21st June - 1st July 2013
Back in cairns once again. I keep coming back here because its a cool place with beautiful secanary. But more importantly its warm and sunny! It's officially winter and even in Bundaberg it was far too cold for my liking so the obvious choice was to go further north to where its 25-30C and sunny. At least in theory.
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| Recognise this!? |
Hiro and Felix from the farm were also up in Cairns after their brief trip up the east coast so it was awesome to meet up with them again! I met Steve from the Isle of Man who was staying in Felix's room at Gilligans. He was an Australian newbie and had been in the country only 24 hours when I met him. Time to introduce him to goon then! That night we went out to Woolshed which is still just as awesome as it always was. Still good people, still good music and you can still dance on the tables!
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| It was Mexican Night |
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| Truely disgusting skittle shots! |
Second night in Cairns and we were talking into doing the Ultimate Party Bus tour. Not really sure why there needs to be a bus for this as all of the bars are within a 5 minute walking distance. I must have met and talked to at least 40 people that night from so many different places. I ended up in a sex position game with a Canadian! We didn't do very well!
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| Party Bus |
The day came for me to do something I meant to do the last two times I was in Cairns but never got around to it - Diving on the Great Barrier Reef! I was a little nervous of the dive given that I get really bad pain in my ears when flying and being in pain whilst underwater was something I was not looking forward to.
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| all strapped up and ready to go |
There were four of us in our diving group. Me and Steve and two asians who didn't really understand a word of english. We swam around to the side of the boat and one by one we were to go down 1 metre to a metal bar before decending the rest of the way. I was first and it was as I feared. Immediately my ears began to hurt. Holding my nose and blowing is something that has never worked for me when flying but miraculously it was working underwater but only a little bit. Steve floated down next to me no problem and then it was Asian number 1s turn. Down he came, up he went, back down, back up, threw up and then gave up! Asian number 2s turn - same thing! It must have been ten minutes me and Steve were bobbing just under the surface waiting for these two guys who eventually gave up. It was very frustrating!
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| Reef! |
Steve now fully annoyed at the delay and having dived many times before was desperate to get going and go down to the bottom as quickly as possible. This meant I was trying to force myself through the pain that was in my ears and I didn't want to delay us any further. I kept saying I was ok when I blatently wasn't until I couldn't force myself to go down any further and had to stop and signal that I needed to wait and sort my ears out. Eventually we got down and my ears still ringing a bit we set off amongst the reef.
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| More reefness |
I wish desperately that my ears weren't killing me coz it reunined it a little bit. Especially I was trying hard to not freak out about being underwater and in pain but I slowly began to enjoy it.
Then a shark swam by! ARGH
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| Shark |
The reef was really cool though. So much better than the one we snorkelled on in the Whitsundays. The were so many fish and the reef had these big canyon type channels. I found Nemo and had the best ever picture taken!
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| Nemo's cousins |
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| Winner of Best Picture Ever Award! |
After the dive which was about 40 minutes we had a bit of a snorkel and then ate lunch before going off to a different site. As I only really enjoyed the last 5 minutes of the dive I was able to be persuaded to do a second dive knowing that my ears wouldn't be as bad second time around. The second dive site wasn't anywhere near as good as the first one though unfortunately. All in all it was a really good day out and an amazing experience despite the issues and I would love to do it again. It was worth it just for the picture if nothing else!
It was time to settle down a bit in Cairns and look for a job. I had already lined up a job working for accommodation before I'd even got to Cairns which was helpful. I moved into Work and Play Backpackers (or Cairns Beach House as everyone knows it) and started working on the bar.
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| Entertaining ourselves |
It was the most basic bar in the world and there was about 3 customers a day to begin with. The hostel had recently been taken over by Nomads so they were busy improving everything and the bar wasn't very high on the list.
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| This bar is rocking |
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| Stretch, the chef |
The hostel itself was quite nice. Its in Cairns North which is about a 20 minuite walk into the city. It has a pool and obviously a bar. It was a very chilled out so sort of place. Boring at times. Even the hostel cat was found chilling out around the place occasionally...
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| Berlious the car |
The best thing about the hostel was the people. I made friends with so many people there, mostly staff, including the rest of the bar dream team Danielle, Martin, Sarah and Rachael. I managed to get Hiro a job on housekeeping too.
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| The Dream Team |
Felix went home. We had a last night out. Steve and him came to hostel coz I was working and we went out into town and said goodbye at the end. It was all very sad. Steve left to do the East Coast a few days later.
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| Felix is leaving :( |
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| I did not sign up for this weather! |
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| Staff on a night out! |
Working for accommodation sorted, new friends made and CVs printed ready for an epic job hunt I was ready for a couple of months in Cairns where there were many nights out and many MANY stories to be told.
To be continued...
