Written by Alex
Waking up early to sail into Sydney brought on some new excitement. This is something we’ve been waiting to do for so long, it seems almost unreal that we are finally here! It was picture perfect morning to snap pictures from our balcony! Today we are to fly from Sydney up to Cairns to visit the barrier reef and rainforests.
Because we were a little late into port (the ship battled heavy headwinds all the way from New Zealand), there was an amazingly long line to walk off the ship. We decided to sit and eat at the long tables next to the 270 cafe and proceeded to watch the line stretch into 270 and back past us in the opposite direction. There were so many bodies and suitcases it was hard to figure out how we would ever rejoin the queue. Eventually we just got up and squeezed in and crept our way off the ship. Once through customs we tried to find our hired car. I saw a girl with the company name and she told us to wait there – well we kept seeing her walk around but she had no car or shuttle for us to the airport. And she had no answers. We waited about a half hour before finally telling her we had to get a cab. I think we were ok for time but didn’t want it to get tighter. If she had some answers we might have hung in a bit longer, but she was clueless and the port was in chaos.
Once in the cab we are almost certain the cabbie spun us through downtown once to jack up our fare. Jerk. He denied it and then went silent for the rest of the trip. Should have reported him but we wanted to get going, so we just paid and moved on.
We got checked in (our bags were a little overweight but the lady let us slide – thank you!!) and had a quick lunch. So what was our first meal in Australia? Well, Mexican of course!! 🤣
The flight was relatively uneventful other than I forgot I had purchased a package that gave us extra luggage, reserved seats and a meal credit. Since we already ate we used our credits for what else? A drink and snacks!! 🤪
Once in Cairns, we grabbed another cab that took us to the rental car facility in town. We could have rented at the airport, but the rate was significantly less in town. It was worth the cab ride. We got our car and it is a bit larger than I reserved – we got a GMC Arcadia. It’s nice and will serve us well for our drive down the east coast! No pictures of it at this time but will have some later.
Driving on the left side of the road is very strange indeed! Luckily the car is an automatic (whew!), but even still, it’s a lot of concentration to stay on the left while making turns. Cairns has a lot of roundabouts and they are pretty quiet, so I quickly got practice! We stopped at a grocery store for some light supplies and then found our AirBnb. It is a very cool place seemingly in a backyard jungle! We had to cross a metal walk bridge to come in to our little apartment that sits under the owners house. There is a pool and a washer/drier. Kim is already hard at work on our laundry!
We hung out for a bit and then went to get some dinner downtown by the marina. Ate at “Tha Fish” and each had a yummy piece of fish after a couple of oysters (natural, not raw…!).
Tomorrow it’s the rainforest train and sky rail rides – until then – g’day!!
