Chapter 59 - Three Days in a Can, Three Days in Cans

In which our hero spends as much time traveling as being where she wanted to go ... 

So this epic expedition to Cairns that I mentioned. (Pronounced "Cans". The 'ir' is silent. Or gets lost in the Australian accent.) It all started one day when I was at Helensvale Station, for busing or training purposes, I can't remember. I noticed a sign that said "Seat Sale -- Sunlander One Way for $29.99". The Sunlander is the train that goes from Brisbane to Cairns. It's considered, I believe, one of the worlds great train rides, up there with the Trans-Canada, the Trans-Siberian, and the one that goes 'round a loop by Storybook Gardens.

So naturally I jumped at the chance to have a cheap holiday. I managed to convince Christian and Maria to come too. What I didn't realise, however, was that it was a total journey of approximately 33 hours. In economy seats.

It took a bit of schedule wrangling to figure out a time that would work for everyone. What we decided in the end was that we'd be gone for a total of a week. We'd leave Brisbane on Thursday (February 13) just after noon, arriving in Cairns on Friday evening. We booked ourselves three bunks in a four-bunk share room at a hostel for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday nights. We would then leave Cairns on Tuesday morning, and arrive back in Brisbane just after noon on Wednesday (February 19), getting us back to the Gold Coast around 3:00 p.m. It was a good plan, but didn't give us too much time to be there.

We went with no real plans at all. Just a vague sort of thought that we should probably see the Great Barrier Reef, since we're up there anyway. And possibly the Daintree rainforest. And I had my heart set on seeing a real life wild crocodile. Otherwise, no real plans. No pre-bookings. We reckoned we'd just figure it out when we got there.

I'm getting ahead of myself, though. Before we got there, we had to actually get there. So here's the story of the train journey.

Our first view of the Sunlander.

Our sitting car.

The Club Car. We actually spent most of our time here, because it was more comfortable.

The intrepid travelers having a snack.

Inside the club car.

Inside the dining car. It was pretty impossible to find a seat here during meal times. I brought my own food, though, for the sake of economy.

Tee hee hee. Snakes on a Train!

A passing train station. Still within the Translink network, as evidenced by the two yellow GoCard swipey things just there.

My sleepy travel buddies.

The scenery started to look like South Dakota.

In the evening they played Hugo on the screens in the Club Car.

This is at about 5:00 a.m. in Mackay ("Mah-kai"). I don't think I slept all night. I just couldn't. It was cold, and uncomfortable, and I can't really sleep sitting up. We had to stop to refuel in Mackay, though, so we could get out and walk around for 30 mins. It was great. I believe I eventually fell asleep later, though. At like 9 or 10 in the morning.

The sun beginning to rise in Mackay.

More SD-esque landscape.

A typical Aussie corner railway-hotel-pub thing.

The engine in daylight.

Cattle country. Clearly.

Another hotel pub thing.

The station in Ingham. I'm told there's a famous chicken company called Ingham Chicken, but we didn't see any evidence of it here.

We had a bit of walking time again, so we wandered off to the local Woollies. This isn't it. This is just a nice tree.

And this is a raggedy old apartment building.

Ingham Lions Park. Small towns are small towns, no matter where they are.

An old bench that I thought had character.

Some old signs that I thought had character.

Maria. What a character. :D

That's the ocean, just at the end of the road. That little strip of blue above the car.

Island Coast Holden. Just thought it was interesting. Just FYI, Holden is an Australian car company. They're owned by GM now, though. There's even ads on TV that say the new Holden Commodore is the latest Chevrolet sedan in America.

Finally approaching Cairns, the scenery got greener and the sky got greyer. Also darker, because it was the evening.

So when we arrived we walked along to our hostel, Corona Backpackers. It was only a few blocks away. Both the train station and the hostel were in the CBD area (that's central business district, a.k.a. downtown). We went along and checked in, then got our discount dinner vouchers for the pub around the corner and headed off to dinner. The discount dinner vouchers allowed us to get any of the dinner specials, which were normally about $13, for $6.50, including a small drink (wine, beer, or soft drink). It was really a good deal. It was like full sized fish and chips or steak and mushroom pie or curry or whatever. Typical pub food. At one point Maria and I went to the local Woollies to get supplies for the next few days and left Christian at the pub with some new-found friends who promised to look after him. As far as I remember we went back and got him and that was the end of the night. If you'll recall I hadn't slept very much the night before, so I was happy to shower and go to bed as quickly as possible.

Home Sweet Home for the next three days.

The nicely decorated stairwell advertising the local sights .. .

... and activities.

The view from the window at the end of the hallway.

Somebody dropped their shoe on the awning/roof thing.

