Heading home. Kind of...

Landed in Brisbane early morning, not long after we actually took off from Christchurch, time machine. It was so freaking nice weather compared to the evening before in NZ where people had been running around with big jackets, boots, gloves and hats - and this was their summer!

Two hours later I was aboard a plane again, this time heading for Cairns, which was the final destination. Decided a few weeks ago that instead of going the direct way back to the US, there is nothing wrong with a little detour. I wanted to go diving again at the Great Barrier Reef, had waited till the last moment booking as they had discounts on trips not fully booked.

Last time I stayed at a hostel, that was pretty far from the city center, around 15min walk. Yeah, that far. I had found a reasonable hostel on the Esplanade, that had to be better than the other one. When I arrived to Cairns, it was like coming back to a familiar place, which it also was. The last 5 months have offered so many new inputs here and there, not often I got to see the same things twice, but this time it was different.
It was 32 degrees warm and about 80-90% humidity, it felt pretty warm! Took a shuttle to the hostel and was kind of surprised when the taxi stopped only 30 seconds after having passed the old hostel I stayed at. Oh well, the Esplanade in Cairns is very long, I had ended up pretty close to the old hostel, haha. Since I didn't sleep all night long in Christchurch, I thought I would take a little nap. 6 hours later I woke up soaked in sweat, it was like having slept in a sauna. Hardly had energy to go do some shopping and find some food, the last thing I had to eat was some crappy sandwich in the Brisbane airport. Also got an optical cable for my camera and flash, now it should work as intended. Now I was ready to go diving.

Apparently I had been a little sleepy when ordering the flight tickets, because I had 3 extra nights in Cairns. This place is not exactly the most exciting place, but there were a couple of things that I should visit according to the Tripadvisor.
I started reading reviews of the different activities, but after a while I realized that none of them would actually entertain me much. I had done most of the things already, and probably in much more authentic environment than here. There was something called a skytrain, a train going through the mountains in the jungle. For people who had never been to a jungle before, maybe this was interesting. I would rather walk there myself, but maybe not a good idea with poisonous snakes and spiders as well as crocodiles around every corner. I decided to stay at the hostel and relax a little, started studying some material I would need in a few days. I even read parts of a book, believe it or not.
It was probably good I had not gone on any self-guided jungle walk, the weather shifted many times during the day, sunny and warm, suddenly dark clouds with thunder and lightning. Rain season in Queensland, nothing unusual.
One thing I do like about Cairns though is that you can take a bath in their fountain at the beach. Actually the fountain is in a public swimming pool next to the ocean. Why that you may ask? They have a lot of the lethal jellyfish here as well as saltwater crocodiles, don't want life more exciting than necessary, right?
The last night in Australia I decided to have a good dinner. A family of oysters, a kangaroo, a crocodile and a Barramundi all had to end their lives, so that I could feast on a lovely dinner. One of the benefits of being on the top of the food chain, haha