It turns out that I can’t leave for my dive trip until Monday, so I have the whole week to just hang out in Cairns. The past couple of days I have been doing things like emailing A. frantically to get her to fax me copies of tickets so that I won’t be stopped at NZ immigration and discovering that it will cost as much to replace my camera as it will to to repair it and going to waterfalls with lovely British people and going out. After such a good weekend in Innisfail with Melanie I was a little worried that I would kind of hate Cairns, party capital of Queensland, but it turns out I’m enjoying myself quite a bit.
Like with pretty much everything else in life, it’s been the people who have made the difference. Melanie dropped me off at the hostel on Sunday and I trepidatiously checked in, all shy and nervous…and within fifteen minutes I was discussing the three things I talk about most in life–sex, cake, and bellydance–with a bunch of awesome people who have become good friends in the last couple of days, the way that is possible amongst backpackers. We’re all adding each other as friends on Facebook and borrowing each others’ going-out tops and cooking meals together and it’s just very fun and silly and relaxed and awesome. I am glad to have come to another good place, one that I wasn’t, frankly, expecting to be that great.
And I am trying to think and write coherently about something like fate, or serendipity, or maybe something about how you can hope and wish that what you do in your life will work out the way you want it to, but how you can’t know how it will all go, in the end. And how sometimes all your planning is for naught and how it’s a good thing, sometimes, to just let go of control and guilt and decide not to do much sightseeing for a week, to get over your cold before you go on your dive trip and to sit around the pool attempting to speak Italian with a couple you saw making coffee with a travel-size Moka stove-top coffee-maker in the hostel kitchen. I am thinking that amongst all the fun and silliness there’s maybe something to be learned from just spending a week chillaxin’ in Cairns.
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2 responses to “Chillaxin’ in Cairns”
I hope it wasn’t anything I said that made you think you wouldn’t enjoy Cairns – I’m curious about what you expected before you got there and how has it been different for you.
You really looked like you needed some relaxing, which is why I tried to keep things easy in Innisfail, and why I was really pushing a visit to Mission Beach. I’m so glad you’ve found it for yourself in Cairns, and so, so glad you sound as though you’re really loving this part of your holiday.
Hope the dive trip is awesome too!
xx
Yes, you definitely want to be over that cold well before you dive. Take some decongestant the first time out anyway, just to be sure.
Glad you’re having fun! As long as you are hanging out, I highly recommend taking the train up to Kuranda and catching the skyrail back–it’s breathtaking!