Today for our last day in Cairns we were going to go to Smithfield Mall. They have a cafe that has gluten free chocolate cake and a pet shop. Exciting, huh?
So April picked us up and told us we're going somewhere for a surprise.
We're driving north and I'm saying "alright... up here we have the northern beaches, palm cove, clifton beach, a crocodile farm, cairns zoo.... then if you go many hours we have mossman and cape trib!"
"As if we're going to Cape Trib" said Sean.
April says "I'll give you a hint... what is like going to the pet shop but much better?"
She surprised us with going to the Zooooooo!
Incoming MANY PICTURES:
Hug a koalaaaa!
Holding a croc! Yeeahhhh
She let us pet this cute little guy. He felt like a rabbit. He's related to the kangaroo. He was nibbling on her ear and licking her and stuff, it was sooo cuutteee. He's a Potoroo.
Koalas and a baby. The baby was moving around a bit.
This crazy little lizard zoomed out from nowhere, ran over one turtle and jumped onto this turtle! He sat there for about 30 seconds and zoomed away. He's a water lizard and swims really easy. It was funny.
Feed the kangarooo! They're not like the petting zoos here. They've been fed all day and a lot of them didn't even want to eat.
Scratchyscratchy kangaroo head!
This big croc was part of their show we got to watch. They're so cool.
And of course, Sean and his way with animals. This lorikeet hopped on Sean's hand and was gnawing on his hand. Cute little guys!
Pretty pretty dingo.
This is a cotton-top tamarin (monkey). He's soooo cuuuteee and small! Tiny little thing!
Cassowary!
Red panda! Or firefox is their other name. I love the tongue.
They had a bird show and it was amazing. This is a barn owl.
This is a sea eagle. This is the type of eagle I saw in the wild when I was walking to work. It's so big and so cool.
Cute little cockatoo! They look sweet and cuddly.
That is a red-tailed black cockatoo. I also saw two of these flying in the wild. Very impressive looking!
Huuuuge snake! That thing would eat me!
All in all, very good last day to Cairns. Thanks April!
Finished work at my Tuck Shop job! It was a good job.
They (my co-workers and boss) completely floored me with their generosity. Dawn, who I worked with closely, bought me a couple chocolate mousse for my last day, due to the fact I became immensely addicted to the chocolate mousse there. I'm telling ya, it's better than chocolate bars. She also bought me a nice card, which everyone signed and sent me a nice note on the back of the Tuck Shop menu! Then my boss sent me home with a whole bunch of qualification stuff, her name and number for a reference plus PRESENTS! And then, since it's easter holidays all the food had to go... so I came home with a whole box full of fruits/veggies.
Presents! An oven mitt and a matching tea towel both of an Aussie map with Cairns on it, and a nice dish that says Cairns with a Turtle.
These people are the sweetest.
Sean didn't even get a "goodbye" when he left his terrible McPukes job.
Me in my Tuck Shop uniform! Lolololol... Sooooo many kids come for those minties you can see on the very right.
My co-worker Dawn. It was just her and I working in the Tuck shop.
Dawn, Norrie (my boss) and I. I had to give my uniform shirt back!
Soooo sweet. Sometimes with some of our experiences here I end up thinking "Australians suck!" but then something like this happens and I'm all "Australians are the best!" But really, they are very generous. I wish Sean had a fraction of my good fortune in this job.
Another story from the past couple weeks: Sean and I decided to go to the pet shop!
Soooo, it's after work and I get home at 2:30. Sean takes a bit getting ready, since he had just woken up due to his night shift schedule. We decide to go to the pet shop which is a bit away. One of the public use bikes here were gone and I didn't want to pay for bus trip there and back, so we decide to walk there and catch the bus back.
All good, I think.
The FIRST thing that went wrong was that I had brought some food home for Sean, knowing he would be hungry as soon as we start going, and I forget it at home.
No big.
