Howdy Pardners'!
Monday 4th February
So, after arriving at the skrake of dawn and waiting it out for a while with very little sleep, we decided to try and get our bearings and have a walk around town. Luckily, Cairns is more or less in a grid so navigating our way around the streets was pretty easy. Got the usual tourist brouchers to try and plan our trip around the East Coast and see what they had to offer. (The cheapest, but best, of course!). As Cairns is built with backpackers in mind there was a lot to look through and choose from. Some might say too many...it all gets very confusing!!
FINALLY made it to the 2pm check-in at Gilligan's and got to our nicely air-conditioned room! It was a crackin' room with lots of space and a private bathroom. Felt like a little taste of luxury again lol Just managed to beat our 2 male Canadian roomies to the room so we bagged the best beds! Ladies first and all that!
Decided to take a dip in Gilligan's pool and have a nice refreshment...alcoholic of course! Pool was gorgeous and managed to waste away a few more hours in the day doing absolutely nothing! It can be hard work doing nothing at times...you may laugh...but it is! You should all give it a go if you get the chance lol
So becoming true backpackers it was time to hit the Supermarket and stock up on cheap branded food....think Tesco value meals and you get the idea! Anyway, turned out micro-meals are also out of our price budget so we hit cheap aisle for 99 cent pasta and beans! Woo hoo...gourmet food all the way. It was also here that we discovered a Tim Tam World. There must be at least 20 varieties and I'm definitely on a mission to devour every single one! Back to the sauna-kitchen we went to whip up our culinary delights lol It's amazing the sh*t you'd eat when you're hungry...and poor!! Did we mention how much we now appreciate our Mums' home cooked meals! Not to mention Gracie's apple tarts.
Not a lot else was done that evening and we'd been up all night and weren't exactly energised and nourished by our 'meal' so we finished the evening with a bottle of wine and chit chatting to some of you on the internet! Ear plugs in and eye masks on to combat the ever snoring Canadian Companians and eventually got a good nights sleep....until 1pm the next day! Hey, a girl needs her beauty sleep!
Tuesday 5th February
Late start to the day but what a day it would be...We decided to hit The Esplanade which had a blue lagoon in the center of town beside the ocean. It was absolutely idyllic as you will see from the photographs posted. Spent a while there cooling and tanning ourselves in the water before heading over to finally book a couple of excursions for the East Coast and our Greyhound bus passes all the way to Melbourne. As Ole Smokie once said "We've got a long way to go, and a short time to get there...we're gonna do what they say can't be done!" And by God we mean it!! Got booked for a mini 3 day / 2 night cruise around the Whitsundays and also for a tour around Fraser Island.
Sat down and tried to plan the rest of the places we hope to hit over the next 6/7 weeks along our way. Decided the next stop will be Mission Beach on Thursday. After that we headed back to get showered and changed into some more appropriate attire for our next big event....OUR TATTOOS!!
Yes, you read it right...we went and got all inked up! It was a spare of the moment thing...we just went in and rolled up our sleeves and hey presto...Tats! Only kidding...would we really do a thing like that! We had it all already planned with what we were getting, where we were getting it, and with laminated stensils in hand we arrived at the shop fully prepared!
Turns out tattoos hurt like hell...it's not like we expected to be ticked by the needle but after 1hr 15mins you kinda get the feelin' someone is takin' the piss!! But our tattoo artists Shane and Dane were great craic and I think we managed to keep them entertained too! Joy got a tribal design on her lower back (which meant the ass was hangin' out for the world to see) and Laura got swirly writing going down her spine saying "Dream as if you'll live forever, Live as if you'll die today" Quite apt for our journey through the tropics that this world is! Anyway, check out the pics to see what you think! And we know we're gonna have them when we're 70 but we're still gonna look hot when we're 70 so what's your point?!
So, to numb the pain and bloodied backs we decided to hit the bars! Jug of beer $8 on happy hour...who could be bad to that?! Stumbled home very merry and sent a few emails...unfortunately they were no longer in our sent box the next day so we have absolutely no idea what exactly was said...apologies everyone! But if you can't take a joke...!
Joy decided to hit the sack while Laura stayed on the internet. Just as she was settled in and feeling the quiet lul of dreamland she was wakened by a bump in the night when one of our roomies arrived back...but he wasn't alone! After a lot of non-pleasurable "noises" they headed to the bathroom and a red-faced Joy scampered out of the room in search of Laura! Bearing in mind she was half dressed, no shoes, no money and no KEY!!! Locating Laura 15 mins later after a frantic search, she filled laura in on all the moan by moan details!
Braving the room an hour later (which is ample privacy time don't ya think?) we found him flat out asleep and his "guest" no where to be found...all she'd left was her hot pink cheap plastic neck garland! Skank! Oh, the things that girl was being called that night after Joy missed out on an hours sleep ha ha Drama over, joy finally got to sleep at 6am.
Wednesday 6th February
Turns out Cairns isn't that big after all, and with not a lot to do due to having to avoid water and sunlight on our new tattoos we decided to take it easy and head over to the Esplanade again with our ipods and books for company as we're already sick lookin' at each other and it's only 3 weeks in.... Boy it'll be a long trip lol
So proving that Laura can in fact sleep anywhere she fell asleep on a hard wooden deck and stayed there for an hour while Joy decided to play Paparazzi and take pictures of the poor sleeping Baby! Later, hungry after our busy day, we saw a sign advertising $5 steak dinners in PJ O'Briens. Racing eachother to the door for fear of a shortage we made it just in time of Joy's 20 minute feeding rule with 2 steak and chips dinners and a drink each! This is what we pictured when we thought of the Wonderful land of Oz...cheap food and cheap booze (and now we know you also get cheap ho's in your room late at night)!
Still excited by our tattoos we decided to take a few up close and personal pics so we could examine them more closely! Upon which we noticed...A FLAW!!! Yip...Laura's was missing an apostrophe! Kid's today and their grammar! So it was back to the tattoo studio we headed to get the tat fixed up! All fine and dandy now! Back to the hostel and packed up for our departure the next morning and ran into our roomie who apologised for his seedy misdemeanor the night before and admitted it was in "bad taste". We just laughed it off and made sure he knew not all Irish girls are the same (the ho from the night before was also Irish!). Got to bed around 1am and had to get up early the next day for our bus journey to Mission Beach.
So that's you all up to date as much as we are and you'll just have to tune in again next time!
Holler at ya soon
J & L xx
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