Cairns

Our flight out of Sydney was at 6:40am so we had to be up at 4:00am. I was not thrilled about the time, but the flight was so much cheaper that it made it worth it. I had made sure to be fully packed the night before so that all I would need to do would be to get dressed and brush my teeth. I was just about ready when Alyssa turned on all of the lights in the room. I was really angry because all of the other girls were sleeping but she said she couldn't find her tennis shoes. We searched absolutely everywhere for them, even rifling through the other girls stuff. They were gone. By this point, the noise had woken two of the other girls up and they were helping in the search, but the shoes were no where to be found. Alyssa and I both think that Ellie has them because she was getting dressed to go to the gym as we were heading out to the opera house the night before and she was the only one not sleeping in the room the night they went missing. I'm not sure if she meant to steal them or if she thought they were one of the other girls as they are always sharing clothes. Regardless, it was 4:30am and the shuttle was there to pick us up so there was nothing we could do to remedy the situation. Alyssa was obviously upset as they were $200 shoes and her only pair of shoes with closed toes. We got to the airport with time to get some breakfast and coffee. As usual, the cheapest thing around was McDonalds so we ordered there. While we ate, we were able to buy some of our flights in Asia because we were getting decent free internet.
The flight was only around two hours, so we were there before we knew it. There was a shuttle waiting to take us right to the hostel, which I always enjoy. It makes things so much easier! Once we arrived at the hostel, we checked in to our six person girls dorm. It looked like everyone except for one person had checked out, so we had our pick of beds. We evaluated the a/c unit and fan (I can sleep with an oscillating fan blowing on me) and selected beds in different bulks for optimum comfort. The hostel was a big place with a nice pool and main social area. It seemed well run and had free wifi, so we were happy with the choice to stay there.

We went off in search of some lunch and I found a lovely little cafe with reasonably priced wraps. I have had a great love for wraps on this trip, so I am very happy when we can find a good place. I had a turkey, brie, spinach, cranberry and avocado wrap which was delicious!

After lunch, we decided to walk around town and check out the beach. Turns out, they don't have a beach. There's just a bunch of rocks by the water so they've built a nice park with a huge swimming area for the public. It seems to make sense because you couldn't swim anyways with all of the stingers in the water. We sunned with everyone else in town and read throughout most of the afternoon.

As we walked around, we noticed something odd. There was a very marked difference between the aboriginal people and the white Australians. An Australian had mentioned something to Alyssa about this when we were in Sydney, but this was the first time we'd seen it in action. The white people and aboriginals never mix. They don't speak to each other and they don't go to the same places. The aboriginals are clearly lower income and group together throughout town. It was crazy to see how separated everything was.
We decided to grab some quick/cheap dinner at the "Greek taverna" right up the street from the hostel. We were able to get lamb/chicken pitas for $11 which is really cheap for dinner in Australia. It was small but that was ok. We headed back to the hostel to settle in for the night.
One of the other girls in our room was going to bed early because she had to get up at 6:30am to catch her flight. I was the only one in the room at the time and she asked me if she could turn the light off. I said that was fine because I can read with my headlamp. She also mentioned that she had turned off the a/c and opened the door, which didn't bother me at the time either. When everyone else came in to go to sleep, it was pretty got in the room, so Alyssa switched on the a/c. The girl was sleeping below the a/c, so she immediately switched it off. Alyssa then turned it back on. This created a huge confrontation between Alyssa and the girl. The girl felt that because she was closest to the a/c unit, she should have jurisdiction over it. The rest of the people felt this was insane. We had paid extra money to have a room with a/c and not sweat to death all night. She was 25 and it wasn't her first time in a dorm so you'd think she'd have figured out that you don't always get your way when there's five other people involved. Apparently not because she started crying. Hysterically. Like went into the bathroom and was hyperventilating crying. It was absurd. Finally we just turned it off because we felt like maybe there was something wrong with her and she was cussing us out in Swedish through her tears. We were in for a hot night, so I took a sleeping pill to make sure I got some sleep.

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