Oct 22 - Trips and Lagoon

Slept until noon again today, because, well, it was rainy and there's not much to do in Cairns. But today we got to start the day off awesomely with toast, eggs and chocolate milk then split a fresh mango. Breakfast (or lunch if you go by the time we ate) of champions. After surfing the internet until it became boring, we headed out and got quotes from a couple places for the 3 trips we want to do while we're in Cairns. Everyone was basically the same price, so we went with Peter Pan's, who we had booked Fraser Island and the Whitsundays through. So on Sunday we will be doing a day on the Tully river's grade 3 and 4 rapids in a whitewater rafting adventure. Monday we will take a boat out to the Great Barrier Reef and get our fill of snorkeling and do an introductory scuba dive. Tuesday we take a bus up to Cape Tribulation to walk through the rain forest and cruise the croc-infested Daintree river on a (big) boat. So fun is coming up soon and our bank accounts became lighter a few hundred dollars in a matter of minutes. But it's the only time we'll be here, so may as well do it right. The one thing that sucks is the pickup times for the 3 days are 6:40, 6:45 and 7:25 (all AM) then a flight at 5:20 AM on Wednesday that we need to leave for the airport by 4 for. So our days of sleeping til noon will come to an abrupt end beginning Sunday morning. That being said, it's a lot easier to get up and be motivated for the day when there's fun and adventure ahead instead of having to kill a day in Cairns.

B needs some new shirts, so we browsed several shops for something and went through the mall here, but nothing tickled his fancy. I was tired of my shirt though (all stretched out), so I picked up a new tee and threw mine away. We walked to the big public lagoon (sand-fringed swimming pool) and went along the oceanfront boardwalk (AKA the Esplanade) but the ocean here and the "beach" are nasty - all muddy and the water is murky brown, and there's no swimming due to crocodiles regularly in the ocean water here.

Back at the hostel we had our crappy free dinners of tiny proportion but were plesantly surprised with 2 for 1 drinks, so we enjoyed 2 schooners of beer at a time for $5 (schooners here are smaller than pints) and chatted with our roomies and some other folks. There was a live band playing 90s rock that were quite enjoyable then a DJ afterwards and some dancing may have ensued. Then a nice hot slice of pizza (the perfect finish to a night) and sleep.