Day 223 (Sunday 25th) - The Answer Seems To Be, Not Much.
Bored, and regretting buying my flight already and thereby committing myself to a another week here, I decide to do something to kill the evening - I went to cinema on my own for the first time, I think. I watched Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, which was good for the first half, but then degenerated into a complete load of nonsense, unfortunately.
Day 224 (Monday 26th) - Not A Lot
To be honest, I can't even remember what I got up to today - I think I walked to the Esplanade, hung out in the sun until it started pissing down, waited for it to stop and become sunny again, and repeat. I left the hostel about three times and had about twenty minutes of sun (and a few rainbows) each time. I entered the Killer Pool competition with a guy from my room, and met some Swedes later on, and ended up getting a little tipsy and having a good laugh with them. The main thing that happened today, however, was that I finished Robert A. Heinlein's Time Enough For Love, which I had been reading since Perth. It was truly awesome, I felt dumbstruck at the end, and had to sit, slightly open mouthed, on the sofa for a while, thinking about what I had just read. Next up is a slightly intellectual read - Dawkins's The God Delusion, which I got at Denpasar airport ages ago.
Day 225 (Tuesday 27th) - 21
Not much happened today - I wandered around the city, and while on the Internet I found out that Charlie, Ellie, Teeny, Steve and Hailey from the boat were all in Cairns, so I met up with them in Gilligan's (an incredible place, although not one in which I would like to stay - it claims to be a Backpacker's Hotel, and includes a massive pool, bar, two clubs, and occupies a whole city block) and headed to the Cinema. Charlie, Steve and myself went to see 21, while the girls went to see Made Of Honour. The film was awesome, all about card counting and beating the system. After joking about it for a while, Charlie Steve and I went to the Dome Casino to throw some money away. I only had $30 with me, which I lost fairly quickly on Roulette, while Steve broke even at Blackjack. Charlie, on the other hand, managed to lose about $300 on roulette, having gone up and down loads - apparently he had won $450 on the Pokies earlier, and consequently didn't really see it as his money. This seems somewhat foolish, I would consider it mine the second it got into my wallet.
Day 226 (Wednesday 28th) - Cairns - Cape Tribulation
Last night I tried to sleep for the few hours I had available, but I was thwarted by a noisy drunken Irish girl, who was talking in an incredibly loud and high-pitched fashion. Consequently I slept pretty much all the way to the Cape, apart from a little wander about Mossman Gorge. The guide was pretty dull, droning on about various facts in a thoroughly unengaging way. When I got there I realised that maybe I had made an error - the various trips and activities you can do up there are pretty expensive, and one of the reasons I went up there was to spend less money. I headed to the bottle shop, 1.5km up the road, to buy a few cheapish beers. I met some girls from Warrington, and a dutch girl, with whom I played some cards until 11 or so - the only alternative to this is going to the bar and spending $6 a beer, which I opted not to do.
Day 227 (Thursday 29th) - Bored At The Cape
Woken by the sun through the window (always nice), I headed to the beach with the guys from Warrington, where we had some awesome discussions - it turns out they had studied The God Delusion in their philosophy classes, so we talked about loads of the stuff raised by it. It got fairly windy down there, so when the others had to get their bus back to Cairns I went back to the room and read for ages, then slept pretty early - actually very early, about 9 o'clock.
Day 228 (Friday 30th) - Back To Cairns
Today was (thankfully) my last day at Cape Tribulation. After a pleasant morning of wandering, shirtless, down the road in the 30 degree heat, it was back to PK's Jungle Village to get the bus south. The bus journey included a trip to the Cape beach (where I had already been twice - never mind) and a Crocodile spotting boat trip. This was a successful trip, we saw a couple of 3m females lounging on the banks, and a snake in the trees, as well as some Kingfishers and other wildlife. On the bus I met a couple of slightly drunk Americans from Orange County - Ben and Courtney, who were pretty cool and a laugh (both at them and with them). After I checked back in to Calypso, I went and met Steve in town for a drink, which turned into a few. We were tempted to PJ O'Brians pub by some girls, who said "Where are you guys going? You should come with us!". When we got in there, they didn't speak to us again and we realised our heads weren't really in a party mood, so we retired back to Steve's van for a while, until a security guard told us to move along, as his boss was there so he'd get in trouble - Steve and Hailey have been staying in the carpark of the Cairns Central shopping centre for a few days now. Also, it seems that Steve and Charlie had been going to the Casino every night since I left - Steve was about $150 up, whereas Charlie had lost about $900, then returned and left Australia $2500 up. Not bad.
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