We woke up after our night in the holiday park in Cairns and, after a shower and some breakfast, set to the business of packing all our stuff back into our bags and clearing out Little Peewee prior to handing it back.

Finally managing to get everything into our bags, and the remainder of our food packed up, we drove into the centre of Cairns, parked up in the centre and went into a shopping centre full of Japanese shops, including a few travel agents. Here, we bought our rail passes for Japan which we wouldn't be able to buy once in Japan.

With that done, we drove a short distance from the town centre to the hostel we had booked the night before, Tropic Days. The hostel was really cool, comprising two of the typical wooden Queensland houses up on stilts, with rooms built underneath. The buildings had a really tropical feel with polished wood floors and airy rooms with fans in the ceiling. There was also a cool covered patio area between the buildings to hang out.

We got checked in and dumped our bags in our big room and our food in the little kitchen just outside it, then got back in our van for our last journey, out towards the airport to the rental company. we got the van dropped off, though didn't get our deposit back due to a crack from a stone chip in the window, then started walking back towards town. We stopped at a small Italian cafe beside the big commercialised road near the rental company, and had a big cheap bowl of pasta each for lunch, before walking down to the esplanade and back along the shore into the centre of Cairns.

Along the way we stopped to check out the excellent skate park and bouldering walls along the seafront, then cut back from the water into the town centre. We wandered through the centre, checking out some of the shops, trying and failing to avoid a massive downpour which started all of a sudden. We picked up some familiar toiletries in advance of our time in Asia, then meandered through the streets shopped around a few places to find somewhere with a good exhcnage rate to buy Japanese Yen. We took a break after our walking with a coffee and some cake, then got out some money and changed it to Yen, after reading that credit cards were less widely accepted in Japan.

Once we had our money, we meandered back to the hostel, stopping in at a few shops, and managed to pick up a discounted guide book for Japan on the way.

Back at the hostel, we took advantage of the free wifi to upload some of our backlog of photos, and chilled out for the afternoon. Later in the evening I nipped downstairs to reheat some of our Thai food from the night before, and whilst standing in front of the microwave I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to find Lukas, our German friend, in the kitchen cooking. We had just happened to go for the same hostel from the many in Cairns, and just happened to be in the kitchen at the same time. This was just one of many similar coincidences we'd had on our trip.

I brought Lucy her food in the bedroom then returned downstairs to eat outside with Lukas and his friend Sarah, also from Germany. We caught up on our mutual travels to Cairns and chatted away, also talking to a Welsh couple, Adam and Kaylie who were sitting at the table. We ended up sitting at the picnic tables for the whole evening and drinking, eventually starting on a box of the infamous goon. At midnight, it was Lukas's birthday and, not that we needed an excuse, we continued our revelry into the small hours, evenutally just me, Adam and Lukas being left at the picnic table, with the talk turning to Fascist and Communist politics, apparently a common theme whilst drinking with Lukas.

After climbing the stairs to bed at sometime around half past 3, I crashed out and had a great sleep in the cosy bed, with the overhead fan keeping the room at a perfect temperature.

The next morning we had decided to have a lazy day and we enjoyed a long lie and a relaxed morning around the hostel, catching up on more blogging and taking it easy. Around lunchtime we caught the free shuttle bus from the hostel into the town centre. We went and bought more Yen and grabbed lunch at Subway, then walked back to the hostel again via the weekend market in the town centre, full of fruit and veg stalls and others selling jewellery and knick knacks. The best stall from Lucy's point of view was one selling loads of pretty shells including, you guessed it, cowries. Lucy picked up a nice shiny cowrie which was made into a keyring, proudly attaching it to her handbag.

Back at the hostel we relaxed some more, before joining our friends back at the patio area for a drink. We sat around and chatted for a while, then caught the free shuttle into town again to get some dinner for Lukas's birthday. With free meal vouchers from the hostel, we went to a local bar and got cheap upgrades to huge plates of steak and chips, as well as chocolate cake for $1. After dinner and a beer we timed it perfectly to catch the shuttle back to the hostel again.

Taking our places around the patio area, we drank some whisky and then started on the goon again. To pass the time we decided to play some drinking games, and I introduced the group to the legendary 'Animal Game' where everyone has an animal noise and action, and has to make noises in time to a rhythm, their own noise followed by someone elses, passing the game to them. We were having such a laugh playing that another table joined in with us and we ended up in a monstrous 16+ player game with every animal imaginable on the go.

We continued the drinking and the games for most of the night, with some people leaving to go to town and others to go to bed. In the end, it somehow ended up with me, Adam and Lukas being the only ones still up, again, and we chatted until a slightly earlier hour than the night before, thankfully avoiding the subject of Fascism.

Before we went to bed, we tidied up some of the mess left around the area by the other groups who had all gone into town (though this didn't stop us being accused of creating all the mess by one of the hostel owners the next morning) and called it a night, having had a really fun time.

The following morning, our last in Australia, we got up and showered before a final pack of all our stuff, then grabbed a quick breakfast and caught a shuttle to the airport. We checked in, got through security and grabbed an over-priced but tasty toastie before catching our flight bound for Tokyo.