London Heathrow - Cairns

"Best Laid Plans!"

Saturday 25th September - Monday 27th September 2010

Hi everyone!

Welcome to our first entry! Firstly, I will attempt to explain the massive wounder of a journey we encountered! I spent so long looking for the perfect itinery which meant we would get directly to Cairns as efficiently as possible with no wasted time in millions of airports, but my best laid plans went horribly wrong at Heathrow airport! We were delayed by 4 hours, which meant we missed our connection from Singapore to Cairns by 5mins! I'm not even exagerating, we landed as our supposed flight took off! To add insult to injury, our plane to Singapore wasn't even good. It was pretty shoddy and the entertainment system didn't work, not good when you have 12 hours to play with! But luckily we slept most of it, although it was that horrible broken and uncomfotable sleep. I tried to get Joe to wear an eye mask so it wouldn't wake him up when the lights came on but he couldn't understand the point of them and said 'they were for people who couldn't close their eyes!' (they are, they're for people who cant complete a simple everyday activity of closing your eyes.)

When we arrived in Singapore we got ushered by frantic staff at Singarpore airport to a desk where the woman told us that we were to fly to Brisbane immediately and wait 5 hours for a connection from there to Cairns (exactly what I did not want to do!). So we kicked off. (I kicked off! J) We thought we were the big dogs and in with a good chance of getting put up in a hotel or even upgraded, but no. (I was a big dog!) The most angry Malaysian you have ever seen pointed at Joe and shouted at him that if we didn't get on the plane we would have to find our own way to Cairns. This made us both very angry but also quite scared so we gave in and he shouted at us again to hurry up and get in the que as the flight was due to leave. (Frst of all, I wasnt scared, and would of brayed him but elle had to hold me back.)When we went back to the woman she took so long processing our boarding passes it wound us up even more! She pressed every button her keypad a million times, Joe couldn't quite understand why it took so many buttons to print off a boarding pass and asked if she was doing her dissertation in between! So much for a Thai massage and a glass of wine in Singapore airport, all we had was a shuffly sprint to the gate!

The plane to Brisbane was 6 hours with QANTAS (as oppose to BA) which meant that things worked and the flight was fine. Everyone slept except me and Joe (as we'd slept on the previous flight) so what did we do? Yep, drank. We watched Robin Hood and Cemetry Road with wine and VB but had to try really hard to press play at the same time so we could watch the films together and at the same time! We landed in Brisbane but the delay meant we had 2 sleepless nights instead of just one and my time in Brisbane airport was not my finest hour (or five). I slept on the floor in the departure lounge with my eye mask on and a hoody over my face whilst curled up in the fetal position with a randomly twitching arm (according to Joe). Joe had to get me up as people were stepping over me and looking at me like I was dead, apparently sleeping in airports is not the done thing in Oz!

We then flew onto Cairns which was a beautiful flight, Joe slept on the plane and half woke up and shouted to the rest of the plane that he was wrestling in a house in York then went back into his coma. We arrived in Cairns and got a taxi to our first hostel!

In conclusion, our flights were fine really, no turbulence and no major drama (except for the scary Malaysian) and we got there a day late but no harm done when we're here for as long as we are! Our best laid plans went to waste but I suppose it's all part of the adventure!

Lots of Love,

Elle & Joe x x x

"Cairns 18-30's!"
Monday 27th September - Saturday 2nd October 2010

Hello again! ( two updates in one day - don't get used to it!)

We are still in Cairns but leave to go to Port Douglas tomorrow. I'm not sure where to start with Cairns to be honest. It's going to be very hard to describe but I'll start at the beginning! Our hostel is lush! It's a really hippy place out of the centre (thank the lord), about a 15 minute walk away. Our room is called "one butterfly" as it has one butterfly painted on the door, others are called "three frogs" and "two kangaroo" (for obvious reasons). It's quiet and quaint and cheap which is perfect! The bathroom isn't the best, thank god I'm not wearing make up as there would be nowhere to fill a sink to take it off and the bathroom door doubles up as the toilet door! Wierd. They have a communal guitar and all other essentials, as well as the smallest swimming pool in the world. But that doesn't really matter as there is the Lagoon or "Esplanade" in central Cairns.

