Hello from Cairns!

Daron at the public pool in Cairns

We have been in Caines for three days now.  Caines is in the state of Queensland and is located in the northeast corner of Australia.  It is the jumping off point for visiting the Great Barrier Reef, the rainforest, and also the Outback (not the steakhouse J).  Right now is their shoulder season, between their two main seasons, “the Wet” and the “the Dry.”  The Wet will start in December.  It is very tropical here – humid and warm –everything is very lush and green.  Our first day here was a rough one, as I realized that I had left our camera on the plane when we arrived the evening before.  Ugh!  I called the airlines and they gave me a number for the desk at the local airport, which nobody answered until after noon.  It turned out that they had our camera (phew!), all we had to do was get back to the airport to pick it up (no small feat when you don’t have a car!).  Daron took our hotel’s shuttle to the airport and shared a taxi ride with someone else back to town.  I was SO relieved when he returned with the camera, until we discovered that he had left his wallet on the taxi that brought him back!  YIKES!!  His wallet had his Colorado license, his credit card, his ATM card, and plenty of Aussie money.  Such a huge loss!  Luckily there is only one taxi company in town – the ladies at the front desk gave them a call for us, and a short while later Daron called them himself.  They located the driver (he had a female driver, which was unusual, but made her easier to locate), and she found his wallet wedged between the front seat and the center console.  She dropped off his wallet completely intact, money and all, at the hotel.  She said she had several other passengers in the front seat with her after Daron had been in the car, and it was lucky that the wallet was still there.  I’ll say!  Someone above is looking out for us!  A lot of things worked out in our favor, for which I am very thankful.  Lots of good lessons for us!  After we got the wallet back we immediately walked to town and had a beer to calm our frazzled nerves! 

View from Port Douglas, near Cairns

Cairns has a huge, beautiful saltwater pool right in the center of town for anyone to swim in for free.  We took advantage of it every day (except for the camera/wallet day).  We are learning that everything in Australia is about double the price of things in the States.  One good thing they do here is include GST, or tax, in the price.  If a hamburger is $12, that’s exactly what you pay.  Our “cheap” hotel room was $75 and that’s what we paid.  No additional taxes of any kind, ever.  Also, everything is rounded to the nearest nickel.  There are no pennies here; they got rid of them about 15 years ago.  If a price is listed at $9.96, your receipt will have a line item for “rounding” of one cent, and the price will be $9.95.  You would think that would keep down the number of coins in your pocket, but with the $1 and $2 coin, you always have a pile of them.  Their smallest paper note is a $5 bill.  Being a finance person I found all this very interesting! 

Because the prices are so high and the exchange rate sucks, we are rethinking how long we will stay in Australia.  The original plan was to buy a car and travel for two months, camping along the way (we brought our camping gear with us).  We found a good deal on a rental car here in Cairns for three weeks and took it – starting today we have a vehicle.  It’s a little beater of a car, but at least if we get a scratch on it, no one will be the wiser!  Plus, I doubt anyone will want to break into it – they’ll probably feel sorry for us for having such a beat up old vehicle!  We will start our camping/road trip around this area tomorrow.  We plan to visit the rainforest, the beaches, and whatever else we discover as we move along.  There is a lot to see in this area and we’re looking forward to being free and exploring.