We went to bed last night with $135 dollars in our kitty purse. Breakfast, some nibbles and a large bottle of Bombay Sapphire Gin purchased at the airport should hopefully bring that balance down to zero! As soon as we’ve checked in to our hotel in Cairns we’ll be pouring ourselves a double G&T in way of celebrating our friend Pearl’s birthday. Happy Birthday Pearl, hope you’re having a great day xx
Today we’re flying with Singapore Airlines poor relation, SilkAir and my, you can certainly tell the difference. We were looking forward to a nice glass of wine on the plane, but can you believe it, it was a non-alcoholic flight, have you ever heard such a thing? Lunch was no better with a choice of chicken or chicken. For a vegetarian like Maice it wasn’t the greatest menu. Mind you my chicken and noodles tasted very fishy, it didn’t look like chicken, it didn’t taste like chicken so I left the chicken and ate the noodles. Thankfully the seven hours went by fairly quickly despite it being a ‘dry’ flight although we did drink copious amounts of water and I did my homework and studied my camera. To be honest, I’m still none the wiser and it’s supposed to be easy to use! I put it down to still being jet lagged. The plane landed at 5.15pm with a screech of brakes that had everything and everyone being hurled forwards like in an emergency stop situation.......someone’s bread roll went hurtling down the aisle and I ended up with someone’s sock at my feet!
G’day folks! Hey guess what, it’s sunny and very warm here 😎. According to the Australian lady sitting next to Maice on the plane it’s been very hot and sunny with little rainfall for quite some time. We made it through customs and passport control without any bother and walked into the arrivals hall. Well, imagine our surprise to find it was empty and everywhere was shut. An international airport with no-one around. It was all very strange. We wandered in and out of the building a few times just to make sure we weren’t imagining things, but nope, it was empty. Devoid of people and nothing was open. This was most odd. With no transfer booked we hoped at least there would be a taxi rank, which fortunately there was, so we hopped into a taxi and asked what was occurring. Apparently the airport was in lock-down, not because of our arrival but due to the arrival of world dignitaries attending a summit elsewhere in the country and they had to land here, or something to that effect. The vice-president of the USA was attending, so it was high powered stuff going on. We passed lots of police vehicles parked on the airport road and apparently the place was crawling with undercover cops. We didn’t see any, well we wouldn’t would we, them being undercover. Apparently they were hiding out in the coaches parked along the highway. So the mystery of the empty airport was solved. As we chatted away with our taxi driver we told him we were off to Port Douglas in a few days time. He didn’t seem too impressed, telling us we should stay in Cairns and do Port Douglas for a day, ‘that’s all it needs’ he said. Well, that was a conversation stopper if ever there was one. Suffice to say, lady on the plane said Port Douglas was great, very upmarket (suit us down to the ground) and with loads to do, well that’s good enough for us.
We checked into the Comfort Inn Discovery Hotel, a much smaller room than at our Singapore Hotel (it’s going to be a tight squeeze for our Day 3 yoga challenge), had a quick spruce up and went in search of water. We’re just five minutes walk from the esplanade so we walked along the boardwalk in the balmy early evening and it was lovely. In just the fifteen minutes it took to walk to the shops we instantly felt this totally laid back vibe fill the air, wonderful. We deliberated whether to eat out or purchase some provisions to eat in the room. We were tired so decided on eating ‘in-fresco’ (our new word for eating indoors) and purchased our provisions from Woolworths. Bread, cheese, water and tonic water. Back in our room we prepared for the yoga challenge which saw us rearranging the furniture to make space. I must say, it was a ‘cosy’ experience doing yoga in our ‘bijou’ room, more often than not I kept coming face to face with Maice’s posterior as we jostled for space in the Downward Facing Dog pose. I can see a total rearrangement of the room for tomorrow’s yoga session. Let’s hope our villa in Port Douglas has more space!
We most definitely deserved our G&T and whilst I was dealing with our itinerary and trying to book our onward transfer to Port Douglas Maice prepared supper. Ah, in-fresco eating, you just can’t beat it. We’ve promised ourselves we’ll eat out tomorrow night, mind you, no doubt we’ll still be in bed by ten!
And on that note, its time for bed....
G’night all ......M&A xx