The City of Cairns

I arrived in Cairns (pronounced "Cans") in the afternoon after a short flight there. Getting there I realized the enormous differences in Australia. I had been in a barren, dry wasteland in the middle of Australia and was now in an amazingly lush, tropical environment that had recently been flooded. I met some Danes on the bus from the airport to the city and we were all looking for a place to stay. We ventured around a bit and found a pretty cheap place, right on the boardwalk in the city. After we got settled in we went around the town exploring what it had. The city was mainly built for shopping and dining, so there wasn't too much to see. We picked up some beers and headed back to the hostel to hang out there for a bit. Amazingly enough, as we were walking through the city, the Danes saw some people that they went to school with, small world I guess. They came back with us and I had to try every second to start a conversation in English but it always kept going back to Danish. Later that night we went out to the bars and saw some live music. It was a real fun night and I showed everyone how to play speed quarters. It is a game where you try to bounce a quarter into a glass like a race, for those of you who don't know. We had fun playing this and drew in a lot of people who wanted to play too. The next morning I decided to get out of the city a bit. I walked all the way down the boardwalk and explored off of the streets. There wasn't a beach there and most people just hung out at this community pool that was right on the boardwalk. After walking around for some time I realized that Cairns is not really a place within itself to visit. The main thing that people do there is excursions. They usually go out to the Great Barrier Reef, or Whitsundays for sailing, or into the jungle to go ziplining. This cost alot of money and I thought most of it was horribly overpriced. Just to go snorkelling was aronud A$180. I wasnt about to pay that to swim around the surface of the water. Besides, I will be getting my fair share of marine venture in Thailand. I didn't get to see too much in the city, as it didn't offer much, and was very happy to just have a day of relaxing and not moving around all the time. That night I took it easy and just hung out some with the Danes. I had a flight in the morning back to Sydney. I realized that Cairns is only there for tourism. There was not much character to the city and not much to do without paying for an excursion. I was still glad to have gone there and seen it, though. I had a great time there as well which made my whole Cairns experience very fulfilling.