So we've made it to Auz, we got here by way of a somewhat unexpected flight however. Firstly we had booked Singapore-Cairns so were slightly confused when our flight was displayed "via Darwin". This was no real problem as we didn't have to change planes but literally get off, sit in a lounge and then get back on again, all this at 3am! The other unexpected thing was the plane itself. Having booked a BA/Qantas round the world ticket we would expect nice big planes run by either company especially for an 8hr intercontinental flight but no, not this time. We were on a relatively small plane with no entertainment whatsoever, no TV, no radio, nothing. I'm not spoilt but it's come to be somewhat standard really. Once again Megan slept for a couple of hours, I on the other hand did not....AGAIN! I tried and tried but it wasn't happening so i gave up & went to the other extreme and listened to hard rock on my iPod! The flight from Darwin to Cairns was a lot shorter and i did manage to get a few uneasy minutes of sleep in, enough to miss breakfast in fact! I know, shocking!
Whilst flying we could see that there was a lot of cloud but on landing we were greeted by pouring rain, gales and widespread flooding. Not great for our first morning in Australia, but we knew there is always a chance of "showers" in tropical northwest Queensland.
We got picked up by a minibus from our hostel, the "Travellers Oasis" and were taken straight there & shown around. Even in the rain it looked excellent and we both liked the look of it. Nice & cosy with 2 kitchens, plenty of showers/bathrooms, a TV room and a swimming pool (which was overflowing with rain when we were shown it) with sun loungers, chairs and hammocks surrounding it. Our room is decent too, nice and big with A.C. ($1 for 3hrs) a fridge and a sink. Definitely can't complain about this.
Cairns itself is pretty small, there isn't a great deal to it and what there is is geared towards tourists like us. Lots of people come here because it is one of the best places possible to get to the Great Barrier Reef from and also great to visit the rainforests here (which definitely get plenty of rain!) We went into town as soon as we'd got our stuff in and made some enquiries into the upcoming weather and the possibility of reef trips. They said it was clearing up and that boats go to a site which has the best weather (one company has 17 different sites to choose from) and they select the site on the day. We decided to go for it & booked ourselves onto a boat for Friday morning, being picked up at 7.25am. Megan is booked for 2 intro dives and I'm booked for 3 guided dives. We will be taken to 2 dive sites and lunch is included. We paid around $250 each (120 pounds at todays rate) which i think is a fantastic price.
Today we've mainly been relaxing but we also went into town & exchanged the piece of paper saying we have a train ticket for an actual ticket! It seems we're quite lucky as we plan to leave
on Saturday for Townsville but this train hasn't been running for about a week due to flooding. We have to be there before 8am to "check in our luggage". A very strange concept for us but long journeys are all part and parcel of travel in Australia and something we'll no doubt get used to in a few months! We also went into a camera shop and hired ourselves an underwater camera for $45 (20 pounds) which comes with massive memory (about 600 photos) and free burning to CD. The camera looks great, about 10 mega pixels (capable of 12 but we get more photos this way) and it also has a "macro" mode which is for close ups and gives extreme detail. It looks good & hopefully we'll have plenty of fish to take photos of tomorrow. We're both looking forward to it!!
Whilst flying we could see that there was a lot of cloud but on landing we were greeted by pouring rain, gales and widespread flooding. Not great for our first morning in Australia, but we knew there is always a chance of "showers" in tropical northwest Queensland.
We got picked up by a minibus from our hostel, the "Travellers Oasis" and were taken straight there & shown around. Even in the rain it looked excellent and we both liked the look of it. Nice & cosy with 2 kitchens, plenty of showers/bathrooms, a TV room and a swimming pool (which was overflowing with rain when we were shown it) with sun loungers, chairs and hammocks surrounding it. Our room is decent too, nice and big with A.C. ($1 for 3hrs) a fridge and a sink. Definitely can't complain about this.
Cairns itself is pretty small, there isn't a great deal to it and what there is is geared towards tourists like us. Lots of people come here because it is one of the best places possible to get to the Great Barrier Reef from and also great to visit the rainforests here (which definitely get plenty of rain!) We went into town as soon as we'd got our stuff in and made some enquiries into the upcoming weather and the possibility of reef trips. They said it was clearing up and that boats go to a site which has the best weather (one company has 17 different sites to choose from) and they select the site on the day. We decided to go for it & booked ourselves onto a boat for Friday morning, being picked up at 7.25am. Megan is booked for 2 intro dives and I'm booked for 3 guided dives. We will be taken to 2 dive sites and lunch is included. We paid around $250 each (120 pounds at todays rate) which i think is a fantastic price.
Today we've mainly been relaxing but we also went into town & exchanged the piece of paper saying we have a train ticket for an actual ticket! It seems we're quite lucky as we plan to leave
on Saturday for Townsville but this train hasn't been running for about a week due to flooding. We have to be there before 8am to "check in our luggage". A very strange concept for us but long journeys are all part and parcel of travel in Australia and something we'll no doubt get used to in a few months! We also went into a camera shop and hired ourselves an underwater camera for $45 (20 pounds) which comes with massive memory (about 600 photos) and free burning to CD. The camera looks great, about 10 mega pixels (capable of 12 but we get more photos this way) and it also has a "macro" mode which is for close ups and gives extreme detail. It looks good & hopefully we'll have plenty of fish to take photos of tomorrow. We're both looking forward to it!!
1 comment:
Neil missing breakfast??
Thats unheard of!!
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