9/17: From the Barrier Reef to Australia's Top End

Caravella 149, our hostel in Cairns (pronouced pretty close to Cannes as if an American were saying it), had a 9:30 checkout, the earliest I can remember ever having. Plus fines were charged if you were late. We had booked an 11am pickup for the shuttle to take us to the airport so we only had a short time to return to the Esplanade and the gorgeous lagoon to read our Kindles in a glorious spot. 

The entire hostel, except for the rooms, was open air: the lobby, the kitchen below, and the eating/communal area above. Since there was no wifi except in the area above and only til 10:30, I spent many an hour huddled over the computer with my headlamp on since the lights were very dim once the sun went down.

The biggest key holder I’ve ever seen! It was for the luggage room.

We passed the Cairns Cenotaph several times: Info about it is below.

Wonderful seeing so many people enjoying the 

glorious weather in the free pool adjacent to the beach.

We’d never seen such a huge (litre sized) bottle of sunscreen before coming to Cairns.

Great knowing when the UV rays are in the extreme category.

Wished we’d had more time here to just relax on the Esplanade and by the pool and not have to keep a constant eye on our watches to rush back to the hostel in time to get the shuttle. As it turns out we could easily have gotten a later shuttle as we arrived at the airport only 10 minutes later and we couldn’t even check in yet so had a log wait for our 1:35 departure to Darwin in Australia’s ‘Top End.’ 

The airport is small and unlike most other airports around the world, we didn’t have to take off our shoes OR dispose of water in our water bottles prior to going through security.

It was unusual walking right out to the plane on the zebra lines

painted on the tarmac just like pedestrians crossing the street. We sure weren’t at DIA anymore!

Shots of Cairns and the coastline from the plane - duh!

 We didn’t realize when booking the Air North flight that it would stop at tiny Gove en route to Darwin. Everyone had to deplane for 30 minutes or so.

Welcome to Gove in the state called the Northern Territory.

Saw a large group of perhaps young high school aged girls and their coaches, all attired  in Gove Netball gear waiting to get on the plane to Darwin. I asked one of the coaches what netball was as I said I wasn’t familiar with it. She looked at me like I was crazy and said it was played all over the world and that it’s somewhat akin to basketball without a backboard and the ball isn’t dribbled up and down the court. The team was going on to Alice Springs, i.e. in the Outback, about an 8 hour drive from Uluru, for a tournament. I wonder how they raised those funds as the flight costs alone would have been horrendous – perhaps lots of bake sales!

We sure would recommend flying Air North to anyone needing to get to Australia’s Top End; we had complementary food served on both legs of the journey from Cairns – a far cry from Jetstar and all US airlines we’ve flown for the last several years. 

See you in a few hours at Darwin's Mindil Sunset Market!

9/24 in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia: Trying to publish this post from our pretty swanky hotel but the wifi is abysmal here. I'm not able to 'Save' anything in the post, nor click on 'Preview' to see all the mistakes I've made before hitting the 'Publish' key. But here goes...