Arrival in Paradise!

Friday June 20, 2008

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We leave Sydney early in the morning and battle rush hour traffic to get to the airport. Amy is incredibly happy that she never has to drive in Sydney ever again. We hop on the flight to Cairns which is about 3 hours. We land in a tropical paradise. It's warm and sunny the second we exit the plane. There are forested mountains everywhere and palm trees and the most amazing blue skies with little white clouds. We hop in our minivan and head off to Trinity Beach, about 20 minutes from Cairns proper. Along the way, I take tons of pictures (always including the sky, which I think is my favorite part of Cairns) and we see cattails/foxtails along every highway. We can't decide if they're cultivated or not, but they're everywhere in neat square boxes.

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It's so much easier to drive here than in Sydney, but I'd have to say that driving in NZ is much easier than driving in AUS at all. There are lots of roundabouts here, which we're used to now, but here, they're massive and may involve being in the correct lane which can be a bit confusing. Once we got to the hotel, we took stock. Our apartment is very very cool. Hopefully, the pictures do it justice. When you walk in there's a large kitchen with an eat-in bar and then a cute glass and iron table in the living room. We have a comfy couch and chairs and a huge TV. Coming off of the living room is the porch with big sliding glass doors. Outside we have a chaise lounge and another nice big round table. Our room faces the ocean, and is right over the pool. I can hear the waves right now even with the doors closed. At night, we fall asleep to the sound of the waves crashing and the palm trees rustling. Down the hallway in between the living room and kitchen, there are 3 bedrooms and a bathroom. The bedroom straight ahead has 2 twin beds and that's the one Mom took. If you turn to the right, there's another bedroom with 2 twin beds, and that's where Riss and Tricia are. Next to them is the bathroom and laundry. To the left of Mom's room is the master bedroom, with an ensuite bathroom, a tv and a large king/queen bed. Amy and I got that room, because in Sydney, Larissa and Tricia got the ensuite.

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Once we settled in, we all changed in bathing suits and headed down the street to check out a bathing suit shop we saw on the way in. Then, we walked down to the corner restaurant, L'unico's where we had lunch. Amy and I excused ourselves early and went down to the water where we ran right in. It was warm, warmer than at home and once you got past the inital pebbly stage, the sand underfoot was the softest, most fine sand I've ever seen. It's like spa sand, like if you do a mud wrap. Riss, Tricia and Mom all joined us a little while later and we spend the remaining sunlight time in the water. I got out to try to catch some sun on the sand, but it didn't last long. i did find some huge quartz rocks on the beach that I plan to take home and get polished. Once it started to get cooler, we headed back to the apartment and tried out the pool. It was cold and the jacuzzi was lukewarm. Also, Amy jumped in the pool and landed on her knees, really bashing them on the pool floor, so she headed back up the room to ice them. We followed shortly thereafter. Once we were showered and dressed, we went to Cole's - our new favorite grocery store - and got supplies since we'd be here for a week. Tricia also got more Bueno bars.

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After that, Riss and Amy went down to L'Unico's and flirted with boys at the bar. I went down to the beach and took pictures of the huge moon over the water.

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