We landed safely in Cairns and were sorry to see driving rain, it is supposed to be the DRY season!! After a bit of a problem, ie nobody there, we collected our car from Hertz. The lady seemed very pleasant but conned us over insurance, one way fee, etc, etc so won't be using Hertz again. The car is lovely though, a Rav 4 AWD. We drove into Cairns which is only a few minutes away from the airport. Unfortunately we went to the wrong Rydges hotel first and unloaded...

After a busy day we took a taxi to Hong Kong airport and, due to Simon's gold status, enjoyed the pleasures of the Cathay First Class lounge. In other words, pink champagne!! A good flight, but definitely not enough sleep before they were waking us up to land in Cairns.