Day Three - Cairns

Our multiday airline adventure continued…we tragically lost Friday somewhere over the Pacific. RIP.

About 2 hours out from Brisbane we both started getting hungry and I dug out the belvita banana nut bread bars that I had brought and we snacked on those.

The sun came up a little while later and we got to see the pacific WAY down below our plane.

They served us breakfast a little while later, which was nice because…missing an entire day makes you hungry.

I’m calling it the Partial English: eggs, ham, stewed tomato, mushrooms, and a huge hash brown. It was good, if a little sad looking.

We got our customs forms filled out and repacked everything after basically living on the plane for the last 17 hours. We pulled up to the terminal right on time and went in search of mom’s bag. We went through the fancy customs machines, located mom’s bag (it took a while to get deplaned) and quickly got through the customs process. Now, we knew Brisbane’s international terminal was under construction because they had sent us a message before we left. But it was really under construction. We made our way onto a bus to the domestic terminal for our transfer to Cairns and held on for dear life as we slid around as the driver carted us about a mile away from the international terminal.

We got our bags checked into the fancy automated machines and located our gate with plenty of time to spare. I needed a coke (it was 7 am and while I was awake, it definitely didn’t feel like…morning…) This jet lag is going to be something else…

Mom and I settled at the gate to wait until our flight was ready to board, and before we knew it we were boarding our flight to “Cans” :) We weren’t sat together for this fight so I settled in to read The Bone Daughter while mom made a new friend at her seat :) The flight went smoothly and we got some snacks to enjoy (I got a cookie and crackers/cheese since the reading made me a bit nauseous :( and mom got a little chicken sandwich). We landed around 11, got our bags, and hopped in a taxi to Crystalbrook Bailey, where we’re going to be staying for the next few days.

The guy at the check-in counter was able to get us into our room a couple of hours early so mom and I were FINALLY able to get a shower, brush our teeth, and change out of our traveling clothes. As we were getting ready mom discovered she had left one of her toiletry bags, that had most of her makeup in it, at my house. Luckily we had the rest of the day to explore and decided to start by heading to the little mall just down the street.

It is most definitely summer in Cairns. We walked the short distance to the little mall and were grateful for the air conditioning by the time we got there! There was a shop called Mecca that was almost exactly like a Sephora and one of the girls was able to help color match mom’s foundation so we could pick up a replacement. I got some setting spray since I was running out as well. We walked through the rest of the mall before heading to the waterfront esplanade.

There are a ton of restaurants and shops so we walked around and got acquainted with the town. We popped into the Cairns Art Gallery to see an exhibit of local art and continued down to the esplanade to the water front.

Huge banyan trees!

We walked around the esplanade for a while, getting to see the trees and birds at the shore as well as the MANY restaurants.

Of COURSE we found some pelicans!

We found a seafood restaurant called Splash on the esplanade, and had a really great lunch/dinner of fish and chips.

Local, fresh fish and chips!

We stopped by a few convenience stores looking for some breakfast for the morning since we need to catch the ferry pretty early, but mom couldn’t find any peanut butter crackers to snack on. Alas, we should have imported them ourselves! I got a few cokes for the room and we went back to the hotel to plan out our full day on Fitzroy Island tomorrow.

We sorted out our supplies and as mom was going through her bag again she discovered the missing makeup! It was only around 6 or so but I was getting sleepy again so we put on a few movies to try and stay up until a more reasonable bedtime. Mom and I have a history of oversleeping on our first day of a trip, so we set A LOT of alarms for the morning so we don’t miss the ferry!