Cairns was a 3 hr 20 min flight from Melbourne and I lost another hour, I am now 12 hrs ahead. I arrived around 6.30pm in the evening and it was a short taxi journey to the hotel. Wow! The heat and humidity is something else, it reminded me of August in Spain when you get off the plane or Florida when you add in the humidity.

You could see from the plane the remains of the flooding post Typhoon.

I was anxious as it was drawing darkness and I was unable to get into the hotel without a keycard, which I couldn’t get until I checked in……chicken and egg! The hotel was broadly locked down with big iron gates which was not helping my anxiety with regard to Cairns and my safety. Thankfully a kind resident let me in. No way am I going out again tonight!

I naively thought I am staying in the Ramada it will be lovely, not the Ramada Wyndham, it reminded me of a mixture of 1970’s Spain & and motel, a constantly dripping shower, terracotta tiles etc however, it was clean and luckily I wasn’t hungry after such a lovely lunch before I left Melbourne, fingers crossed things look better in the morning.

It so did, I was up and out early, again the heat and humidity from early morning is quite something. Cairns is a relatively small city, broadly on a grid and surely to goodness even I can manage this without getting lost, the hotel despite all its faults seems to be in a pretty safe area and was a very short walk to the promenade alog the waters edge, so beautiful. No swimming because of the Crocs here! It wasn’t long until I came across the man made Lagoon area, so nice (pics below).

I walked through the Marina area and then through the town to a big shopping centre, shops for all tastes and requirements. I am limiting my purchases until after my flight to Brisbane due to weight restrictions on the internal flights so I only got a couple of t-shirts and shorts.

I had seen some nice places along the Marina that looked nice for lunch so dropped off my purchases, changed into my beachwear and headed to the Lagoon for a swim and cool off. It was like a bath and it wasn’t long before I was dry again.

A lot of the pubs/restaurants in Oz work on an order your food take a number/buzzer and then go an order what you want to drink, I fancy getting served today as I am about to join my g-adventure trip this evening and most of the places for food work as above, so I found a really lovely little restaurant called Tha Thai which confusingly was Thai and had lunchtime specials menu. I had a really beautiful prawn linguine with a glass of wine (part of the special lol) for $25.

On my way back to the hotel I decided to go up in the Eye as you do which gave me a great view of the town, bay and lagoon.

Next up I meet the guys I will be travelling with and guide for the g-adventures tour – there is talk that Daintree rainforest is closed due to Typhoon and its associated rain ……I will soon know.