04/29/10
Uncle and auntie woke us up at 4-430AM and we got to the airport by 530AM for our 7AM flight. We will have one more day in Sydney at the end of our trip. I really did enjoy the atmosphere of Sydney – very similar to Toronto atmosphere I think. I could picture myself living here one day although driving is still something that I’m still getting use to. We flew with Jetstar from Sydney to Cairns; roughly a 3 hour flight. It would’ve taken us 48 hours by train to travel Sydney to Cairns so we were happy to fly.
We arrived in Cairns around 1030AM and got picked up by Leah who works at Dreamtime Travelers Rest Hostel (189 Bunda St, Parramatta Park QLD 4870, Australia) where we are staying. Chris working reception was really helpful and friendly. We booked a private room with 2 single beds – shared bathroom/toilets. The room has A/C but otherwise is quite humid and has a mini fridge but no table with 2 single beds and a fan. Internet is available with purchase of a internet card. I had gummy bears with me from my flight over and put those in the fridge and they were such a nice little treat after coming home from the heat.
Cairns (which is prounouced as “canes/quanize”) is very humid and its been raining a lot lately here. It is indeed very tropical here.
My brother doesn’t care to make decisions so since we only had half day, we didn’t book jungle surfing, I decided that we would go bungy jumping. We booked AJ Hacketts – bungy jumping – $169AUD+$49AUD photos. The van picked us up and off we went. 20 ppl per bus, on our original van only 3 decided to bungy while the rest did minjin (fastest swing).
They get you geared up and you let them know what you would like to do – Bungy jump or Minjin. Next step is they weigh you to ensure they adjust your ropes for your weight. At this point, it just makes me feel so bad about my body and a workout is dearly needed. I will tell you right now that I am not one for heights but what the hell, when in Cairns and the opportunity comes up, you should just go do it. To reach the top you must walk up the stairs. Getting up those stairs was probably the most difficult part for me. Once you get up there and have time to watch others go first made my nerves calm. Andrew went first and well he wanted to take a dip but he was too light that he didn’t even reach the water. He was in a diving position the whole time but didn’t quite break the water barrier.
I don’t know how to explain my jump… I wanted to push off so the photo would look cool but I looked down as I pushed off and lost all the strength I built up. The only thing you could hear from me on my jump was me yelling “oh shit!” I hate roller coasters and bungying is beyond that. Flinging my body on my own free will 43 meters down. They tell you when you reach the bottom (recoil) to just tuck your chin in so that you don’t get whiplash. My first recoil, I curled up like a ball and practically made it back upright maybe 5 meters under the jump-off platform. All I know is my head immediately started hurting after that and it was incredibly hard for me to breathe smoothly. So there you have it, I, Rosanna U bungy jumped in Cairns, Australia. Probably won’t ever do it again but now I can say I did it (and have a shirt and photos to prove it!). There was a guy named Michael (Irish guy that looked like Alexandre Despatie) and some other girl who did about 9-10 jumps each. There was also a girl up on the platform that started to cry and was afraid to jump and unfortunately the only way for them to come down, the staff will push you off the platform because there are no refunds. She did enjoy it in the aftermath.
We arrived back around 530PM and walked down to Spence St to find food. We found ourselves in the marketplace and wow… The Japanese population takes over…. Its like Cairns is a J-town. We bought a few souvenirs in this one jap souvenir store. We ended up eating in the Daily Night Markets at a place called Good Food Cafe. We both ordered kangaroo burgers and chips. The meat is tough/gamey but good. We then proceeded back to the hostel and I edited images and passed out.
