Cairns (07 Jul – 03 Aug)

The rest of my time in Cairns I just spent enjoying the great weather and the nice people I have met. Big shout out to two guys from Hamburg Andre and Robin and to two fellows from NSW Mark and Jules.

YHA in Cairns

 It is not as hot and humid in Cairns as it will be in Darwin or Broom but it is a good warm up to get used to the climate.

I took me quite long to figure out where to go next. Initially I wanted to go to Darwin but the flights were too expensive and I couldn’t find an appropriate ride. Some Germans asked me to hop onto their van but talking in German all the time is not what I came for.

So I took it easy and decided to stay longer than planed. I helped some German guy with his English studies, went out for dinner with an Irish guy discussing the current status of his country, relaxed at the Lagoon (an artificial pool because swimming at the beach is prohibited due to the crocs), played a lot of guitar with Jules and Mark who showed me some new tricks and songs. That skin on my fingers got really tough again, especially when you are playing an acoustic guitar rather than a classical.

Park next to the Lagoon

Lagoon

In order to improve my guitar playing I also invested some time in music theory and aural training. Playing with these boys really got me interested in playing the guitar again. After Heidelberg I didn’t play much partly because I have some troubles with my tremolo and so it goes out of tune within 20 minutes of playing. But now I have decided to have it re-set up again no matter what it costs. Cant wait to get my hands back on my RG1570 Prestige ShrED Master ;-)

Flying Fox Bat in a park in the middle of Cairns

 For many people the world cup was number one topic during these days and having our team finish 3^rd is a great result. If only the games weren’t on that late.

For some time now I contemplated including Asia into my travel itineraries. Simply because it is cheap and there are some amazing dive spots as well as wonderful nature to see. In the first place I just wanted to travel Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. But being in the area it wouldn’t be prudent not to drop by on one of the Indonesian Islands situated just off the Australian coast.

I found out that the cheapest flights to Bali are from Perth and so I checked the flights to Perth and they were actually cheaper than going to Darwin. Since Darwin is much closer to Cairns I wonder how that could be but maybe its because more people want to go from Cairns to Perth than to Darwin.

So I booked a flight to Perth where I will figure out where to go next in Asia. Really looking forward to Perth although it was not on the initial route.