Cairns, Australia, Australia

Today has been a VERY long day, but a good day as well. It started out with a 3:30am alarm clock and will end with me setting my alarm clock for 5:30am tomorrow. I thought this was a holiday!

I woke up at stupid o’clock in the morning to catch a bus to the airport at 4am to then catch my 6am flight up to Cairns. Everything went very smoothly and the 3.5 hour flight was a breeze. I was able to catch a few ZZZ’s on the plane, and spent the rest of the time playing the new update to Angry Birds (awesome!)!

I got in to Cairns at about 8:30am, got my luggage without a problem, and waited about 10 minutes for the shuttle to Calypso Backpacker’s Hostel. An English guy picked us up and 15 minutes later we were at the hostel and in our room. The people at the hostel were incredibly nice and helpful. The room itself is not much to speak of, but it has two twin beds and more importantly, an excellent air conditioner! Since the moment we stepped off the plane and onto the jetway it was obvious that we were going to be dealing with a heat that is much different from that in Melbourne. It was around 85* at 9am and it was very humid. That’s okay though, at least we’re here now and not stopped by another one of mother nature’s cruel jokes.

We decided to take a walk down the esplanade to see what Cairns had to offer and the answer was simple, not much. There are a lot of restaurants and bars, but nothing too touristy in the town center. We decided that a good way to spend the afternoon would be to go on a Crocodile Explorer tour. We boarded the boat at 1:30pm and cruised up the Trinity Inlet for an hour and a half in search of wild crocs. We checked out a few other inlets on the way up river, but we weren’t lucky enough to see any in the wild. We docked at the edge of the Cairns Crocodile Farm and got on a bus with our incredibly informative driver Gary. This wasn’t a petting zoo that had a few crocs and some shows. This is the farm where Louis Vuitton and Hermes order their croc skins from, and this is a multi-million dollar a year operation. They have about 18,000 crocs at all times and kill about 1,200 a week to sell.

Gary took us all through the farm where the crocs are kept. We saw where the breeders are taken care of and then where the future handbags and belts are fed 24/7 to grow them as quickly as possible so they can sell them off. It was fascinating to see this side of the industry that I’d never really thought about. And it was very impressive to see some of these beasts up close. They are pretty intimidating, even with the fence separating you.

After returning from the farm we’ve come back to the hostel to get a much needed shower and something to eat so we can have an early night. I’ll be waking up at 5:30am tomorrow to head down to Tully for some white water rafting. I can’t wait!!