Day 1 Cairns: A Day of Travel and Timely Pondering...

I was up at 5am this morning and shared breakfast with the Taiwanese family that I'd met the evening
before that is in the process of considering emigrating to New Zealand.  Their English was much better than my command of the Taiwanese language and we did manage to converse a little bit about our respective travels.

With my breakfast of an orange consumed and coffee made for the road I was pleased to see that I was not travelling to the airport alone.  A young lad from Scotland was in the van with me.  We'd chatted briefly the night before and he was heading home after a bit of a holiday before going to work for his dad.

Auckland International Airport is a busy place!  There are flight coming and going to and from everywhere!  As I appreciated the diversity of the "community" in which I found myself, my eye was drawn to a poster in one of the pubs - a poster for a local beer.  In particular, I was drawn to the line: "You don't end up in New Zealand by accident... We are all here for a reason..."  I don't think I've fully appreciated the reason yet... but I know it was no accident that I ended up here and there are lessons I am learning from this experience - and so it was I spent the five hour flight from Auckland to Cairns alternating between pondering the twists and turns of my life journey over the past five months and distracting myself with a movies.

Customs in Cairns went smoothly and after finding the shuttle counter I was soon in a minivan heading toward my accommodations for the next three nights.

The first order of the day was to obtain an Australian sim card for my phone.  It is important that I am
available in the event of an emergency and I want to be able to stay in touch with loved ones back home.  The concerige directed me to the local grocery story where I picked up a sim card and some groceries and then, the check out staff person directed me to the nearest liquor outlet where I picked up four different Australian beets.  Hey... I have to find out what I like...!!

Back in the room I had a snack and set up the phone and then headed out for a walk...  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...







Around 6pm I headed out again to find some supper and ended up eating at a little cafe on the
Esplanade.  It was a lovely meal - Tropical Pizza (ham and pineapple) and a local beer - together with local music coming from the part across the way and a view straight out of a magazine!

I took my time strolling back to the room - wandered through the market and then along the boardwalk back to the hotel where I grabbed a beer and headed to the hot tub where I met two Aussies from Melbourne who were waiting for their lady friends to return from shopping.

Once they found out I was not a Yankee they opened up and we had a great chat about the Australia economy, the current refugee crisis, American
interventionist policies and so on... it was a fine way to end a great day.

I'll soon be off to bed for tomorrow I am off dirt-biking in the rain forest ... on the Sabbath Road... pictures will of course follow...

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