Gilligans, across the road. Apparently party central. We decided against that one when we were researching hostels.

Looking down the hallway, with my back to the window. That's our room just there on the left. That's toilets and showers at the far end of the hall. Two toilets and four showers per floor.

Our room. We payed extra for the air-con, which made the nights quite comfortable.

It was evidently some sort of hotel situation before it was a hostel. I'm assuming that based on the old-timey sink in the corner.

We also had a mini fridge to keep our supplies in. There was a kitchen downstairs in which to do our cooking.

As I mentioned earlier we'd booked three bunks in a four bunk room. When we arrived there was already someone in the fourth bunk. Her name was Alma, from France. Bordeaux, I believe, if I remember right. She was very friendly, and showed us where the pub was for dinner. Unfortunately she left on Monday morning, but we had some fun times while she was there.

On our first full day, Saturday, we decided to just chill out and explore. It was a beautiful sunny day, so we went to the "beach", which was a sort of manufactured beach just a couple blocks away.

There were some market stalls when we arrived, so we had a bit of a gander at those.

The "beach". The real beach, which was just past this, was sort of rocky and unpleasant, so they built this one. It only gets about 4' deep, maybe 5'. It slopes in gently from all edges, and there's even sandy bits.

Sitting around, enjoying the heat.

All in all quite a reasonable temperature for tropical Queensland in the summer. It was great.

You can see the real ocean back through the trees there.

Greyhound Australia.

Wish I had one of those.

Maria. Looking like she just came from the beach. Which she did.

A view down an alleyway.

So that was basically our first day. Swimming. Sun. Bit of wandering in the souvenir shops, of which there were many. It ended again at the same pub, having discount dinners. Luckily there was enough variety to have a different thing every night. We also, at some point in the afternoon, decided that we'd go on a snorkeling adventure the next day. It was a bit pricey, but we figured it was worth it to go snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef. Because really, it's just one of those things that you have to do. I can't very well go home and face everybody and tell them I stood right beside the Great Barrier Reef but didn't go see it. That'd just be ridiculous. Also, the trip included lunch, which was awesome.

So we got to bed fairly early because we had to get up early to get on the boat. Once again the pier, or marina, or harbour, or whatever, was within walking distance. So we got up, had some brekky, and headed off. When we got there we collected our tickets, which we'd booked by phone through the desk at the hostel.

This is what happens when you book things by phone with an "apparently" complicated name:

But first, some lovely trees and parks on the way to the boat ...

Now, the ticket picking-up place, the boat, and just a few pics from on the boat.

The ticket picking-up place.

Cairns Boat Hire. Not where we got our boat from.

A guy in a kimono and Japanese sandals.

Our boat.

Going out to sea.

Me and Maria, having a great time.

The view from the stable centre of the top of the boat, where I sat for a good hour or so whilst feeling terribly seasick. The first stop we'd made was really choppy, and I felt quite wobbly after it.

And finally coming safely back in to land.

So the trip went as follows. There were three scheduled stops. When we first got on the boat they gave us tea and coffee. They weren't allowed to serve hot beverages while the boat was moving, so that stuff stopped once we got going. Then we made our first stop.

I felt fine at first, but it was so choppy when the boat was stopped that the water was coming up to the top of the stairs, just due to waviness. I went out snorkeling, but by the time I came in I was shaking all over and felt nauseous. I basically sat still from that point, through the entire second stop, and until the third stop. By the time lunch came around I felt I could eat a bit, starting with some plain rolls, then moving on to more complicated things like chicken and salad.

By the third stop I was ready to go out again, which was lucky because the resident marine biologist/tour guide was going to do a guided tour. That was quite cool. He pointed out all sorts of things that I wouldn't have noticed on my own, and, most excitingly, we saw a turtle. A real actual sea turtle, live and in the wild. It was amazing. Several people reported seeing sharks as well, but I didn't manage to see any.

It was a great experience, but I don't think I'd attempt it again without first taking some Gravol, or the Australian equivalent.

I felt fine by the time we got back to shore, and we did a little more exploring. We passed by an Asian restaurant, the kind of place that does bubble tea and cakes and things, and went in for a bit. I got this thing, which was sort of frozen yoghurt and mango bits:

We kept walking, and I discovered my favourite tree in Cairns, which was very fluffy.

Then we discovered the only comic book shop in Cairns, which had this:

That's right. Sonic Screwdriver Pizza Cutter.

Once again, our day ended at the pub with discount dinners. We really got used to those dinners, and I definitely missed them when we were gone.

I think, actually, that I'll stop here for tonight. I'll publish this, then do a "Part 2" tomorrow.