Then it ended up being a LOT further than I thought it would be, and it took us over an hour to walk there! Sean needed some food, so we stopped by a bakery beside the pet shop when we finally arrived and got him some food. He was eating it and I looked over to the pet shop and the lady there was moving the mats. I said "Ohh nooo, we walked all the way here and they are closing up!!"
Went over, looked at the hours and I couldn't believe it was 5:00 and they close at 5:30. "Oh, you're open for another half hour right?" "Yeah, but are you after anything? we close right at 5:30 on the dot."
So right away we feel rushed. I wanted to play with the critters and pretend I wanted to buy one but we couldn't now! Sooo disappointed. They didn't even end up having kittens in the shop!
We spent 10 minutes in the shop then went to catch the bus.
We found the stop and of course, the bus passes us before we get there. No big, I think, I know a couple more pass this spot.
Another one passes us while we're walking.
"You gotta be kidding me. We're gunna have to wait AGES now!"
Ended up catching the next bus only 15 minutes later and I had to ask the bus driver where we could get let off. "We need a stop near Martyn St, but I haven't taken this bus before and I'm not sure where the stops are."
So the busses here run by "zones" The more zones you go through the more money it costs. I had been wanting to only pay for one zone, which was all we needed to get dropped off close to there.
"So your final destination is Martyn St?" "Yep"
He ends up charging us both for 2 zones and giving us a transfer ticket. He tells us where he lets us off we have to catch the 123 bus and cross the street. I got confused, as I just wanted to go close to Martyn. But he already gave us the ticket and everything, so whatever.
Then we pass a bus stop right beside Martyn 5 minutes later. I said to Sean "oh we could have gotten off right here". Then we pass the mall, and then we're going further and further away!
So we ended up going right into the bus terminal in the city, which is like a 30 minute walk home. The 123 bus comes every hour. When we got let off we went to look at the schedule and we had just missed the 123 by 2 minutes. TWOOOO minutes!
I was crabby by now. Sean was feeling tired and would rather wait for the next bus than walk.
There was a little mall right by us so I said "Lets go look around at least, it's better than sitting here for another 45 minutes." "Okay."
Looked around, still had ages to go. Sean said "I could use a beer store right about now." "Look, there's one right there! Lets go!"
So we go in and take our time and buy some cider.
We went outside and our bus was THERE! It was the one that comes 30 minutes later and it wasn't on the bus schedule. We have to RUN for it and we made it but maannnn I would have been pissed if we missed it!
So we get home and it's late. 6:30 and I'm crabby. All that for a wasted trip to the pet store.
But the disaster day doesn't end there. We had to do some laundry and we were washing all the bed sheets. All good, but we had to use the downstairs dryer for the first time. The problem is, it's night time by the time we're putting it in the dryer and we can't see anything outside. Sean puts it in but the dryer is upside down! So he puts it on "warm" instead of "hot" and nothing would dry for the first hour and a half. Then he puts it on hot for another hour, still not dry.
It ended up taking over 4 hours and a few things were still damp. I ended up passing out on our blanket with no sheets or pillow cases. Sean had to wake me up to make the bed and everything.
AND I didn't have enough to eat for dinner so I was extra cranky!
DISASTER day.
BUT! I have some cute pictures from the pet shop!
"rawr"
They had these HILARIOUS looking puffed up chicken things:
It kept following us and going "bawk bawk bawk".
They sold chicks there! They were cute but I thought "aww they're probably for egg making to eat."
Cuuttteeee.
Turtleeeee!
So! 4 days from now I'll be in Melbourne!
I haven't updated in over a month! I'm terribleterrible. But, things haven't been very good and I like to keep good memories, not stressful ones! And we haven't really gone around too much either, mostly we've just been surviving (work, finding a place to live, etc).
However, I do have some cool pictures!
We went to a beach (again, you say, I know I know...) and they had the coolest little clams. Every time a wave would pass these little guys would be above the sand, flip themselves on their side, then dig into the sand! It was so funny to watch, there were heaps and heaps of them.
