Cairns

I had an early afternoon flight from Singapore, which took 7 hours to reach Brisbane. Once there, I had another 6 hours waiting around before my flight to Cairns. I managed to get some sleep in the airport though so it wasn't too bad.

I arrived mid-morning into Cairns and, after some tips from people on the plane, headed straight for the esplanade. This was where all the main backpacker places were and I managed to find one that wasn't as expensive as I was expecting. Throughout my time in Asia, I've had constant warnings about how expensive Australia is so I could hardly have been surprised. Thankfully, this hostel wasn't too bad but I'm also told it gets worse the further down the coast you go. We shall see.

After checking in, getting some breakfast and feeling surprisingly fresh considering I'd been flying all night, I went to explore Cairns. A smaller place than I was expecting so it didn't take me long to get a feel for the place and find my bearings. It was a nice day so I also took a long walk along the esplanade for some nice photos.

That afternoon, I joined the masses in chilling by the lagoon right out the front of my hostel. Met a couple of Essex girls (Jordana and Hayley) and hung around with them for a few hours. The rest of the time was spent soaking up the sun. Have had lots of rain in Borneo and Bali over the past month so was nice to have some heat again. Here's hoping it continues.

That evening, I decided to try my hand at some Knee-Boarding and Wake-Boarding at a place just outside Cairns. It's basically a small lake, with cables going round in a circle to pull you along. Met a cool Aussie guy called Jake and a fellow Englishman called Ed.

Upon arrival, the advice from the staff was to try Knee-Boarding first to get used to the cables, before attempting Wake-Boarding. Whereas the other guys ignored this and went straight into it, I took their advice and could instantly see why they had said it. The others were falling off instantly whereas I got the hang pretty quickly and managed to stay on for a few Laps. Quite tough on the arms but really good fun.

Once I'd got the hang of it, I was ready to give Wake-Boarding a try (some of the others were now trying Knee-Boarding at this point - haha). Unfortunately, my kneeboarding skills didn't really help much though because I wasn't able to stay up long enough to put them into practice. Wakeboarding is really tough and it's very hard to get your balance as we all found out the hard way over the next hour. Good fun trying though and it's much more enjoyable failing at that than it is at Surfing. I'd like to give it another try at some point. A cool evening and a really good laugh. A quality first day in Australia.

Day 2: Another glorious day and therefore another day spent sunbathing and relaxing by the lagoon. Be rude not to really wouldn't it!

A chilled evening in preparation for the start of my OZ Experience pass the following morning. This is a guided tour and hop on / hop off bus service that runs down the coast to Sydney. Supposedly a good way to see the coast on a short time-frame and also a lot of fun. Let's hope so.