i had an aussie adventure (part iv: cairns)

worst trip decision ever? booking a 6:00 am flight. i mean, i see the reasoning...save boatloads of cash by booking at a ridiculous time yada yada yada. but honestly, when the reality dawns on you that you have to wake up at 4:00 am on your vacation to get ready and make it to the airport before 6:00 am, it really sucks donkey balls!!! (not that ive ever done that, but you can see where im going with it....)

the only good thing about an early flight is getting to see the sunrise. and for me it was especially neat because i got to watch the sunrise over somewhere i'd never been before: cairns, queensland. 

coastal queensland is known for being tropical-ish, so i was expecting beautiful waters and loads of palm trees. i got what i wanted! :) cairns was beautiful! it was this quaint town along the coral sea with new fancy hotels and loads of cafes and shops. the only downside was that it was australias version of winter, so the temperature wasnt uh, warm. lol. 

after skrimping at our hotels at the last few stops, we decided to be baller and stay at one of the nicest places in town: the sebel cairns! it was so nice. when the cab driver pulled up we both did a double take and made sure we were at the right place. it had high gorgeous windows, large white plantation columns and shutters and lots of greenery and old woodwork. i loved it. luckily we were able to check in early, and by another stroke of luck, got a room with an amazing view. score!

since all airplane food is disgusting and shouldnt really be classified as food, we were hungry for breakfast and set off in search of tastyness. walking down the streets of cairns with my sugar was so nice. just sorta felt lucky to even be there, and was digging the sunshine and cool vibes. cairns reminds me a lot of malibu, california. anyway....we found an outdoor breakfast place called perrottas at the gallery. it had these gnarly wrought iron tables, fresh flowers and offered a good view of the esplanade. i cant remember what either of us ordered, but i know that it was FANTASTIC! oh wait, i remember having the best fresh squeezed orange juice ever. yep, if youre ever in cairns, definitely stop here for foods. 

after brekky we did some wandering around and ended up down at the esplanade/waterfront. it was so pretty. 

 eventually we made it back to the hotel for some more exploring. they had a super swanky pool but like i said, it wasnt really warm enough to go swimming. so we just admired it from afar. and because we were up at the ass-crack of dawn, a nap in our giant cushy bed was in order. 

naps are always nice, but there is something about a vacation nap that is better. its like you dont feel guilty because you dont have anywhere else youre supposed to be. we got up and and grabbed a bite to eat and then spotted a casino across the street. as ive mentioned in previous ramblings, we love to gamble! so naturally, we wandered over and tossed around some cash. look at this cool slot machine that they turned into a fish tank! it wouldve been funnier if they had a silver dollar fish in it....

we got some drinks and decided to play some slots. apparently the reef casino has loose slots because shaner won $$$$. this guy is the luckiest gambler ever. (i of course lost all my money. sad face lol)

those are $2 coins!

i think we took our earnings and either gambled more with it or used it to buy dinner. my memory is rusty. damn you old age! (im shaking my fist right now haha). i decided that we should be productive tourists the next day and booked us on a food and wine tour of the area (we went with these folks and i cant say enough how awesome the tour was). ive never done anything like this so i didnt know what to expect. we got on a small bus with a bunch of ole gray hairs and headed off through the daintree rain forest. our first stop was a coffee plantation. first things first. my name is jamie and im coffee-a-holic. no seriously. i drink the stuff once sometimes twice a day and was stoked to see how it gets from the plant into my mug. the coffee plants look like this and the red berries have the beans inside (ps the berries taste gooooood).

this machine gets all the bean chaff off. 

this is the roaster. 

 the whole building smelled so good! we heard all about the coffee process, and got to smell beans from different roasts. its crazy how you can effect flavor and taste from just a silly roasting machine. after that we got to sit down and try a coffee of our choice. even shane who isnt a coffee lover got some. it kind of makes you appreciate it more when you see everything that goes into the production. i bought a few bags of my favorite roast....some for me. and some for presents. but mostly for me haha.

the scenery outside the bus was GORGEOUS! i had my face pressed up against the glass like a 5-year old and was taking it all in.

 we drove past this golf course and there were shit-tons of kangaroos just chillin on the green. lol, i found this highly amusing and took a couple snaps. this was the best one. the roo's are the little brown blobs that arent holding golf clubs or bags.

why dont we have cool plants like this in the u.s.?

the next stop on the food and wine tour was at a winery. the funny part was that it was like 10:30 am and we were supposed to go drink all this wine. the best part was that it was like 10:30 am and we got to drink all this wine lol. the guy who owned the winery was this sweet old man who just liked booze, and quit his day job when he was in his 50s and started making wine. i mean, wine not? ;)

we snagged a bottle of lychee wine and hopped on the bus and headed to a macadamia nut plantation. when we pulled up to the plantation entrance the driver stopped the bus and opened the doors, and we are all looking around to see who he's opening the doors for and then the cutest farm dog hops on board. the driver closed the doors and we drove further into the plantation. lol silly dog must know the schedule. he was so cute though. i was missing indy lots so i showered the dog with all my excess loves.  

this thing picks up the nuts off the grass. 

the whole process was pretty interesting. did you know macadamia nuts are originally from australia  not hawaii? mind bottling. and so many other things go into farming that i imagined. he told me they have to monitor weather, and animals, and bugs and all sorts of other things because they can all affect the nut crop. yes, i just said nut crop. we bought a bunch of his nuts too. they were SO good. tasty nuts. a bit salty. lol. 

