Cairns — i am nicole

I took my last Greyhound bus ride up to Cairns. It was the evening of St Patrick's Day when I arrived and let me tell ya, the US does a much better job celebrating. And just like their St Paddy's celebration, Cairns is just okay. It was home base for a couple weeks so I got to see quite a bit of this city. And the city does try- they have a nice lagoon, public wifi, and free exercise classes.

The beautiful croc-infested beaches of Cairns...

I got up early one morning for a free yoga class. It was not yoga. It was an awkward man stuttering about praying to a mother and semi-meditation. It was so bad, my roommate and I left early and went swimming in the lagoon.

The next day, I decided I'd avoid another letdown workout class and went off hiking on my own - or bushwalking as Aussie's call it. I went to the botanic gardens and through this awesome rainforest boardwalk that is a wooden walkway through a rainforest swamp. So many mozzie bites, but worth it. Rumor is: vegemite behind your ear will ward off mosquitos. Y'all should try it. Let me know.

Rainforest Boardwalk in the Botanic Gardens.

After the gardens, I bushwalked up Mt Whitfield to a beautiful lookout over the ocean. The trail here is just stairs. No stairstepper machine in an air-conditioned gym can prepare you. It's so humid here, your sweat does not evaporate. You never fully dry after showers and your clothing will not hang dry. Don't even waste your time.

Bushwalking up Mt Whitfield is all stairs. Muddy, rainforesty stairs.

The next day, this guy visited me!! I'll forgive him making fun of my passport photo by posting it here for the world to see.

Meet Ryan. He came halfway around the world to join me on this crazy adventure. What a guy.

We rented a car and drove all around Queensland to rainforests, beaches, and islands, and rainforest and beaches on islands. But I'm getting ahead of myself. This post is just about Cairns.

Every evening there is a Night Market. It is this large space with stalls for cheap massages, cheap Asian food, and all the cheap knickknacks you could ever hate. Ryan and I went one night and got a little fish pedicure. It tickled like crazy, and we looked like loons sitting there laughing. Funny enough, I think it actually worked.

On weekends, there is a giant farmers market with fruits and veggies for as far as you can see. The food is better priced and better quality than any grocery store around here. I definitely loaded up and pretended to be vegetarian for a couple days...except during free sausage Saturdays at the hostel...

Since Ryan and I got kicked off Magnetic Island and didn't get to see any koalas (you'll hear all about that later), we had to find somewhere around Cairns to hold one. The only place that was inexpensive and close was the most horrible, tacky, zipline mini amusement park over a casino that just happened to include a quick pic with a koala. He was the sweetest, cuddly little baby and snuggled right into my neck. It was love.

Bad quality photo, I know. But they never emailed me the digital copy so this is what you get.

And I can't think of a good way to sign off for this post. So here's a photo of us being typical Ryan-and-Nicole.

We have matching towel/capes now. He's a shark. I'm a kangaroo. And we're both super cool.