More Cairns

June 29, 2008

...continued

I checked myself into the Bohemian Central Hostel. Caroline went for dinner with some other people, but we agreed to meet up later for drinkies. Meanwhile, I had made plans with Tim for dinner. We were both interested in trying kangaroo steak! Yes, I had heard that the soft fuzzy skippy critters were delicious, and we both wanted to try it. There was supposed to be a good place in town that served it, along with “100 beers from around the world.” I was sold. They knew my weak spot... fancy beers!

The girls Tim was traveling with ended up finding a hotel but Tim wanted to stay in a hostel. He didn’t want to spent $25 sleeping on the floor in the hotel room when he could instead spend $25 sleeping in a bed in a hostel. He ended up staying at Bohemian Central, too, and by coincidence got put into my room (being that it was the last room left). It was time for steak!

When we got to the restaurant, Paddywhack’s, I investigated the beer menu. Tim confessed that he was interested in quality beers, too, but didn’t know as many as I did. I promised to show him something good. Paddywhack’s, did indeed, have a nice beer selection. They had exactly one bottle of The Forbidden Fruit left. I told Tim that the single bottle of Forbidden Fruit that I drank in Amsterdam three years prior had changed my taste of beers forever. He decided to try it out. Meanwhile, I got myself a James Squire Amber Ale, a nice Australian ale which they had on draft. We both ordered the kangaroo steak for dinner. Oh wow, was it ever good.


Sure it was expensive (AU$30), but it was so worth it. Kangaroo meat can apparently get tough and chewy if it’s cooked too much. That’s why the restaurant only served it medium-rare. It was a little gamey, too, but that didn’t detract from the really nice flavour. Now you know the truth about kangaroos: cute AND delicious.

After demonstrating our skills as carnivores, Tim and I met up with Caroline and her friends for drinks. We went to The Wool Shed, which is one of the popular bars for tourists in Cairns. Cairns doesn’t have many sights of its own, but it’s got a lot of bars and places to party (if you’re into that thing). That night I was! Caroline’s friends were Dee (from England), and Bendy and Angus from Sydney.

The Wool Shed had cheap drinks (two low-quality beers for AU$6), so we partook of a few. After a short time, the night’s entertainment begun. It was pretty redonkulous! GOLDFISH RACING.


There were two tanks, er, tracks. There were eight fish, each from a different nation (including Mister X, from parts unknown). The crowd was able to bid on the rights to be the aqua jockey for one fish that night. I briefly bid on the Canadian Fish, but once the price reached about AU$15, I let someone else take over. The fish would race each other one at a time. The aqua jockey was not allowed to touch the fish or the water, but was equipped with a straw that they could use to induce the fish to swim towards the finish line. After several rounds of fierce competition, Nemo, the fish from Australia claimed victory.

After the aqua jockeys parted the field, much drinking and dancing ensued. Fun was had by all. The Wool Shed was much like Cheeky Monkey’s in Byron Bay. The place played cheesy music, was filled with tourists, and people danced on the tables.

Eventually, everyone left except for Tim and two of the four girls he was traveling with. It was getting late and they were hungry, so we decided to go to the Esplanade for kebab. While we were sitting there on the patio waiting for our kebabs to be prepared, the Australia girls at the table beside us started singing. Oh my god, they were singing songs from Flight of the Conchords. I am not kidding. The one girl knew the song “Brett, you got it going on” from heart. I told them that I was also a FotC fan and I found it funny how I saw going for kebab with girls after a night of partying. The exact same thing happened in FotC episode 1! After that, they started singing lines from “Part Time Model.”



The three American kids hadn’t seen the show or the band, so they didn’t understand why I thought the situation was so awesome and why I couldn’t stop laughing.

June 30, 2008

Tim checked out of the hostel and went with his girls back to Sydney. They were taking classes there to further their education. He was taking a wine tasting class for credit at university! The things the Americans call “education,” heh heh.

I didn’t do much else this day. I spent some time on the internet uploading blog entries that I had written while I was slacking off at Cape Trib. I booked myself a very expensive one way airline ticket (AU$480) from Cairns to Darwin for later that week.

That night, Caroline came back from her day trip. She was very excited! She had gone whitewater rafting on the Tully River. She said it was really really good. I wanted to go rafting, too. I was originally reluctant to do it because of the cost (AU$185) and because I doubted it would be anywhere nearly as good as the rafting I did on the Ottawa River the year before. She said it was really good, so I impulsively decided to book it for the very next day.

For dinner, we had the cheapo hostel meal: AU$8 for spaghetti bolognaise and one cheapo beer. It was a good deal. Soon, Angus, Bendy, and Dee joined us and we played a game of Monopoly. They wanted to use all of those lame optional rules that make the game longer (like getting money for landing on Free Parking), but I held my ground and disallowed them, arguing that the game would go too long (that’s the Keizo and Greg influence on me!). The game ended up running to midnight anyways. I came in second!

July 1, 2008

Gaak, while I was trying to sleep, my three drunken roommates came back at 4:30 AM and made a huge racket. They chatted for about fifteen minutes and even turned the lights on! One of the problems of sleeping in hostels is that sometimes you end up with rude and inconsiderate roommates. I got my revenge, though, at 6 AM when I had to wake up for my rafting trip. I turned on the light and clanked around to grab my dishes so I could have my muesli, banana, and soy milk breakfast. That would show them!

It was a two hour bus ride to the Tully River. On the way, the bus driver told us that Tully high school had some very famous students in its history, including Nicole Kidman, Kylie Minogue, and Heath Ledger. Well laa tee dah.

