Life in Cairns

As most of you already know, Alex & I put our travels on pause for a few months and are living/working in Cairns.  It may be winter in Australia but we’ve come far enough north that we’re untouched by the cold weather and are enjoying the dry season up here.  I’ve shared a lot about our diving adventures so far but I haven’t really told you about Cairns or our day-to-day life so here it goes…

Oddly enough, we heard nothing but bad things about Cairns before we got here.  So, even though it was our original plan to stick it out here during the Aussie winter, we seriously began to doubt whether or not whether Cairns was where we really wanted to stay for a few months after everything negative we heard on our way up the coast.  Fortunately, Cairns is way better than described and we loved the nearby diving opportunities so we decided to set up camp here for a while. 

View of Cairns from the Water

One of the things that we immediately noticed about Cairns is that it’s very lively with lots of people out and about everywhere (something that was woefully missing in our last stop, Townsville).  The town has a few cool areas where everyone congregates; the Esplanade that runs several km along the oceans with parks, sporting areas and stretches of restaurants/bars, and the Lagoon, a big beautiful pool on the ocean adjacent to a popular park.  Why would you need a pool when you have the ocean you ask?  Well because Cairns is on a mud flat so the coastal water is very shallow and when the tide goes out, it’s mud.  Ha, I think this photo says it all…  Nice, huh?

Fortunately, for those interested in spending time in the water, Cairns has this beautiful Lagoon.

We’ve spent most of our time on the Esplanade.  It’s only two blocks from our apt and it is wonderful to have so much green space so readily accessible.  Alex runs along there pretty much daily (I run there a little less frequently), we’ve spent time at the park playing volleyball and had a lovely picnic there for 4^th of July.  It has a gorgeous walking path highlighted by exercise stations and artwork and, when the tide is in, a pretty scenic ocean view.  It is also home to one of my favorite pieces of art in town, this huge mosaic seashell framed by palm trees.

Since I shared the artwork I like the best, here’s the one that confuses me out the most…

What do you make of this?  To me, it looks like a giant gummy bear grabbing his crotch!  Adding to the creepiness, the huge grin on his face…  And, in case one of these statues wasn’t enough for anyone passing by, there are five of them in a variety of colors.  I get the pleasure of walking by this display on my way to work and it cracks me up every time.

Sadly, aside from loitering or going out, there’s not much to do within walking distance of town.  Most of the ‘local’ attractions are at least 30km away and require a car to get to so we’ve been limited in our adventures up here so far.  We did, however, take the bus up to Palm Cove one day in hopes of enjoying a day at the beach.  The beach itself was beautiful and Palm Cove was charming with many boutique hotels and quaint cafes.  The main disappointment was that we dared not get into the water after we saw this warning…

Who would want to swim after that?!  Despite staying dry, we enjoyed a nice, relaxing day at the beach taking in the beautiful scenery.

Back on the home front, first on our list of things to do once we decided to stay in Cairns was find a place to stay and it was surprisingly more challenging than I expected.  Cairns was hitting its busy season right as we started looking and so there were no hotels offering weekly rates (yeah, rent here is paid weekly, not monthly – I found it odd at first but I’m getting used to it), which meant it would quickly be more expensive than we’d budgeted for.  We visited place after place with no luck and, by the 20^th or so place, I was pretty frustrated and ready to give up.  It started to look like we were going to have to live in a sharehouse – a multiple bedroom apartment in which each room is rented out by different parties who share the common areas such as the living room and kitchen.  This was not ideal in my opinion, but it was cheap and appeared to be our only option so we set up an appointment to visit one that looked very nice online.  While the room itself was cute and the location close to town, the common area was filthy from the moment we set foot in the door.  Alex was grossed out off the bat and I wasn’t too keen on seven people sharing one bathroom so we ruled out sharehouses and continued on with our search.  Then, after yet another strike out, a nice guest services lady took pity on us and recommended we visit a building nearby where she thought we could secure a weekly rate.

Thankfully, where we were sent has one unit that the building leases from a private owner (they pay him rent regardless of whether or not his unit is occupied, so they prefer to have longer term stays and, as such, are very accommodating on price) and that’s where our search ended.  Our complex, Cascade Gardens, fits our needs perfectly and I was relieved to finally have a place to unpack our bags for a while.  It’s not perfect; the painted cinder block walls remind me of my college dorm room (and anyone we talk to on skype of a prison), there’s no oven, the wicker couch is not even close to comfortable and the gym is currently closed, but it has its share of positives.  It’s close to town (five blocks to work for me and only three for Alex), has in-unit laundry (a HUGE plus since we were paying roughly $7 per load for laundry everywhere we’ve stayed in Aus), free unlimited internet (also huge since internet here is expensive! and you usually get quite limited bandwith, which made skyping and posting on my blog challenging), a lush pool area, wonderful property managers and a dog, Sooty, who is always on hand for cuddles!   Here’s a photo of the little cuddler (she’s awesome but she’s no Penny) and shot of the pool. 

Once we had a home, our next mission was finding jobs.  This too turned out to be more difficult than expected, though mostly just for Alex!  Unaware that this backpacker haven was littered with unemployed travelers looking for jobs, I naively printed out three resumes (yeah, they expect resumes here for jobs like bartending – weird!) and selectively handed them out only to the bars that I had heard were cool and looked like places I’d want to hang out in.  Fortunately, I had good timing and caught one manager a week before seven of his employees’ visas ran out and was hired on the spot.  The bar is called Rattle’N’Hum, it’s located on the Esplanade in a busy stretch across from the Lagoon and is really popular with locals and tourists alike.  I love it because it’s a nice, clean atmosphere, serves a reasonably aged crowd (not 18-20 yo backpackers) and closes at midnight (whereas most of the other up here are open until 3-5am).  And, in a place where we get 20+ applicants a day every day, I have a job!  It also doesn’t hurt that the bar is affiliated with four other popular bars in town so we get the hook-up everywhere (though I will openly admit to the danger of free mystery shots and the subsequent hangovers that I have suffered at the hands of my fellow bartenders).

Alex is still bitter about how I lucked out right away and got hired at the second bar we went to because his job search didn’t go quite so smoothly.  He must have handed out fifty or more resumes and was repeatedly turned down, more often than not solely because he isn’t a girl.  Totally unabashed discrimination with no apologies was, understandably, more than a bit disheartening but he trudged on and, last week, scored a job at a cute, family-owned rental car shop working four days a week.  The owners of his place are very cool and he likes the guys he’s working with so I’m happy to report that it worked out for him in the end.

Now that we don’t have to worry about where we’re going to stay or what’s going to pay for all the diving we want to do, we can finally start enjoying our temporary home.  Armed with our list of things we want to do in far north Queensland, we’re excited to continue our adventures so look for some new posts from me soon!