When we arrived in Cairns (Friday Nov 5th), we had heard great things about Gilligan's Hostel so we decided to check in there. Even though there are over 500 beds and it's the party hostel with a great bar and patio, the rooms were amazing, more like a hotel (aside from the four other people in our room and the bunk beds! :)) But a huge step up from the working hostel! :) It was pretty funny, it turned out that we were sharing our room with someone who had been at the working hostel until right before we arrived, so we had some laughs about that and some of the characters there.
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| At Gilligan's |
The first day, we went to the lagoon (since there is no real beach in Cairns) which was super packed but really nice and then we had some beers in our room and watched a movie on our computer. The next day, we shopped around for reef trips (again, like 100 companies all offering similar trips. Cairns is most known for the Great Barrier Reef because it is the closest city to the reef) and booked our flights to Darwin and Bali (Bali on Nov 13th!!). Too much work! so to relax we started out with some beers at Gilligan's in the beer garden where there was some live music, then we headed to the Blue Sky Brewery, a pretty cool pub we had read about. We had a pitcher of Reef Blonde which I thought was delicious but Dev was on the fence :) and then we checked out a locals pub, The Grand Hotel. It was pretty authentic and also had some live music. :)
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| Meg On Boat With Snorkel Gear |
Our flight to Darwin ended up being on the Wednesday (Nov 10), so we had three more nights in Cairns so we switched to a much cheaper hostel just outside of the city centre. Three nights were the same price as one at Gilligan's! and it had regular shuttles and free wireless internet! :) The main downside was that the air conditioning didn't work in our room, so we were pretty hot! :) I can hold my hand three inches from Dev's chest and can feel the head radiating from him sometimes! :) We hung around the hostel then caught the shuttle in to town do some errands and window shop. We checked out the Night Markets which are kind of like a flea market on the water and bought some souvenirs. Then we went to bed early to get ready for our reef trip the next day.
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| Dev's Sweet Moves :) |
We had to be at the reef terminal at about 7:30am, but were pretty excited as the reef in Cairns is supposed to be the best for snorkeling. We had opted for one of the nicer boats because we had heard that the outer reef locations were better and wanted to see the best the Great Barrier Reef had to offer! :) They served us coffee and muffins, yummy and we arrived at our first snorkel spot in a little over a hour. We had to wear these funny stinger suits that have feet, hands and hoods on them and look like baby pyjamas! :) The reef was amazing, really close and we could see like 15m below us crystal clear. The water was an amazing blue colour and there were all sorts of fish and coral, really crazy! Dev and I spotted a sea turtle and were able to get cool pics with it! :) (We bought a waterproof bag for my camera, seems a little suspect but worked great!)
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| Meg With Turtle (Lower Right Corner) |
We had three snorkel locations throughout the day and the next site was close by and also had amazing coral. Dev swallowed too much saltwater and felt pretty queasy so we went in after half an hour and settled down for a big buffet lunch! :) At the third and final snorkel site, the guide showed us a sea cucumber and we got some cool fish photos. We finished it off with about six squares of carrot cake and brownies! :) After we got back to the mainland, we went out for drinks and food at the Irish pub and headed back to the hostel. On our final day in Cairns, we walked out to the Botanical Gardens and the highlight of the day was definitely cheap Tuesday's at the Pizza Hut we had found near our hostel!
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| Dev Escaping the Darwin Heat |
We jumped on a shuttle the next morning to catch our flight to Darwin, which is the cheapest place to fly out of Australia to Southeast Asia. Our flight had some crazy delays so by the time we got to Darwin we were super tired and starving, nothing a Big Mac meal at McDonald's can't fix. I should note that it sounds crazy how much fast food we've eaten on this trip but it is actually the cheapest thing to eat here, often cheaper than groceries! We took a walk along the water and watched the sunset then had a craving for ice cream so bought drumsticks at the grocery store! :) By the way, it is crazy hot here, it was 37C one of the days and is about 80 percent humidity!!
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| Meg on the Esplanade |
The next day, we ran around the city looking for a place for Dev to get his Hepatitis A shots. I already had mine and we had done our research and decided he should get his too. We have also been taking some sort of B vitamin which apparently detracts mosquitoes and is an alternative to taking malaria pills, but Dev says I always smell like vitamins! :) We finished off the day with beers at our hostel, which has a pretty cool patio bar with a pool and hot tub, then went out for a pizza and beer deal down the street. We ate way too much though and fell right to sleep when we got home! :)
Today (Nov 12th) is our last day in Australia which is kind of sad because we don't know whether we'll get a chance to come back. Today, we've had loads of errands to run getting ready for Bali tomorrow, closing our bank account and getting cash, laundry, etc. but we did get some hanging out by the pool in there too :) It's not ever so bad! :) So we're on to the next part of our adventure, really excited!!
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