The rafting was good. My tour company was Raging Thunder. There was eight people in a raft, including the guide. The guide, Hah Kee, was from South Korea and confessed that it was his first time rafting (ha ha!). Other than our joker of a guide, I was the only one who had rafted before. I made sure that I sat at the front of the raft. I wanted the full experience! I wanted all the water HEAD ON!

I had rented a wet-suit top for the day (cost was AU$6). Good thing, too. Even though the sun was warm, the water was chilly and there were lots of shady sections. I was still shivering at times. My tolerance for cold really had gone down hill.

Nevertheless, the Tully River was a different animal than the Ottawa River. The rapids weren’t as big (most on the Tully were rated three or four, but the ones on the Ottawa were fours and fives), but there were more of them, and many many more rocks to contend with. There were fewer sections of normal river between the rapids. There was more action, more often. I highly approved of it.

I accidentally fell into the water in the rapids twice. I bounced off a few rocks. I scratched my bottom. I lost one of my aqua socks (not that that really bothers me). We got to bodysurf for one set of rapids (bodysurfing is when you jump in the river and traverse a set of rapids without the aid of the boat -- it’s easy to do since you’re wearing a lifejacket -- and extremely fun). I went swimming a few times, too -- once when the guide from another boat tricked me (“Hey! Look at the koala nest!”) and pushed me in with his paddle. I think he was getting revenge for all the water fights that I started.

After we returned to the Raging Thunder cafe in the quiet town of Tully, we had the opportunity to buy photographs. They were extremely expensive (AU$26 for only two photos on a CD), but had the proofs sitting on the table. I took a picture of the proofs with my camera. My photos of the photos didn’t end up looking that great, but you get what you pay for!

Here’s a photo of me coming very close to falling out of the boat. I didn’t end up falling out (that time!), though. My legs flew up in the air and I managed to right before myself before tumbling out into the water.


I got back into Cairns about 6:30 PM. I showered so that I didn’t have to smell like a river anymore and met up with Caroline, Dee, and Angus for dinner at The Wool Shed. It was CANADA DAY! Rumour had it that there were drunken Canadians had been wandering around the streets of Cairns that afternoon (it wasn’t me! I had an alibi! I was rafting). I had to find a way to express my Canadianness. Caroline (the other Canadian in my crew) was wearing her Great Big Sea t-shirt, complete with maple leaf. I didn’t have any Canadian t-shirts. I did, however, have my maple leaf Joe Boxers! They even had the word CANADA written on them. I originally thought about wearing them on my head as a bandana (don’t worry, they were clean!), but I decided it would be more fun to wear them on top of my pants.


The Wool Shed was minimally decked out to celebrate Canada Day. There were a few small posters with mounties, beavers, or Bullwinkle J. Moose (who wasn’t even Canadian -- he was from Frostbite Falls, Minnesota!), and a few red and white balloons. To be honest, I expected better decorations since The Wool Shed is a bar for tourists and there are a LOT of Canadian tourists in Australia. We stayed there for dinner and a couple drinks and went back to Angus’ hostel to play some Monopoly. It was time for a rematch!

Caroline had bought herself some premixed cans of Canadian Club and cola. I didn’t find any Canadian beer at the bottle shop, so I settled for some Coopers Sparkling Ale (which I do like -- and does have a red and white label!). This time I didn’t fare so well in Monopoly. I started off with the most properties, but after buying them all, I had very little money left to develop them. I quickly went bankrupt and Caroline ran away with the game.


From left to right: Bendy, Dee, and Angus.

Bendy was quite the character. Except for this day, he always wore a safari uniform, complete with pith helmet. He was a sore loser and kept calling people “peasants” when he had to pay them money. He was the banker the first time we played Monopoly, but he always gave us the wrong change and we think he was slipping himself money (he lost anyways, though). He was a good guy, though. He was really into board games. He had created his own Axis and Allies board, with optional rules (including different technologies for the different nations). Angus admitted that the custom Axis and Allies version was “quite good and worked really well.” It sounded fun, so we made plans for us to play when I got to Sydney in August, prior to flying to the USA.

July 2, 2008

Quiet day today. Caroline, Angus, and Bendy had left Cairns. Dee went snorkeling that day. I didn’t end up doing much of anything. I read my book (currently reading “Valley of the Dolls” by Jacqueline Susan), listened to some CBC Radio 3 podcasts and used the internet.

July 3, 2008

My last full day in Cairns. I went to the lagoon on The Esplanade for sun and swimming. It was too cold for swimming, though. I just lay on the grass for two hours and read my book. That night, I went back to The Esplanade with Dee for dinner. In honour of Canada Day, I tried to get this one place to make poutine. That went badly. I said “put cheese and gravy on chips.” The cheese wasn’t shredded. It was one square of foul processed cheese. Yuck. I also had fish and chips. I think the fish was bad. I immediately started to feel nauseous. I spent the rest of the night in bed feeling wonky. Bleck.

July 4, 2008

I woke up feeling fine. The wonky food aftereffects were gone.

I was flying out of Cairns that night, but still had a full morning and afternoon to kill in Cairns. I was here too long. I should have left a couple days ago. Oh well. I wanted to give enough time for Haley to show up so we could go snorkeling together and have some drinks, but her credit cards never showed up in the mail so she was still stuck in Melbourne. I talked with Dee for a while about her upcoming trip to Sydney and Melbourne and gave her ideas about what to do and where to stay. We went to Cafe Melt for a while for coffee, lunch, and internet. I then went to Peter Pan Adventure Tours to book myself some tours in The Outback for the next week. I ended up spending AU$700 for two three-days tours of The Outback between Darwin and Alice Springs and The Red Centre. My upcoming week was going to be really busy -- but hopefully excellent. Stay tuned to this channel to see how it turns out!

After booking my tours, it was off to the airport to fly to Darwin. Goodbye Cairns!