Cairns

After our first night in our school/prison like room, we woke up after a reasonable nights sleep. We had no supplies so we made our way to woolies to buy a loaf of bread and some peanut butter. The first great difference from Melbourne is the weather. It wasn't even 9am and we were already in shorts, tshirt and flip flops.

After breakfast we made our way to the esplanade which has a giant man made swimming Lagoon. Cairns has no beach and its not really safe to be in the sea due to the mangroves leading up to it and the chance of salt water crocs (too many things that could have you here). After a pleasant morning of sunbathing and swimming in the Lagoon we strolled back to the hostel for lunch. It's only a 3 block walk so the hostel is in a great location if nothing else. For lunch I picked out a mini Hawaiian (my new favourite) and pepperoni pizza from the bakery whilst Blake opted for a salad that she found in the reduced section. Having lived the Melburnian lifestyle for two weeks with Australias expensive prices we're back to strict traveller budgets so $5.50 in total for lunch wasn't bad.

After lunch we strolled back to the Lagoon to continue for some more sunbathing and swimming, topping up our almost distant tan from Fiji. On our way back we saw an advert for the hop on - hop off bus tickets to Sydney at a discounted price of $389 (instead of $445) we'd been debating over the last couple of days between this, a car or a camper van and this price made the decision for us. We're now the proud owners of a pass and have 3months to slowly make our way down to Sydney.

Dinner consisted of a veggie stir fry, another cheap and cheerful meal, but I actually quite enjoyed it. We also cooked so much we had to microwave it halfway through as it got cold. After dinner we decided to walk further down the esplanade as its all lit up at night. We scoped out two exercise areas with bodyweight equipment which we said we would visit tomorrow evening (we'll see). We may have also stopped at an ice cream shop Maddy recommended called Cold Rock. We shared a small creation called for-a-rare-share which was Ferrero ice cream with smashed Picnic, Ferrero Roche and Nutella mixed into it. It was delicious, but marked our last treat we told ourselves!Read more