Cairns, Queensland, Australia

  Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Saturday, November 29, 2008

We finally made it! The long and eventful journey from Darwin to Cairns finished today at around 2pm. Checked into a campsite as soon as we got there then went for a drive around the town, went grocery shopping then cooked dinner. In the evening we went for a walk down the esplanade which was very nice. The next day we visited the botanic gardens and centenary lakes. The botanic gardens weren't great but the lakes were nice. We spotted loads of turtles sitting on the rocks in the lake and some big fish swimming around. After that we drove into the city and booked the van in to be serviced the following morning. When we got back to the camp site there was a van of Irish on the site beside us, two blokes and a girl from Mayo and a bloke from Cork. We had good craic with them drinking on the camp site that night and were tempted to go into town with them but knew if we did we wouldn't get up at 6:30am the next morning.

Lake Centenary

The Lagoon

So we took the van to be serviced bright and early the next morning and just under an hour after we had dropped it off the mechanic rang us to tell us the van was unroadworthy and would cost $1,000's to fix up. He told us the best thing we could do would be to bring it to a scrap-yard where we might get $50 for it. In hindsight all we can say is what a bunch of a**holes there are working in Alan E West mechanics in Cairns. We felt like crying when he told us the news. I don't know if they just didn't have the time to work on the van (as it was a Friday and Aussies like to clock off early on Fridays) or was it that he had a deal with the guy in the scrap-yard around the corner that he was telling us to go to, we don't know. He told us there was a major oil leak in the van, (we haven't seen any patches of oil anywhere after we've parked it) and it would cost a couple of grand to fix that. He told us there were loads of other things wrong too but didn't go into it.
So when we left the mechanics shop, actually thinking of scrapping the van, we drove by a place called Travellers Autobarn, a company that rents and sells campervans to backpackers. So we stopped off to have a look and see what we could buy from them, get an idea of prices etc. But when the two lads in charge saw the van and had a look at the engine they said they couldn't in their hearts sell us a van even though they'd love to. They said the van was fine, that the mechanics were idiots who just weren't bothered working on it. They told us they'd give us $3,500 on the spot if they didn't have a policy not to buy painted vans but they said we'd easily get that sort of cash if we sold it to other backpackers. He told me the best thing to do about the so-called oil leak was to take it to a pressure cleaners, get down underneath the van and powerhose the engine with degreaser then bring it to his friend who has a mechanics shop on Monday and he'll be able to pin-point where the oil leak is. So thats what we did. Powerhosed the underside of the van and made an appointment for a service on Monday morning. At least we were in better spirits going into the weekend!

Lydia in the Botanic Gardens

Lydia & Karl

We spent the whole evening playing bingo, cards and drinking loads with the Irish on the campsite, great craic altogether and I think we kept the whole campsite awake til after 2am.
Didn't do much the next day apart from walk round the town for a few hours, mostly coz Lydia was on a shopping spree. We also booked our trip to the Great Barrier Reef. It was quite expensive but hopefully it'll be worth it. In the evening we went out with the Irish from the campsite. It was a good night but nothing too mad. Came back to the campsite about 2am to watch the rugby in the communal TV room. Shouldn't have bothered, didn't help that there was a kiwi in the room watching it with us!
Next day we went on the worlds longest cable car from Cairns over the mountains to a village called Karunda. The scenery along the way was amazing. After that we drove to a place called Yorkies Knob, a beach north of Cairns, it was quite nice there and we just sat around for a while and took a few pictures.

Lydia at Yorkies Knob

Karl on Cable Car

 The next morning we dropped the van in to be serviced at 9:30am, told the mechanic all the symptoms and it was finally ready for collection at 3:30pm. He fixed the two oil leaks and tweaked a few other things. It was sounding so much better when we started it up and couldn't believe it when he only charged us $150 (E75 for his days work). Happy again, we left for Port Douglas.