Back in Western Civilisation

Well, several nicely pampered flights later, here I am in Cairns. The hostel I'm at is huge; it has 60+ rooms, a pool, two kitchens, a laundry and plenty of other things I probably haven't found yet. It's strange being back in a westernised place, everything is more expensive, there are supermarkets which sell proper bread and cheese and everyone is speaking english. There are a huge amount of backpackers here and not the type that I'm used to. These all seem to be the tanned, surfing, heavy drinking types. Luckily the irish girl I'm sharing with is lovely but I feel like I'm going to be sifting through alot of people to find the ones I like. Cairns is very touristy and not very australian so I'll be leaving here first thing wednesday after I've done a trip into the rainforest. I'm going to save the great barrier reef for somewhere further south.

Last night I had my free dinner at a place called the Woolshed with a french guy called Paul, then today I've mostly been enjoying supermarkets and sleeping, lots of sleeping. I'm hoping someone will want to hire a car or camper with me for travelling south but otherwise I'll be using the greyhound buses. So far I know I'll be stopping at Airlie Beach to see the Whitsunday islands, Hervey Bay to see Fraser Island and Noosa. I'm not trying to push myself to fit everything in because I just haven't got enough time so my only aim for this part my trip is to relax, enjoy myself and try not to spend too much. I miss Asia already. Hopefully the scenery here will make up for the lack of culture. Nothing more to report for now, except that Cairns doesn't have a proper beach, which sucks.