Cairns, Australia

Sun, Nov 22, 2009

Hooooowee! Australia is HOT. Especially after New Zealand. I feel like we went from a MN November to a MN August. It takes a little getting used to. Now that we’re settled in for a few days in Cairns with a swimming pool and beaches, I think I’m up to the challenge.

Brisbane was tough though. I have found that I don’t much care to be in a city when the weather is hot and humid. All the concrete and car exhaust just magnify the discomfort. I’m sure Brisbane is a lovely city; I just didn’t care to stroll around outdoors in the early afternoon. By early evening, though, things had cooled down somewhat and we went for a walk in the City Center, which was hopping with energy and people celebrating the end of the work week. It was fun to see how vibrant the downtown is and a little weird to occasionally see shopworkers wearing Santa hats in 90 degree weather. They don’t have Thanksgiving here to provide any kind of buffer to early Christmas advertising. Not that it does much to slow down the advertising in the states either, but at least the Santa Bears have to share shelf space with pilgrims and turkeys for a little while. We had a great dinner of lamb pizza at a restaurant that was packed – it is THE place to be in Brisbane I guess.

One thing that took us by surprise was how early it got dark. In New Zealand the sun didn’t set until after 8:30 and the sky stayed light for a good half hour after that. Here the sun was done by about 6:30 and it was dark by 7:00. Strange. Although our flight from NZ to Aus was only 2 ½ hours, there is a 3 hour time zone difference. Of course the flip side of that is that the sun comes up by 5:30am. I woke up in Brisbane at 5:40ish just sure we had overslept and would miss our flight. We did not oversleep and we did not miss our flight and in fact we arrived in Cairns with no problem. Or as they say in NZ, “no worries mate.”

So back to Cairns… being here is like being in Mexico, except not quite as shabby around the edges. The town has a very laid back attitude and lounging is encouraged. We’ve pulled out the big numbered SPF and I can see we’ll be using quite a lot of it. Tomorrow we head out to our live-aboard on the Great Barrier Reef for three days and two nights of diving and snorkeling and playing cards. Pretty nice.