We got up before 5 am to have breakfast and finish packing for our Virgin Australia Flight at 8:45am. After getting ready Mr. CrubCrusher called an Uber driver to take us to the airport. The ride was about 20 min long but the traffic was intense as we got closer to the airport [and Uber cost half what the taxi ride from the airport cost]. We were dropped off and were considered checked in so we just had to go through security. They don’t care about shoes or liquids here, just laptops and “puffers” (inhalers) and aerosols. I got stopped for explosive checking and failed so they had to retest me twice positive before I could go.

We walked down the longest corridor to gate 40 (why are we always at the end?). And settled in for a wait. Little CurbCrusher and I walked down the corridor and came to a pharmacy. She was looking for Tylenol PM to help her sleep. They have real pharmacists in the shops and while they didn’t have any Tylenol PM, she was able to help her find something to help her.

CurbCrusher then went exploring and found the Krispy Kreme kiosk and brought back donuts for us. They started boarding about 8:20 am and we are in the front of the plane right behind 1st class. This is a no frills flight, unlike Air New Zealand. On this one you get coffee, juice or water. Everything else you pay for. Our flight should be about 3 hours before we get to Cairns.

The weather is supposed to be 83 degrees F today. So much hotter than Sydney when we left at 56 degrees F. We landed in Cairns and were met by Kay whose AirBnB we are staying in. She drove us to Royal Harbour right on the Esplanade. She showed us around the unit and gave us keys and left.

We then unpacked and went downstairs to the tour desk and asked about our snorkel trip tomorrow. After answering our questions we left and walked up the Esplanade to find something to eat. After looking around we settled for some gyros. After lunch we walked to find pier E where our boat will leave from. There’s a limit of 36 people and right now 26 are booked. After locating the pier we walked into town to find the train station for our trip to Kurunda Rainforest.

It is hot here in Cairns compared to Sydney and there are no tall buildings to block the sun. After getting our tickets situated for Kurunda we walked back to find the Woolworth grocery store. We got supplied and went back to the condo.

I’m now getting ready for tomorrow and what we will need. Then I’m going out to the large public pool across the street to watch the sunset. We can see the harbor fine from the condo but the pool is really cool to see. We ended up walking on the boardwalk along the harbor front and bought some gelato to eat. (Little CurbCrusher ordered a milkshake only to learn that here a milkshake is essentially flavored milk- it was very liquidy). Then we walked to the end and Little CurbCrusher and I walked in the mud that is left during low tide. We washed our feet off and continued walking along the Esplanade to look for a dinner place. The weather was so nice about 80 degrees F today. Lots of people were out running, walking, and playing in the community pool. We found a restaurant called Rattle and Hum that made pizza. I ordered a huge glass of ice with water because they barely put 2 cubes in it. After dinner we walked around some more and stopped in one of the UGG stores to see what they had. Then came home and got ready for tomorrow.

[I’m going to add that at this point we had not been in Cairns 24 hours, and I wanted to move there. I think this might be my new retirement destination. ]

Total step count for today – 11,318
NOTE: While CurbCrusher is posting, that’s just because I’m inserting pictures into the stream. The actual log entries from this point forward in our trip are from Lady CurbCrusher. I’ll add some comments in []’s.