cans, the promised land

We pull up to the transit mall in the wee hours of the morning, load our stuff, and walk many, many blocks to Travelers Oasis, the hostel that Nadine worked at and recommended. They are full, but ship us over to Tropic Days, their sister hostel a few blocks farther.

Tropic Days is AWESOME. It is basically two converted houses side-by side. There is a pool, a TV room, a reading living room, 3 kitchens, tables in the garden, several bathrooms, and no bunk beds. They are manic about cleaning here at Tropic Days. In addition to stripping the beds and washing linens, changing toilet paper and mopping bathroom floors, sweeping common areas and taking out the trash, they SCRUB THE STAIRS and WIPE THE WALLS and BRUSH THE CEILINGS. EVERY DAY. Every time one of the workers walks through the kitchen, s/he wipes over the counters and puts away drying dishes. The workers run around cleaning frantically half the day and the other half of the day they clean with less energy. After the second day, Naomi and I were exhausted from just watching.

After checking in, we booked our assorted tours and transportation for the next few days and then took a looooooooooooong walk to the Botanical Gardens. These were not open parkland like in Sydney, but rather like a dense jungle with a walkway through it. On the way, we passed Cairns Central Swamp, which implies that Cairns has more than one swamp? We walked through an Australian cemetery which is just like the American ones, only you can't put fresh flower because mosquitos. We also walked through an Aboriginal garden which was pretty boring. I did enjoy the fernhouse portion of the botanical gardens. It was cool and wet.

Next, we headed towards the esplanade so that we could enjoy the Cairns beach en route to the “lagoon” pool. Since Sydney, we have been eagerly awaiting our arrival in warm, sunny, providential Cairns. It is our promised land. Everyone we met was heading up there. Cairns' sunshine and blue beaches beckoned! As we marched the blocks to the ocean, we saw it!

The brown, muddy banks of low-tide Cairns.

NOT a swimming beach, hence the lagoon. But not even as pretty as Airlie Beach. Sigh. We settled down on the lagoon grass and bake.

When it gets cold, we start the trek home, but thankfully find our hostel shuttle to take us. My feet are dead. I eat pasta for dinner and watch Master Chef.

Australian thing of the day: Cherry Ripe dark chocolate/coconut/cherry candy bar, Thai red curry flavored tuna, and McDonalds 50 cent ice cream. All good, but not good enough for repeats.