 8 foot wingspan), and went mega souvenir shopping. I bought a Paua-shell necklace and bracelet from the markets, a hat, magnet, a load of postcards, and checked out the night markets as well. Jogged over to Gilligans (the mecca of backpacker “hotels” in Cairns) to see about sleeping there after Cape Trib and ran into Mike and his group yet again. Then it was back to Caravella’s to confirm my trip to Cape Tribulation the day after. I found it extremely amusing for a hostel that was 10 bucks a night to demand 20 dollars for a key deposit. I packed up for the night as well as the trip up to Cape Trib, and called it a night.
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