All Seasons Esplanade Hotel Cairns

Up at 6am this morning to get ready for a whole day in the rainforest! Tour bus picked me up a little after 7 and we were off! Started off at Freshwater Train Station where we caught a cool old train up the mountain and through the rainforest to a town called Kuranda.  Walked around for hours and did lots of shopping! Got little gifts for my family and such! Then took a Skyrail back down into Cairns.  The skyrail is like a gondola that ...

G'day, today we were working flat out getting everything ready for the big party. So we made Claire a Halloween Birthday Cake including Little Marzipan Pumpkins (I ate so much marzipan while making them I thought i would be sick) and we also went out and bought a big watermelon and a pumpkin to carve up and stick in the garden. When the family came back from the wedding they had been at all day Poppy helped me finish off the ...

Cairns<br>So, got to Cairns after a bad night's sleep on an overnight bus.... arrived at 6am and went directly to the hostel I'd booked in advance so that I wouldn't have to roam the streets at 6am trying to find a hostel....<br><br>Only I couldn't check in til 2pm aaarhghghgh.... so having a coffee at 6am I wander how I'm going to kill 8 hours when all I want to do is sleep! So I have a wander round town.... Cairns is a small city.... like most Ozzie seaside places ...

... want to call it :-). It wasn&#8217;t the first time I had been snorkelling I had tried it in the Maldives, and enjoyed it as there wasn&#8217;t masses of sea life surrounding me, however I knew the GRB would be a totally different story, and I was actually quite excited. For Erika it was her final water ordeal and she was happy to see the last boat she will be travelling on for a while, lol. So as you should know by now Erika is not the greatest person around ...

I arrived in Cairns last week and stayed at a really small hostel where there was a Oz BBQ with Emu, Crocodile, and Kangaroo with salad all for 12 dollers. Then learned how to play the didgeridoo which was very strange. I then met up with a couple of friends that I met on the Whitsunday Island boat trip. They are really fun and whilst Rory spent his time at work, Katie and I chilled out by the lagoon for days drinking goon (cheap white wine in a ...

... at the town of Kuranda where we stopped and had lunch - lovely little town perched up in the hills. Of course I had to buy some lovely fudge as well :)<br><br>I was scared crapless to be honest. Its a very long way up and the return journey was worse - on the way back it was windy which rocked us around a bit. Of course it wasnt that bad, but i could imagine what it would be like when ...

... decided to do the west coast first so after going to Mission beach which is about 130KM south of Cairns we will spend a day or two in Townsville slightly further south then head in land working our way to Alice spring and Uluru (ayres rock) then we will head north and work our way down the west coast to Perth. After that we will work our way up the east coast to complete our journey!<br><br>A few of us are having a night at Casino again tonight as its mine and Jamies last ...

... the most of it as soon I'll be in New Zealand and in winter time!! Also, I'll probably even miss the British "summer" so while the suns here I'm not complaining at all!!! After sunbaking at the lagoon we'll head back to the hostel and have a shower then head for free food! There are 3 bars that offer free food although one of them only gives you free food if you stay at certain hostels. So we head to Rhino Bar which gives you a bowl of spaghetti bolognaise (which is ...

... the croc skins to designer companies! While there, I was able to hold a snake, baby croc, parrot, dingo (so cute!) & also check out the crocs - they were pretty fierce but I know now they're only really a threat if your in their terrotory - the water. They're really slow on land, which made me feel a lot more comfortable about going to Kakadu later on in my trip (where Croc Dundee was filmed)! I met back up with the girls in Cairns & we ...

... I saw to the dept of immigration and borders crossing - chill out and take a leaf out of Australia's books. There was one english couple who exceeded the tobacco limit by 100 or so ciggies - they just received an explanation as to the reason for their confiscation and sent on their merry way. Australia did not declare war on England and the tobacco industry as being an axis of evil. First impressions... Well first impressions are, well to be quite ...