cairns - day 1

Flight from Hong-Kong to Cairns was 7h, went by in a snap. Got some good movies in and short sleep again. Arrival was great as always, after so many hours of flying any destination probably seems like the best one ever :) Once out of the plane had a small chat with immigration about my finances, when I'm expected back at the office (thought I can forget about the office for now, but nope), why I'm here, when did I start planning the trip and what sort of visas do the people hold that I'm gonna visit. Nothing too surprising I guess, customs was smooth as well - including the cleaning of my hiking boots. I've heard from various people of how they are very careful about the soil that gets brought in here with various shoes, so they deep clean them :) so they did for mine as well, my hiking boots came back nicely packaged :D

After 36h of traveling I figured I should just stay awake as long as possible. Napping in the middle of the day won't work for me as I won't be able to get out of bed, this in turn would mess up the whole rhythm of sleep. Only way to manage staying awake would be walking around. Quick shower at the hotel first, change of clothes and to the town I went.

Cairns is a small place as seen by locals, about 130 000 people (town size is expected to double within few years). My hotel is located 1.5km from the center - there is a nice Esplanade connecting this area to the city center, just about 1.5km walk. Town itself is nice, many eating places, a big mall, quite large marina, parks, water Laguna and little arts shops. Laguna is great - it is located right by the sea, but as the sea is not very suitable for a swim (muddy shore and not very inviting, I found also warning signs about alligators), they have set up a shallow pool with all sorts of fountains for people to swim in. During the day it is packed with people.

At the moment there is Carin's Festival ongoing with a tight program. Happened to find one outdoor live music performance in city center, in the evenings there are pub performances all over town - perhaps tomorrow I'll catch one of those too.

While working on staying awake and walking around town I booked my next 2 days. Tomorrow I will be going to explore Great Barrier Reef and the day after there will be white water rafting - a bit more of an adrenaline kick :) Both are day tours including lunch and a tight program. While looking for a place to have dinner I ran into 2 Estonians on the street :)

Managed to keep myself busy till about 4 in the afternoon, by the time I got back to the hotel the time was 4:45. Bit of unpacking and then preparing for tomorrow's trip, I was done at 5:30 and that is when I fell dead on the bed. Tiredness took over and my 13h beauty sleep started :)