Close up picture:
All those little rock looking things are the clams:
If you have access to Sean's facebook (or are some how able to watch it) here is a link to a video of them.
So! We stayed at a caravan park for four days while we found somewhere more permanent to stay earlier this month. The park was nice, it had a turtle feeding area. We didn't actually go and watch the turtle feeding but when Sean and I walked down there a toooonnn of fish and little turtles came up really close to us. They were cute! We didn't end up getting pictures of the turtles because Sean got really, REALLY sick. Originally we were trying to find a little cabin that didn't include a bathroom, but they only had one available that did have a bathroom and thank goodness. Sean went to work Saturday night, ended up puking on the way home, and was really really sick the next 3 days. He wasn't even able to walk without help. It was pretty scary and I was going to take him to the doctor on Monday but by Monday afternoon his fever had gotten better so I didn't end up taking him. We probably should have, but since we just spent some unplanned money on the caravan park we didn't want to spend an extra $60 on the doctor as well.
Sean took a picture of our little cozy cabin thing:
Now we're in an sharehouse in Cairns city! We've been living with a Japanese couple and for just the past two days an Aussie guy. We've been here for two weeks now and I love it here.
Our Japanese roommates are cute and clean! I've honestly been really impressed with them, they keep the kitchen just as clean as I do. We kind of have a system going on, I put their dishes away when I cook our meals (which is normally earlier than them) and they put our dishes away. When we first got here the floors were pretty gross and the kitchen had a lot of grimy areas, so I've cleaned them all up and they've actually stayed clean, other than me sweeping normally every day. I've cleaned up the stove and everything all nice and pretty! Our landlady asked me if I scrubbed the shower and mopped the floor and I was like "no?" so the Japanese couple did that too. Every day they do some extra cleaning I get all excited and Sean asks me what's wrong with me, haha. But really, yesterday I went out to cut up some fruit while they were eating. I didn't finish by the time they started cleaning up so I went and gave them space and was going to clean up my cutting board when they were finished. I came back 10 minutes later and they cleaned it up for me! I was like noooo wayyy awesomeeee! We've totally gotten lucky with our roommates.
Other than that it is really peaceful here. There is no drama or problems or anything. Totally relaxing. The bus stop is less that 5 minutes away for me to catch to go to work (even though it still takes an hour to get to work, then I'm at least 30 mins early) but it's alright.
I just get bored. I would rather walk for an hour than bus for an hour!
Pictures of our house:
Cute, eh?!
Our room. Sean was making me pout about something.
Common area. It's got a cute painted scene on the walls of lake/cloud/birds.
Kitchen.
Our room has its own little bar fridge and tiny hand sink. The fridge is very nice to have our own, but I've had some trouble with it! When we first got here it stank something AWFUL. Soooo grossss. So the next day I completely wiped it all out. It was a little better, but not enough! I let a bunch of the ice defrost to see if it was the surface ice or not. Well, it wasn't. So this past weekend I took it outside, completely defrosted it and hosed it all out and let it sit for over a day. Hopefully that will take care of it!
We found a place that has gluten-free fries (hot chips) and burgers so we went there for our anniversary of 9 years together (!!!). And we got alcoholic slushies.
Our dinner was good, Sean and I both got "queenslander" burgers. The toppings included lettuce, tomato, onion, bacon, cheese, beetroot and fried egg!
Mine with no bun:
That's about it!
Sean and I have decided to go to Melbourne earlier than planned. We're running out of money as we haven't been able to get any more work and Sean's hours are crazy inconsistent. Not to mention, Sean dislikes his job very much. Soooo, the current plan is we're going to go to Melbourne for minimum two weeks and try and find some work. I'm pretty stubborn about seeing Lyn before going home, and we're hoping the grass is greener on the other side.
It seems like it will be alright though. There is a LOTTT of work down there. I've already gotten a phone interview and I've only very casually been looking! (They needed someone right away though, so it was a no-go. Still a very good sign.)
So the 31st of March we're on the way to Melbourne!
