So bye Cairns Hello Canberra

Tuesday

Today was wash day I set about washing most of my clothes. I had to wait quite a while for the staff to finish doing all their washing. So I set about blogging while I waited for this to happen.

After all washing was sorted I go the 15:30 bus into town and sorted out a few things, including popping to the post office. I then had a wander toward esplades again, on the way I came across 4 small statues which were dedicated to Army, RAAF, Navy and Womens Medical Service. Each had its own story and yet again it touched home how lucky we are to have the freedom we do have and the life’s we have, even more so when you read about men of 26 years and younger who gave their life’s to defend their country.

After this I continued along eslpades and then headed to the bus stop to get the 17:15 back. On returning I set about packing and met my new roommate. It turned out she was from Sweden and so I said that I was there last year at the World Scout Jamboree. She reply cool I was there too! This set about a chat reminiscing about the jamboree and moved on to chat about Explorer belts. We then both went for our free dinner in town and I upgraded to fish & chips for an extra $5, good options considering the queue for the free options. Got back and had an early night as had early one the next day.

Wednesday

Up early and sorted all the last few bits in the bag and checked out. I was picked up by shuttle bus at 8:30 and headed to the airport. First flight was at 10:10 and to Brisbane. My second was from there to Canberra at 14:10. The first flight was with JetStar Australia’s version of Sl-easyJet but there owned by Qantas, so there not too bad, heck they have got me A to B so far!

Interesting thing I learnt was QANTAS stands for Queensland And Northern Territory’s Air Service.

So for the second flight I had to collect my bag and re-checkin. Firstly the baggage reclaim is in a public area and anyone could walk in of the street and pick up a bag, madness! But quite cool is the check in for Qantas is all automated. You print your own bag tags and boarding pass from a machine, then go up to another machine which then is an automated bag drop 🙂 . Also for rucksacks they have trays [bit like a bread tray] that you can put your bag on so it doesn’t get broken.

So through security and then time to abuse the free Qantas wifi 🙂 . Finally on the flight and I had an empty seat next to me this was nice as I could chill out and relax abit more. Onboard service was good, no meal but free drinks, cookies and fruit so I took it all! Then into Canberra and it confused me as we landed early? Nope we were 5mins late but Canberra is 1hr ahead as its on ‘Summertime’ so that’s +11hrs on the UK. I collected my bag and then waited outside for the shuttle bus.

I got to the YHA and checked in and sorted my kit and headed out to find local shops to get food. I found Aldi and spent $28/£17 on food which should sort me for the next 3/4 days. See you still can live on £5 a day scout style camp shopping. I then headed back cooked dinner and headed for bed I was knackered. Yep bed by 9.30 ish lol.