okay, im done with all my nut innuendo. 

by this point we were sorta hammered and very hungry so i was beyond stoked that our next stop was lunch. we went to a pub in a small town that i cant remember the name of. maybe tolga? look at the silly styrofoam beer coozies! ha. i love australia things like this that you wouldnt ever find in a US bar. 

our driver pulled over at a spot in the rain forest and wanted us to get out to look at some sort of tree. it was kind of cold and all that was going through my head was i dont want to get out of the warm bus to look at some wood. shane cajoled me with a "when in rome" pep talk and we made our way to go look at the tree.  

turns out.....it was a BADASS tree! i took a picture of the sign because i have early onset alzheimers (kidding) and cant remember shit. the tree was a curtain fig and it was so cool! its like a parasite tree that takes over and kills the host. it sounds pretty disgusting but looks so pretty.

the tour continued and we went to a dairy farm (holy STINKY!) and got to try lots of different cheeses. i love anything that starts with c- and ends with -heese. except blue cheese. it just tastes wrong and rotten. like a bunch of barn animals are having an orgy in my mouth. yeah.

anyway...lol. we wouldve bought cheese but i didnt want it to get wonky on the bus. our tour ended at this beautiful lake and we had tea and scones. now all australians will know what i mean when i say scones, but for americans scones are a bit different. its not fried, but sort of like a thick biscuit. they serve it with jam and clotted cream. dont judge clotted cream by its awful name. it is SO tasty. shane and i devoured our scones and were practically licking our fingers (yes, living up to the fatty american stereotype).

we got back that night and were totally tired and lazy. i think we had a room service festivus in bed and spent the evening watching this awesome aussie show where these obscenely rich (and unhappily married) people renovate some old english mansion. it sounds boring but it was like a makeover meets a trainwreck with accents. it was fantastic! 

our last day in cairns i booked us on this mega adventure tour. the plan was:

• take a ferry out to green island and snorkel the great barrier reef.
• take ferry back and have fancy lunch on the beach
• take a skyrail  cable car through the daintree rain forest to kuranda (a hippy town in the mountains)
• wander through set hippy town eating random food and buying useless trinkets
• take an open air train through the rain forest back to cairns

sounds badass right?

and it wouldve been too. if i hadnt gotten DEATHLY ill on the ferry ride to green island. ive got to be honest that im not much of a boat rider. in fact, most of my past boat experiences on the ocean have ended with vomiting. but for some reason in my pea brain i decided that this time would be different. that i would CONQUER! (...and dope up heavily on motion sickness tablets).

that plan wouldve have excellent. except the weather had different plans. we woke up to the cloudiest, stormiest, windiest day ever. it was so sad. but we'd already paid for it, and how often do i get a chance to snorkel the great barrier reef? so we told ourselves lies that all tourists tell themselves..."the weather will get better"....."it'll all work out"....."i wont get sick on this boat ride".....

W.R.O.N.G.

holy hell. ive never been so sick in my whole life. we climb on board this tiny tuna can and get chucked all over the ocean in what i can only imagine is the extreme wrath of poseidon. all my fingers were clutching onto the rails and turning white due to anxiety...i was staring at all these asians who werent sea-sick and were practically doing cartwheels in the boat cabin (i even saw one woman walking around with her plastic snorkel fins on...wtf?), im singing the abc's in my head trying to distract my stomach so that it doesnt try to empty its contents on the floor, and shane is as calm as the pope on sunday. i must admit i was super jealous. what i wouldnt give to not get sea-sick. it was the worst 45 minutes of my life. when the boat docked at green island, all my muscles were sore from keeping them clenched up, and i was a shaky wobbly mess. thank god there were no mirrors because i bet i wouldve been an awful shade of pale green.

two things you should know about this experience: 1) i did not ever actually barf (thank god), and 2) once actual land was beneath my feet i collapsed on it in pure joy/love/appreciation.

i then started babbling about how i would pay any amount of money to not have to take that boat back to cairns. when what to my babbling eyes should appear, but a helicopter stand! turns out, i could pay an arm and a leg to fly back to cairns. which i did. and there were only two spots left for the the whole day.

praise sweet baby jesus.

the only bummer, aside from the small fortune it was costing me to fly back, was that we were going to miss the cable car ride and the adventure in hippy town. shane was a total gentleman and was fine with skipping it. (i think he still felt sorry for me about how sick i got on the boat). since our flight back wasnt for awhile, we decided to try snorkeling since well, thats why we were on that cursed island in the first place. the snorkeling SUCKED! the weather churned up the water and it was all murky and brown. i saw 2 fish and 1 hunk of coral. mega disappointing.

we decided green island could go straight to hell. so we changed back into our clothes and went straight to the bar. i must tell you that our drinking adventure was so much more successful than our snorkeling adventure. 

the day redeemed itself though. our ride home included a tour of the reef! we flew over the entire area. it was gorgeous! just like the pictures. bight blue, green, turquoise. amazing.

when we flew back into cairns, i totally felt like a VIP. the chopper landed and got escorted down the runway like celebs. it was a totally different twist to the day that i had originally planned, but looking back, i am so happy that we got a chance to see the great barrier reef from the air. it was absolutely amazing and breathtaking. and i got to share the whole thing with my sweetie. you can plan an amazing adventure, but the best adventures happen when everything goes wrong. 

i couldn't have thought of a better but way to say goodbye to cairns. 

next stop? SYDNEY!