Sitting on the dock of the bay (Cairns)

Cairns, Queensland, Australia - Sunday, September 28
 

I’m baaaccckkkk.  My humblest apology dear reader, the lack of consistent internet access meant that I forgot to blog.  No doubt you’ve been bored stupid or perhaps you’ve been waiting in fervent anticipation or perhaps you’ve just been getting on with life and haven’t missed me at all.

This trip is to Fitzroy Island via Cairns in Far North Queensland (FNQ).

We left Sydney on Sunday morning to be in Cairns on Sunday afternoon staying at the Harbour Lights Hotel on the pier on Sunday evening, ready to link up with the island ferry the next morning at 10:30.

The plane flight was fairly uneventful except for the agricultural landing followed by a quick taxi ride into town to check in and go for a wander.  We have stayed in Cairns before and it appears unchanged despite the major cyclones that have ripped through the area in the last couple of years.

It was good to change from our winter Sydney clothes into our summer clothes for the first time this year and, after a small wardrobe repair to my dress (see – the sewing kits I religiously carry everywhere do come in handy - Jayne), we went to the pier in search of somewhere to begin the de-stress process. Not so easy to do in Cairns on a Sunday afternoon as it turns out. The pier was almost deserted and many places were closed. 

The place affiliated to our hotel was open and we were keen to have an early dinner but this proved a little problematic since, in Cairns, apparently everyone goes out on Sunday night after a quiet Sunday afternoon at home. The earliest dinner booking we could get was 7:30 pm.  Oh well, since we are here and it is 3 pm, let’s have a bottle of wine and discuss our impending island getaway. 

The changing weather

The waiter was very attentive about everything apart from the actual wine order and, except for Brad’s vigilance, we would have ended up with a bottle of red (apparently slightly chilled) instead of the white we ordered.  The second time round, we actually got a white although not the one we asked for.  Close enough.  We spend a pleasant time watching the pier traffic wander by, have a second bottle of the wine we didn’t ask for and then it is about 5:30ish so I call the waitress over to ask is it possible that we have dinner now (the place has one other table occupied at this stage). No, the table we are seated at is booked and the dinner chef does not start till 6pm but, if we are happy to move to another table, we can give our order at 6 and not wait till 7:30.  Excellent news accompanied by the provision of a very good tapis plate to keep us going till dinner.  We dutifully move as requested from a table looking out at the pier to another table looking out at the pier… anyway, we will never know what the difference was except it got us a very good sea food dinner an hour and a half earlier than originally anticipated.