I woke up at 8.30 to have a quick chat with Will whilst he waited at the station to pick up Sensai (felt like I was back at home) but went straight back to bed and slept until 10.30!! My longest lie in since I've been here by a good 2 hours. I could have slept for longer but the room was freezing (I was in a hoodie) and free pancakes were calling! This hostel definitely knows how to cater for backpackers... Lots and lots of free stuff. I ended up eating 4 of the delicious pancakes smothered in maple syrup! Yum yum yum :)
Spent the day at the lagoon swimming, reading and chatting with the boys and my Swedish friend, her Japanese friend and Alex's Swiss friend who we bumped into. With my English, Alex being Spanish and Felix being German we were a right multicultural bunch!
While everyone had MacDonalds I decided to be slightly healthier after the pancakes and so had sushi and a apple instead. But then finished it off with an ice cream with pick a mix style sweets on top so I guess that cancelled the healthiness out!
Spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach and then decided for dinner to be real Aussies and have a BBQ. There are free BBQs (well more like hot plates to use all around the park). After a quick dash to the supermarket the girls cooked the BBQ whilst the boys prepared the salad! The nice Aussie man next to me, who let us borrow his cooking mat as everything was sticking to our tinfoil, couldn't believe what he was seeing!
We had a great mix of food: salad, friend onions, friend aubergine, burgers, sausages, BBQ sauce and rolls. A homeless guy approached us asking to have some of our beers and we all said no but offered him one of our left over hot dogs in a roll with some salad.
We spent the evening partying at the Wool shed. At least the dj there didn't keep switching songs every few seconds and as the crowd was slightly 'older' there were some amazing classic songs being played rather than just the top 40!
Day 56: Cairns
After breakfast I attempted to buy Christmas cards. Apparently, unlike home where every high street has a card shop or two, a city as big as Cairns doesn't have a dedicated card shop! And the only Christmas cards I could find in the super market all had snow on it said 'Made in England'!!
I then wandered along the esplanade and was thinking about how when you're on a boat you can see the reef a bit but its not like the aerial images that you see. And then I saw a sign for helicopter flights with a map showing where I was and where the helipad was. What more of a sign (both literally and figuratively) did I need. I turned on the spot and walked straight to the office hoping there was a space on a flight today. And there was! Just one space remaining once she swapped which helicopter was doing which run! And so I booked it! Obviously with the 10% discount the lady gave me as she knew how little money backpackers had! Such a spur of the moment decision and I was so excited that when I left I wrote a whole page of my diary consisting mainly of 'eeeek' and 'ahhhh' and '!!!!!!'
I spent the day at the lagoon reading, having lunch with the boys when they eventually emerged from their beds and just counting down the time until 3.30.
At last 3.30 came around as I was able to check in for the flight and watch the in flight safety video.
And then we were able to get into the helicopter! I was given the front middle seat so I had the best view for the whole flight! Could see literally everything.
So excited!
Take off was amazing (the video I took will need music over it to drown out my excited squeals) and once we'd got past the rain (which leaked onto me) it was gloriouy sunny. Perfect weather for viewing the reef. From the air it was as I imagined. You could see the structure, the different colours of the coral and all the little islands!
We flew first over Green Island so I got to see the view that's on all the post cards and then we flew and landed on a little island that has formed from all the day coral being washed up together.
Even though I can show people the photos and videos they don't do it justice. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. I actually welled up and may or may not have had a little rain drop roll down my face. Mother Nature is amazing!
And I can now understand the draw of being a pilot. I don't think I could ever get bored in a job when you see the views from their office window!
I was so sad when we had to disembark but so glad that I decided to do it. I would have definitely have regretted not doing that.
Back at the hostel, after calming down and showing the boys the photos (and them laughing at my squeals) we had a free BBQ for dinnner. There was so much on offer: sausages, different salads and pasta. We added to it with our left overs from yesterday but I'm pretty sure the food that I cooked was better than theirs! But the hostel one was free!
Then wandered down to the carols by candle light in the park. It wasnt quite what I was expecting... All the words had been changed! There was the Aussie version of jingle bells and the Koala Santa song!!
It began to rain and while i dived under the nearest tree as the first droplets fell all the umbrellas were up in one swift movement like the British precision at Wimbledon. At least being chilly (in shorts and a vest top) and wet made it feel at bit more like it could be Christmas time.
Umbrellas
Candle
For our last night in Cairns we visited the Irish pub and then had one final stop in Giligans before saying our goodbyes.
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