Day 1: Cairns AUS

I landed in Cairns (pronounced Cans cause Aussies are weird) around 5:30 local time, and got through customs and grabbed a shuttle bus to my hotel to drop my stuff. Two nights of lack of sleep after 3 weeks of heavy activity have left me exhausted. Today was a struggle just to stay functioning until I could check in at 3pm. 

It’s quite a change to go from the temperate, cool fall of Japan, to the tropical, late spring of Cairns. It was a pleasant 75, but wearing all my clothes and lugging my suitcases it felt quite sticky.

Cairns is located on a mangrove swamp so driving back from the airport I watched the mangroves and it felt quite reminiscent of the keys. I even saw some sea grape on the side of the road  

I got an iced coffee and a breakfast bowl, neither were what I was expecting. Aus is a beautiful country like NZ that thinks ice coffee means coffee with ice cream

















topped with whipped cream. I was not prepared to have ice cream at 7:30am, but I also was very excited about it. My bowl was delicious with fried sweet potato, kale, houllumi cheese, avo, and a poached eggs. I overlooked the ocean while I ate and enjoyed the mountains and the bay.

I puttered around the bay and town for a while before heading up to the botanical gardens. They were stunning full of flowers in bloom. Some of the coolest were the cannonball tree, the gingers, and the jade flowers. It was a lovely day walking (and trying to stay awake). 



Around 3 I made it back to my hotel and took a nap (not too long so I don’t mess up my internal clock) and spent the evening getting my life sorted a bit. Hoping to spend tomorrow resting and luxuriating before I begin really making the most of Australia. 

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