Cairns - Day Seven

It was Tuesday, our last full day in Cairns, and we decided to just chill out.  We had a big breakfast - sausages, scrambled eggs, grilled tomatoes, bacon, pastries, juice and coffee.  It took a while to get through all that, but we felt well fortified for the day.  By this time it was about 10:00am so we did about three quarters of our packing in preparation for our departure the next afternoon.

I wanted to buy a small book I'd seen about the Great Barrier Reef, and a gift for my cousin for taking us around over the weekend. We also had to cash in those errant $5 casino chips we'd forgotten.  So we hit the streets about 11:00am and went straight to the Casino.  I just walked in and out again with our $55 cashed in, but I did notice that even at that time in the morning there were quite a lot of people in the casino.

We walked around the Cairns CBD and finally got to Cairns Central shopping mall.  You could really be in any city in the world in one of these malls.  We found a book shop and actually bought 5 books to read, but didn't find the touristy one I was looking for.  We also bought my cousin a sweet gold elephant charm because she loves elephants.  It had its trunk up, which means good luck.  By the time we got back we'd walked a fair bit and we were hot and thirsty for something other than water.  We had to drink those last two Asahi beers that we had in the fridge, so we did.

Chilled Asahi, we just had to get rid of it

We were meeting my cousin for an early dinner at 6:00pm, and we didn't really need to eat much after that breakfast earlier in the day.  So, mid afternoon, we ended off where we started on day one - Salt House, by the marina:

That red ship in the background is the Australian Customs Marine Unit ship ACV Ocean Protector.  I don't know why it was in Cairns, but it does go all over Australia for Customs and Border Protection.  It was impressive.

ACV Ocean Protector

Here's a longer shot of Salt House.  Note the muddy shoreline.  And the prints in the mud.

Prints in the mud

I don't know how we missed this before, but this sign was staring us in the face right where I took this shot.  On closer inspection the prints looked like they mostly came from water birds, but still....

A recent croc sighting, crikey

OK, so I'm not wading in that murky muddy water by the shore.  That's that, not negotiable, so we moved on. This is the entry to Salt House.  It's pretty relaxed.

Nice place to hang out

Yep, pretty chilled

I could go back there in an instant

We sat in the same spot as on day one, so that was cool.  Finish off where it all began I guess.

Relaxing spot

We started off with two James Boag's.  A Tasmanian beer.  The capital of Tasmania - Hobart - is over 3,500km south of Cairns (that's 2,100 miles).  It's that little island at the bottom of mainland Australia, across the Bass Strait.

James Boag's

Just a couple of shots of the general locale:

It was pretty, no crocs about

From the outside

A tourist helicopter disturbed the peace for a few minutes.  But soon all returned to normal.

Noisy.  It was low tide, hence the mud. No crocs there though

We are sitting to the left, behind this little garden bed, in the shade.

The next James Boag's.  They have interesting labels on the beer made in Tasmania, and they make claims that the springs from where they get their water are crystal clear (does beer contain water? must be good for us then).  Well yes the water would be clear and it would certainly be cold, so maybe that's why this beer is so crisp.

James Boag's Tasmanian Beer, I guess that's a picture of the spring water source

We needed to eat something small to get us through to our early dinner.  Do these look familiar?  Just like day one, only this time as yet untouched by us.

Tiger Prawns

There's something perfect about chilled prawns, chilled beer, being chilled, and sunshine.  As soon as I took this shot, I peeled and ate this prawn.

A sweet stripey giant

We met my cousin for our early 6:00pm dinner.  We were so early because she had to start work the next day at about 7:00am I think.  We went to an Indian restaurant on The Esplanade.  We ordered too much food, drank too much wine, talked too much and laughed ourselves silly.  But that's what cousins do.  At least in my family they do, but I'm sure that's common amongst cousins.  She liked the little elephant we bought her a lot.  We did take some pictures but I'm not posting them because, well, it's family. I miss her already and I hope her husband is OK wherever he is out in the ocean doing border protection and other Australian Navy duties.  He's on the HMAS Bundaberg.