Hi all,

Well well well, my first hour and a half in good old Oz was an interesting experience!!! On arrival in Cairns airport I wondered off the plane and into baggage collection. Just before getting there the police women and her blood hound had a good old sniff of my day sack which obviously went fine as the mutt never sat down! Within minutes I had collected my bags and off to walk through the immigration department. I was the first foreigner through and was stopped and asked if I would mind going over to another desk - great. Anyway, off I go and was asked to put all my luggage through the scanner. For some reason they got interested in something in my dive bag so they quickly checked through my stuff and brushed this senser thing over all my bags. It took about five minutes for this immagration officer to come back. When he came back he muttered the words 'positive for smack'! Well, to said that I was shocked was an understatement.........!!

On this tremendous news they started to look into my bags a lot more thoroughly! I was really calm externally but internally I was !#"@ing myself and just stood there in utter shock and amazement. I couldn't believe this was happening. They brushed this thing over all my gear again and went off to test it again! It took quite a while this time and while we were waiting they were going though absolutely everything!

My heart skipped a beat when one of the immigration officers donned and set of latex gloves! I thought, this is all I need - being strip searched and anally probed. I'd only been in the country a number of mintues!! However, he didn't have any interest in seeing me naked but just wanted to go through my wash and medical kit with a fine tooth comb. The second result came back negative but they wanted to check for a third time. This time the result came back positive again for heroin! But by this time they had checked absolutely everything and it was obvious that I did have any legal substances in my possession. They were happy to let me go. Well, after I had packed all my gear again that was.

When I was chatting to the bloke he was telling me that if I had for example placed my bag on any illegal substances, someone had taken illegal substances and touched my bags this sensor would detect it. He mentioned that as I had traveled through thailand, cambodia, malaysia, borneo etc that there has been hundred of people handling my bags. So this was probably the reason for the positive results. What ever it was, this was an hour and a half of my life that I would like to forget pretty quickly!!

The hostel that I was staying at came and picked me up from the airport and I was in the same dorm as Becki which was nice. We chatted and caught up for a couple of hour before having a good look around Cairns. My first impression of Cairns wasn't that good and this didn't really change through out my stay. It is just a town that has been build for tourism. So all there is around is souvenir shops, restaurants and travel agents! It really didn't feel that you were in Australia that for sure....

All I really did for the first week was relax in the hostel and sunbathed. It is so expensive and without even doing anything I would be spend loads of money. The general living costs in Cairns are definitely higher than in good out blighty. So it was plan B for me and this involved living like a poorper. Homemade tuna sandwiches for lunch every day, then upgrade on the meal that we got at the Woolshed for free in the evening (so I got a 300g Steak each night costing 7 dollars!) and then visit Becki at work after 00:00 and get a free pizza. On this plan I was spending approximately fifteen quid a day - I was living like a king in south east asia on fifteen quid a day! Oh well...

I had a couple of nights out and visited places like P.J's and the woolshed which were interesting. These places were backpacker pubs and clubs and to be fair were just meat markets! They would play stupid games like race goldfish and wet t-shirt competitions! I bit 18-30's/student union for my liking. However, Becki was finishing her two jobs at the weekend so we were planning to hire a car with Kara and three French guys and visit Cape Tribulations so things were looking up.

Bye for now

Miffy x x x