CAIRNS

Sexy Suits, yeah?

Tuesday, July 24

We had just enough time to drop our things off at my room in Campbelltown, get something to eat, say hello to a few people, and fall asleep before 9:00 p.m. before we got on a plane to fly to Cairns.

Oh. The "WE" I keep referring to is my sister Madeline and I. Madeline is here for about two weeks visiting, which really isn't enough time to visit Australia properly, but is an awesome experience anyway.

So we flew into Cairns and arrived at our hostel, a place called Gilligan's. As far as hostels go, this is the Ritz. Large rooms with three way bathrooms and balconies, the beds are wide and comfortable and only squeak a little. The bunk beds are NOT in danger of collapsing... and it was clean. Except for the boys. The boys were not so clean.

THe first few nights we had a full room, with a couple of Germans and a couple of mutes. I'm assuming they were mutes because they didn't talk. I passed out almost immediately after finding food. I think my body was violently confused at to what time zone I was in and what appropriate sleeping hours were.

DAY TWO

We spent the day wandering around Cairns, checking out the main shopping areas and the tourist shops. Cairns is a small city, only about 150,000 people, but is the main port onto the Great Barrier Reef. Located on the coast of north Queensland, the lands surrounding cairns are diverse in nature. Coastal moutain ranges house some of the world's oldest rainforests (see Day Four for more details) and some of the world's craziest people. Oh wait. They all work in teh city, mostly on tourist boats. The main source of income in Cairns probably stems from tourism, but the area is fairly agricultural, with crops like sugarcane, bananas and tea.

Back to me.

and madeline..............

We began the day by walking down to the Lagoon. The lagoon is a swimming pool on the ocean's edge frequented by locals and tourists alike. unfortuantely, it was closed when we got there, so we didn't go swimming, Why would anyone want to go swimming in a swimming poool when the ocean is right there? Well, for aobut five to six months of the year, over the summer, the oceans become slightly inhospitable as the Box Jellyfish mature. The jellyfish is only a couple of inches long, but its sting can be fatal. So people tend to avoid swimming when the "stingers" are out and about.

Along the Lagoon are shops and restaurants, as well as large picnicing gardens. Naturally, this held our attention for about thirty minutes. We're a distractable sort, and all the brightly colored shops called to us.

Madeline's search was for a didgereedoo. They sell them everywhere, really, so it's easy enough to find one for under $50. However, these didge's are not authentic; that is, they have been mass-produced, and not carved out by termites and painted by the indiginous people. We did find reasonably priced authentic ones though, and relatively early, so we had the rest of the day to frequent every single tourist shop we came across.

Yep. We went into almost every single tourist shop located on the Esplanade, or downtown Cairns. Every single one....

I walked into our room at Gilligan's and thought someone had stolen a baby giraffe from the zoo and stuck it in there. All i could see was the LONGEST SET OF LEGS i had ever seen! And then I realized they belonged to our roommate, Nick, who clearly had issues wearing clothes. He didn't seem to be bothered that he was only in his boxers; he stayed that way.

We re-named him Nearly Naked Nick, in honor of his affinity for near-nudity.

It wasn't until that night I remembered we were supposed to have spent the day snorkeling... and we'd missed the boat completely. Fortunately, we were able to re-book and headed out to the Reef on Day 3.