"Welcome to tropical Cairns."

Boy, is it HOT and HUMID. I mean that in all seriousness. It's averaging about 33 degrees at the moment. If it was dry heat I probably wouldn't complain this much . But we've heard the further south we go, the dryer the heat.

Cairns being a primary spot for buying a car, as travellers start and finish their trips here, we had decided to buy a car here and drive it to Perth in the upcoming 5 months (some 10,000 miles ahead of us). It's been a bit hell-ish trawling around dodgy car dealers, but after a long 4 days, we've got it. It's a red Ford Falcon 1994 Sedan.

The dealer, going by the name 'Spiro', is an old drunken, rude man to put it simply. Some may even wonder why we're buying off him? Well, the price. We've parted with $3500 today, which is one of the cheapest cars we've seen so far, and by far with the lowest kilometres done and in reasonable nick. It's a bit damaged in a couple of areas but after seeing some expensive rust-buckets, this came out top. We've done all the official paperwork through the Dept of Transport ourselves, just to reassure ourselves of anything dodgy, but it all went through fine (phew!)

A few snagging problems, but he's sorted them out (although unwillingly).

One point though - literally 1 hour after buying the car, a Japanese couple rocked up outside our hostel with THE nicest, newest, better car for just over what we paid Spiro - gutted. Due to paperwork and cooling off period rubbish, we can't get our money back as we've signed papers and transferred registration names etc. (Nilesh & Jo - It even has WA registration plates till May 2009!) We're majorly bummed about this but have to look past it! The couple selling it are seriously genuine too :( Let's hope our car makes it to Perth with no problems and then maybe we won't feel this bad!

Anyway, to the point - Cairns. We, personally, quite like it. It's got the whole Esplanade water-front thing going on, but it remains dignified as it isn't as tacky as most promenades normally are. There are also night markets, street entertainment and is always buzzing every night so it keeps us busy and happy. Cairns is nothing like what I expected; I suppose that's the good thing about travelling - that element of suprise.

We've already done Great Barrier Reef snorkelling, which was cool but I wish we went to further out reefs where there was more marine life. You always hear how there is dead reef around, and as much as you try to avoid it, you won't find a company (charging a reasonable rate) who will take you far away where no other has explored. We managed to see an enormous sea turtle, lots of colourful fish, and other strange looking sea creatures.

'Travellers Oasis' is the highly recommended hostel we've been based in for the past 6 days, and it serves its purpose well - but the lack of A/C is not cool. Only since being here and speaking to people, have we heard that Cairns has a tropical climate (well, we didn't really need telling once we stepped out of the plane - Duh). Darwin also has a similar climate, but that will hopefully be travelled during the end of our stay in Australia.

We leave Cairns the day after tomorrow, heading for Townsville, a five hour drive away. It's a month today till we are in Sydney for the Christmas & New Year period - bring it on! We also meet Hinesh & Tanya there, looking forward to seeing a friendly face. Tonight we are going to the Casino near the Esplanade to win the car money back - wish us luck! ;-)