galadriel1010 | Mad trip day 1: Cairns

I have photos, but only a couple, so I'll upload them with tomorrow's.

Today started far too early. Woke up at what I thought was half past eight, but was actually half past seven, and didn't realise until I was in the kitchen on my laptop.
Being up so early meant that I could head off into town early. I got fish and chips for breakfast at about half nine, which were very tasty, and wandered around the city centre eating them. Cairns is a bit like Bradford, but hot and on the sea, and all the foreign signs are in eastern Asian languages rather than southern Asian languages. And there's a lot more tourist places. Honestly, every other shop is a tour booking place, or a hostel, or a souvenir shop. This is a city which survives solely on tourist income from the Great Barrier Reef, which is fascinating to my tourism student mind.
Breakfast eaten, it was time for a bottle of cola from Woolworth's (not the Woolworth's we had back home, but it's still cool to see the place around) and then a further wander to find the booking office I needed to book my bus sectors. Finally found the place and settled down to wait, write and try not to fall asleep.
Two hours later - and I wish I were kidding - I finally got called up to the desk to talk to one of the assistants, gave her my trip details and told her what I needed. Five minutes after that I walked out of the building and tried to decide what to do next.
I decided to go to the Cairns Historical museum, which was absolutely fascinating, and I got chatted up by the elderly volunteer manning the desk. Well, he said that he would have gone for coffee with me if he hadn't had to get a bus in the afternoon and I weren't leaving so soon.
He also advised that I go up to Kakadu on the Skyrail, so I went from the museum to the tourist information office, where I waited for ages, again, and managed to get distracted by a rainforests and waterfalls trip for $99, so I tried to book that when she finally had time for me, but it was full so I booked on a very similar trip.
Pickup is at 7.50 in the morning, and I get to go swimming in plunge pools and walking through the rainforest and all sorts of awesome stuff.

After that was booked I went for another wander and bought a lot more cola and some bread rolls for dinner, and a pink rucksack to take stuff with me on short trips and wanders. Yes, that's three rucksacks.

That done, I came back to the hostel to use the internet, with the vague intention of going swimming, but I ended up staying in the lounge and watching National Geographic.

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