Aus

Our flight arrived in Cairns at around 9am (9 hours ahead of England) and we sleepily got our bags and found a bus. As no one had told us where to get a bus from we paid $11 (£5.50) each for a bus to the centre of Cairns. A stupid man decided to tell us straight after we'd bought the bus ticket that we could have got a free bus. My first impression of Australians wasn't a good one. He was really rude to us and so I grumpily sat on my expensive bus into town. 

Cairns is a lot smaller than I thought it would be. It's definitely not a city. We were dropped off at our hostel and couldn't check in as it was still early but left our bags there. We quickly found a supermarket and, after nearly fainting at the prices, bought some bread and ham for brunch. The next three weeks ain't gonna be cheap. We sat on the esplanade (by the sea) and ate our sandwiches in the sunshine. Having not had much sleep we settled down on the grass after eating and had a nice nap for a couple of hours, breathing in the lovely smell of barbecues from the communal barbecues mere metres from us. It was lovely and sunny but a lot colder than Asia so we weren't quite used to the temperature. However, the nap made me feel a lot better and afterwards we went to check in our bags and get our swimming stuff so we could swim in the lagoon (a man made salt water pool). Unfortunately, the hostel was closed and had a 'back in 5 minutes' sign so we decided to have a stroll round town. We passed a greyhound store (the buses not the dogs) so went in to enquire about the cost of a bus pass as we'll need one to travel from Cairns down to Brisbane (we fly from Brisbane to Auckland on September 4th). An English guy helped us out but instead of telling us about the bus he told us about all of the things we can see between Cairns and Brisbane and all the tours we could do. After racking up a good amount of money on tours we were left to quickly decide whether to book them or not (tours get booked up quickly). I blame the sleepiness (and now hunger as we'd been sat in the travel shop for a good couple of hours) for our decision to spend a load of money on tours. We're not a huge fan of tours but it seemed like the only way to see all of these amazing things. This may be a decision we regret. 

As Australia is so expensive the luxury of eating out each night is not possible. Instead we found a big supermarket and bought some pasta and tomato sauce and peas for our tea as well as bread and peanut butter for breakfast tomorrow morning. It wasn't too expensive but eating out in Asia each night will still come in way cheaper. We cooked our tea in the kitchen at the hostel (good thing about Australian hostels is they all have communal kitchens) and ate it, feeling a little sad about how boring it was (although glad it wasn't rice). 

We chose to walk round the lagoon after tea and see what it looked like at night (all lit up) and then walked round the rest of Cairns (I did say it was small). There was deliberation over whether to get a drink but it was too pricey. Instead we walked through the night market (nothing on Asian markets) which was all expensive clothing and food. I miss Asian prices already! In the end we walked back to the hostel and had an early night as tomorrow we have to get up early to see the Great Barrier Reef. It's a hard life!