Cairns

Cairns 
Felt strange getting on my last greyhound bus Thursday morning, and to think that I’ve literally finished travelling up the east coast and at the last stop. The last bus was disappointing though, no USB charging for my phone and no wifi… Oh well, at least it was only 2.5 hours from mission beach. 
Cairns looked different to what I expected, I imagined it to look a lot like Sydney, full of tall buildings, but it was totally the opposite, spread out, smaller buildings, looked more town-like to me, but it was nice. 
I walked with a couple of others that were staying at the same hostel as me, ‘Gilligan’s’, I’ve heard from everyone I’ve met that has travelled from cairns that this hostel was amazing, nice and clean and party central, as they have a nightclub as well which is very popular here. 
After a short 10 minute walk, I arrived at the hostel. My room mates were lovely, I was placed in an 8 bed female dorm, 6 of them were German and the other girl was from

Bangladesh. It was nice as sometimes the girls would talk in German and forget that I couldn’t understand them, so they spoke in English while they were in the room with me, at least then I could engage in conversation! 
A couple of us headed to woolworths and then bought a couple of bottles of wine.. In which we had to sneak into the hostel as you weren’t allowed alcohol in the rooms. We headed to the club downstairs for the evening, it was ladies night, so they had free champagne for ladies between 10-11pm served by topless bartenders. Not sure if one of them was gay though as he had his belly button pierced and a Louis vitton logo tattoo behind his ear hahaha. It was a good night, the free champagne helped, only spent $6 on one drink! And felt extremely merry haha! 
The next morning me, my room mates and a girl we met last evening headed to palm beach on the bus, it took about 40 minutes. Spent the afternoon sunbathing and swimming in the sea, only a small bit of the sea was ok to swim in though, as they had a sting net set up. 
Later that evening after sneaking more wine into the room me and 3 of the other girls headed out again. Thankfully they had free champagne again downstairs! We then headed to a bar called ‘the woodshed’, I met Ali in there (the girl from Whitsundays and magnetic island). In the end it was just me and Neesh out, after a kebab lol we both got back to the hostel about 3am. 
The next morning I felt rough as anything, plus I had to check out at 10 and move hostels. I had booked into to another hostel for the remaining 4 nights, as Gilligan’s was more of a party hostel and I wanted to chill out until I fly to Melbourne… And try and save some money.. Although, 2 nights out had only cost me £40.. (£20) that’s better than home haha! 
I grabbed a taxi to nomads Hostel as its a 40 minute drive from Gilligan’s s, wasn’t too expensive, cost me about $10. After checking in I met Ali as she’s also staying there while G is on a 5 day diving course. We headed to the lagoon for the day, in the evening, I had an early night about 9.30. 
After the longest sleep ever, I got up about 9.30am, and headed to the lagoon with Ali about midday, the weather is so hot here, yesterday it was 36 degrees, luckily today it was a lot cooler and the wind was heavier! 
The next day didn’t start too well. Before I came to Australia I booked an Oz experience package, in which Included a trip to ‘Atherton Tablelands’ (the rainforest waterfalls) the Oz experience company emailed me to explain that I had to contact the company on the day I had booked my trip (Monday 30th) at 7am to let them know where I was staying. I then tried to phone them… No answer, 3 phone calls later, after half an hour, still no answer, so I left a couple of voice messages with my contact number. So until 8am for an hour I sat in reception not knowing what to do, no calls or nothing. So I decided to call them one more time, finally a woman answered… Who then mentioned that the tour bus had already left, I got quite angry on the phone, said that i he phoned all morning and no one answered. Luckily the driver came back and picked me up….. So the day didn’t start too great. 
Luckily the day got a lot better, there was about 20 people on the tour, we visited all the waterfalls, even the waterfalls where Peter Andre’s ‘Mysterious Girl’ music video was filmed, also the herbal essence advert. So we spent the day swimming and learning about the local area, it was really fun and interesting! The last stop we visited a lake, we all went for a swim…. I had to get out after about 20 mins, as I was bitten on the arse by a catfish hahaha!! Bloody hurt! It was a long day though, an 8am start and I didn’t get back to the hostel until 8.45pm zzz. I pretty much went straight to bed! But I had a great day! 
The next day I got the bus into the city and had a mooch about, then headed back out in the evening, where I watched locals take part in ‘Christmas Zumba’ near the lagoon, also they had a choir on singing Christmas carols. It was nice, but made me miss home! I caught the bus back to the hostel at 7pm, packed my bag for my flight then next day and had an early night after a couple of ciders in the bar!