How we went car selling and ended up with accomodation...

So here we are finally, Cairns in Queensland, our final destination. And lucky b*****s as we are, we managed to find a place to live without even trying.

The first night in Cairns, on the other hand, didn't feel just as positive. We arrived to the city late in the afternoon and, of course, it was raining. Soaked, hungry and completely exausted we sat in the trunk of our car and felt like giving up. Bloody rain everywhere we go! But after rains comes sunshine and our second day in Cairns was absolutely stunning. Hot, sunny and beautiful and we set out to the city to put up ads for Bruce. Out of the blue, at a busy information center, this lady stands in the middle of the room and shouts :" I need a couple who can work for accomodation!". Hmmm... we are a couple..why not?! Raised a hand and whooop! 10min later we were checked in a private room at Reef Backpackers in the central city, live and eat for free in exchange to 3 hours work Monday to Friday. Lucky!

Whereas I do have to admit that running a backpackers place is like being in charge of a big zoo: someone's locked out from their room, someone threw up on a wall or peed in the pool, someone got drunk and feel asleep in a wrong bed, someone's food is stolen...it never ends. But it's fun! Anton's being a great night manager, threatening to kick out anyone who's noisy, and most of the time we are in control of the traveling circus that the backpackers can become.

Cairns is one of Australias biggest backpacker cities and it does live up to it's name. All ages and nationalities mixed in endless rows of hostels, campervans and tents. The city that never sleeps and nightclubs that do everything to get people to come in and drink - even celebrate Christmas in July! I don't think that in our entire trip so far, we met so many different and crazy and interesting people as we did in just 2 weeks in Cairns. From the poorest backpackers that can't afford food, to an australian multimillionaire. Yapp, I'm not kidding! To make a very long story short, Monika helped this man and fixed some people from our hostel to go work for him at his "farm". He was so happy with the workers that as a thank you we got invited to came and spend the weekend in his farm. Why not?! "Free is good"- said Monika and Anton and off we went to the "farm" - a million acre land in a national park, surrounded by lakes, mountains, rainforest and everything you can think of. 4 helicopters stood parked neatly, as well as 50 horses and on top all, it was only one of his 3 properties in the region! The pricelist for spending the night there was around 10 times our future salaries over the coming 15years. In other words, crazy in true Aussie style. Had the best day there looking at a horse show and riding 4-wheel-drive bikes in the rainforest and Anton was so dirty afterwards that ha had to shower with his cloth on. Fantastic weekend! We'll go there next Saturday again!

So this is our life in Cairns, the beggining of the end. In less than 2 weeks we'll be heading off to Singapore and it does feel a little sad to soon be leaving Oz and all the wonderful people we have met here. But we'll be back! Sometime when we actually can pay on that "farm".

Over'n'out for now from the two lucky b*****s!