Goodbye Bali, Hello Australia!!

Well, we have made it into Australia!!

We left beautiful Bali at 1:00pm on September 18th for a tedious string of flights. First back to Singapore for a 9 hour layover ... uuuuuggghhhh .... oh well, we made the best of it. Good thing the Singapore airport is extremely beautiful and has tons to keep people occupied. We celebrated Jarrett's 23rd birthday the best we could ... at Burger King lol, we wandered, we played games, we drank beer, and we wandered some more, trying our best NOT to fall asleep so we could catch up on our 7.5 hour flight into Brisbaine, Australia. We departed Singapore at 12:10am for Australia. Singapore airlines was great again ... they made sure to wake me up for every meal lol.

So, into Brisbaine for 9:35am as we skipped ahead 2 hours. And guess what, another 4 hour layover, yahoooooo :) As soon as the Aussies knew we were Canadian, it was all jokes and them trying to give us a hard time. Then time to catch up on some reading while we waited ...

Last flight for a while was a 2.5 hour flight from Brisbaine up to Cairns. Flying into Cairns was awesome as the sights below us of the Great Barrier Reef were beautiful!! We landed, quickly grabbed our bags, secured a taxi ... to Gilligans!!!!

We had heard from some fellow travellers in Bali that the Gilligans hostel was awesome so we decided to give it a try. The hostel is HUGE and is full of backpackers that love to drink, drink, and drink some more! Tons of Aussies, some from the U.K., a few Germans, and even a couple Canadians (one guy from Regina, one girl from Cochrane ... small world). So our first night - wait, what happened again? Two for one drinks ... hmmmmmmmm ... right! Good times, met tons of drunko's that were SO happy that we were all Canadian and not American and were very quick to share a drink with us once that was established lol.

A slow wake up the next morning quickly revealed something we hoped to avoid ... BED BUGS (gross!). We quickly alerted the front desk and we were informed that it happens frequently because of the amount of people that come and go. So, all our bags were put into the freezer for 24 hours and the hostel paid for all of our laundry to be washed - pretty good deal as we all were dying to get the smell of Indonesia out of our clothes. No one suffered any bites but me ... just a few on my ankle. We were then moved into another room for the second night where we met Mitch, a 21 year old West Coast Aussie who has a viscious black eye from a "random" attack last week. We had a great time sharing card games and testing out Australian rum and beer.

Perhaps the most releiving thing about being in a hostel is the fact that we can cook our own food! There is a fresh fruit and vegetable market right at the bottom of Gilligan's, so we have stocked up on some great, healthy foods.

The plan from here is to spend a few more days in Cairns and enjoy some of the great activities they have around here. Bungee jumping will be happening either tomorrow or the next day :) Maybe skydiving if we make it out of the bungee experience alive and not scared shitless LOL. From here we will be travelling further north to Cape Tribulation - oldest rainforest in the world apparently! We will probably do some Great Barrier tours while we are up there, then take it as it comes ...

Until next time ...