Potential Bed Bugs, Gale Force 5 & A Shark

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  Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Thursday, July 24, 2008

im not a hosteller and, im beginning to realise, a true bakcpacker in the hostelling sense of the word..  im not being spoilt or handbagesque or picky or snobby.  hostels just suck. and so do lots and lots of the people (teenagers) who stay in them and just show zero consideration for anyone else in the place (*more on this later).  they suck so bad that i dont ever want to stay in one again (even though i know im going to have to as i cant afford anything else.)

but for tonight at least ive checked into the country comfort inn and am treating myself to the luxury of my own room, a bed that has more covers on it than one skanky sheet, an aircon unit that hasnt been literally forced into a hole it doesnt fit into in the wall (square peg round hole kind of thing), a bathroom thats not covered in unidentifiable random hair and a soaking wet floor, a telly (in the room). there isnt a kitchen up the hall thats open all night until the clattering cleaners move in at 4am. theres isnt a communal area outside my door that has an unenforced quiet time.  theres hangers and an iron. and i love it.

3 nights ago i checked into a place called caravella 149 on the esplanade in cairns.  lovely place, lovely location, really really helpful staff that helped me sort out my diving, and an all-female 4-bed dorm with its own bathroom. luxury i thought.  my other 3 roomies all turned out to be the semi-quiet loving kind too and the first night passed relatively uneventfully (though i was woken at 04:26 by a clattering din up the hall in the kitchen which turned out to be the night kitchen cleaning staff washing every utensil in there and throwing what seemed like every piece of cutlery and crockery as loudly as they could into the sink in the process. 

tuesday passed fine, crap weather so i just read in bed til about 12 and then just pottered around for the afternoon. that evening the 4 of us from my room went for dinner (free spag bol in the wool shed - a classic pub affiliated with the hostel that holds table dancing night on tuesday night followed by wet t-shirt competition night on wed night - yes its a classic pub that wool shed.)  we headed back after a lovely massage in the chinese medicene area in the night market and went to bed around 11pm.  at precisely 02:34 i walked up to the outsidey common area to literally beg the rude noisy drunk loud people there to just please not scream and shout so loudly as theres no doors between it and the rooms (apart from the bedroom doors themselves) and all the sound just carries everywhere.  at 03:17 new people arrived in and started cooking up food in the kitchen.  at 04:39 i went out again to beg the kitchen cleaner upper people to just do it at 9am instead but was told they had to finish by 6am.  the result of which meant when i got up at 06:30 yesterday morning to head off on the liveaboard to the great barrier reef id had a grand total of one and half hours sleep.  i was NOT a happy camper and promptly cancelled my nights reservation for tonight.

anywa. the liveaboard.  well the weather the day i arrived, tuesday and yesterday were horrendous.  rain, wind (gale force 5) and cloufy. unfortunately the bay here in cairns is very sheltered so you dont realise just how windy it is til you go out of the bay and hit the ocean. the catamaran we went out in was pretty big but she was pitching and rolling like the best of them and pretty quickly they whole back deck was full of people wretching into paper bags and staring intently at the horizon.  about an hour and a half later we arrived out at the reef encounter boat which those of us living aboard transferred to.  what luxury!! a big sitting room / eating area with carpet and comfy couches and a bar. and because there were only 19 of us in total instead of the max of 65 or something, there was loads of room. AND even though id just booked the 3-bed multishare cabin i still got one all to myself!! duvet and everything. and a bathroom with a hot shower. put bloody caravella to shame i tell ya!!!

in the afternoon i did 2 dives. it was weird on this trip, you didnt get a guide included in the dives and you could pay for one if you wanted ($10 per person whether he/she went with one of you or 5 of you which i thought was very steep).  so they pretty much just let you go in on your own. first dive we walked in off the beach which was horrendous cos i didnt have enough weights on so i didnt sink and then we lost the guide and jsut figured out our own way.  the visibility was fairly rubbish too so not TOO much to see. plus at the end of the dives they didnt come pick you up in the boat, you had to surface swim back (which is tricky with your first dives in 3 months, 1.5 hours sleep the night before and gale force 5 winds/seas!!) i was WRECKED!!. but the food after the dives was awesome - mini chicken kievs, sausage rolls, tea with REAL (not powdered) milk - luxury. and soon i was all geared up again.  second dive was better, we saw a more fish and things.  later on then after an amazing diner i did the night dive which was terrifying!! in the similans the visiblity was great and there was no wind and really strong lights. here the vis was not good, the sea was choppy oh and i forgot to mention the sea temperature was a mere 22 degrees (not sure how to do the degrees symbol in this blog and it drives me mad!!) so was really cold compared to thailand and malaysia.   anyway 7 of us went down in the pitch pitch dark and swam about like lunatics looking for things (we found an epaulette shark which was awesome.)  last night then i tucked myself up in bed nice and early and slept for the nation of ireland. (allegedly the sea got up really bad during the night, storm force, really rocky. did i feel it? hell no!!)

today then i skipped the 06:30 dive, too unconscious but went in at half 8 and half 10 instead. we saw turtles (more than one) and also 2 blue spotted stingrays and 2 lagoon rays which rocked. oh and a lion fish and lots of batfish.  the weather was heaps better.  the other boat came out then and we transferred back across and after another snorkel stop we headed back here to cairns. which is where i am now. in my nice hotel :-)

oh yeah the backpacker rant - well ive decided im not going to write it now. i did write it but then i re-read it and realised that i know loads of people who did the things i was ranting about when they were in their early 20's and they loved it.  i think ive just realised im older now and just amnt into the same thing/lifestyle as lots of people who stay in hostels and therefore it triggers rants that are not justified.  god listen to me, i sound like im getting mellow and un-self righteous in my old age (are you proud mum?!!?)

right time to go to the chemist and get them to check the weird red marks on my arm to see if they are bedbug bites as i suspect (in which case thatll be another thing i hate about hostels!!!!)

missing you all heaps and heaps and heaps.
bye for now
intrepid travelling nic xx

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