It's a huge man-made salt water pool with a backdrop of the ocean and the mountains, beautiful. Not really. When we got there it was full of aborigines, kids and wee. It was like a massive holiday resort in Benidorm(right up my street. joe). Still, it was hot and the views were amazing. We also discovered that with our hostel we got a free meal at the local pub called "The Woolshed". Massive bonus! It is so expensive to eat, drink and do anything here, it helps to have a free meal at night - albeit a plate of spag bol or chilli! It soon became apparent that we were going to have to take anything that we can get for free or next to nowt as we are spending more than we had hoped and we haven't done anything yet!

We met Macca the first night (at the Woolshed - obviously!) and he had just moved hostels to Gilligans, so we went there for a drink. I've never seen anything like it. Well I have, in a night club. It's the most ridiculous hostel ever, massive screens inside and outside with extra plasmas everywhere, podiums, jelly wrestling, live music (only good bit), a waterfall, a pool and a nightclub. It is the equivalent to a resort in Malia or Falaraki for Australians. It soon becomes apparent that as we get closer to the weekend its getting busier and busier, we then find out that it is bank holiday weekend, an Aussie Rules final, (the NRL GRAND FINAL!! joe) sprink break and the kids school holidays...and Cairns is apparently the place to be! It's full of young jock Americans and Australians and I feel like I could be back on a Greek party Island. Even the streets of restaurants remind me of Europe. It really is wild but too expensive to get involved! Great if you come on your own and you want to 'meet ' people, if you want a party, or if you are 19, but I am 26 and grinding on a podium after jelly wrestling and a pub crawl are not what I had in mind!(all the girls on the podium were all really ugly too.. joe). The wierdest thing is, it isn't even good! When the live music stopped they put MN8, kung foo fighting and Haddaway on the big screen! I know they're meant to be slightly behind us but seriously!

We have been meeting Hillsy during the day too at the lagoon. As we are so skint, we have been going to the supermakret and buying stuff to make sarnies with and sitting on the benches at the lagoon and making them. Joe is in charge of ripping the bread, Macca has to halve or fold the cheese and I am chicken or ham person. Hillsy just eats crisps. It's amazing how they just have free BBQs all the way along the coast for any rogue to use. It's a shame there's no beach here (well there is but it's tiny and there are crocodile warning signs on it!).

Another thing you notice about Cairns is the amount of Aborigines. Most of them are drunk but all of them are very angry. They stumble about the pavements falling into bushes and shouting at the police, they are bizarre creatures but I wouldn't like to fight one. The locals are very tolerant and don't seem bothered by them.

The weather has been mixed, we've had two days of sun and three of rain. Normally that would be enough to devastate me but I'm not too bothered as it gives us a chance to chill out. Joe burnt his stomach and back yesterday so I've been calling him beetroot belly,(it wasnt really burnt, just slightly rouge, im now a bronzed addonis if anyone was wondering). so he needed a day of rain anyway! It also gave me a chance to do some washing, we made a clothes line in our tiny bedroom with string! Bless.

We have a new SIM card and number which is 0424840293 if you would like to contact us. (apart from paz.)

Macca is now staying in our hostel (Spring break football teams were too much for him!)(he was getting bulied.) and he has settled nicely into "three palm trees" ha!

We are going out now for our free spag bol but the rain sounds so torrential I think we might have to get the free bus!

We booked Port Douglas yesterday and we get a free pick up and drop off (from Cairns and back) with our hostel deal which saves us $56 return each on the bus! We get picked up at 10 in the morning so I will let you all know how we get on there as soon as I can, fingers crossed for better weather!

Lots of Love,

Elle & Joe x x x