Packed, cleaned, and packed some more until it was so late or early, depending upon your point of view, that it didn’t make sense to go to bed.
Our flight to Cairns was scheduled for an 8:45 am departure; we’d booked the car into the long-term parking and figured leaving by 7 am at the latest should give us plenty of time to make it to the airport, park, check the bags in and a leisurely stroll to the gate.
Is this starting to sound slightly like our experience at Johannesburg airport?
By 7:30 a.m., we arrived at the long-term park and were waiting at one of the many bus stops. About ten minutes later, a bus pulled up about ¾ full of people and bags. We struggled aboard with all our bags: two large duffle-type bags (with wheels), two North Face backpack bags, one backpack (with computer and gear), and one roll-on (with camera gear).
Unfortunately, the bus had to make a couple more stops until it was chock a block full of bags and people stuffed everywhere, but finally, it headed out of the car park.
We arrived at the terminal's arrivals level instead of the departure level just before 8 a.m. and joined the bag drop line. Both check-in lines were quite long, and we were getting close to boarding time by the time we had our bags heading down the chute.
There was a bit more stress, as the lines through security were long, but to cut a long story short, we made it to the departure lounge with a few minutes to spare. Of course, it was the one at the end of the terminal!
Standing in the alley at the Cafiend Cafe in Grafton St, Cairns
We landed in Cairns to find one of the Gravis bags had lost one of it’s wheels. After a quick check at a local skateboard shop who were super helpful we found out that Ollie from the café across from the shop had had the same problem and had a spare axel the only bit the skate shop didn’t have. Anyhow to cut a long story short the base that the axel screwed into was shot, the whole thing was in vain but it taught us that there are some very nice and very helpful people living in Cairns.
View of Cairns from the Holiday Inn
Later that evening we enjoyed a wonderful dinner on the waterfront at the Waterbar and Grill. We indulged a bit in an amazing Chocolate Hazelnut pudding before retiring for the night.
The remains of a great Chocolate Hazelnut Pudding
