This morning I would be flying to Cairns, in Northern Queensland, the Gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. I was booked on a noon flight, so I had time to grab a coffee before heading back to Central Station to take the train to the airport.

The check-in procedure was non-eventful, and before long I was on the plane to Cairns. I had a window seat on the right side, so I got some great views of Sydney as we were ascending. I was able to get a bit of blogging done and took a nap, and before long we were descending into Cairns.

There isn't really any public transportation from the Cairns airport to the city: it is less than a fifteen minute drive, but the airport operates a shuttle bus service to the city for A$20, so I elected to get an Uber directly to my hostel, Traveler's Oasis, for about the same price. I had been sent instructions over Booking.com on how to get in and retrieve my key to drop off my bags, but the office wouldn't be open for check-in until 4:30pm.

I had booked a 3-day/2-night liveaboard dive trip in the Great Barrier Reef with Pro Dive Cairns, and my top two priorities for the day were to go check in for the dive trip at the dive centre, which was conveniently located within walking distance from my hostel, and to go shopping for a few things I thought I might need, conveniently the Cairns Central Shopping Centre is right across the street from my hostel. It was especially nice that everything was so close because it was raining (Cairns is in the tropics, and it pretty much rains constantly during the summer).

I walked to the Pro Dive dive center to check in, and was fitted for a BCD and fins. I then went to Cairns Central Shopping Centre to get some lunch, I went to Roll'd (an Australian chain) to get some Vietnamese spring rolls, which were good but overpriced. I also went to Kmart to buy some cheap towels for use on the boat (it later turned out that the hostel would've given me some to use for free, but since the office wasn't open I didn't know that yet), and to Woolworth's to get some sunscreen.

By the time I was done shopping it was 5pm and all the shops in the mall were closing, so I walked back to the hostel to formally check in and do laundry. By the time I was done with laundry, it was starting to get dark, so I walked north through the city to look for somewhere to get dinner. I got distracted by an ongoing ukulele jam session outside a music store, and stopped for a while to listen. Eventually I walked down the block to Yama Zaru Izakaya, a Japanese restaurant with really good reviews online, that also happened to have reasonable prices, and was open late (rare to find all three), and sat down for a katsudon and an Asahi.

After eating dinner I continued walking in the direction of the ocean. I stopped at The Dairy by Mungalli, where all the ice cream is lactose free, and had some delicious blueberry basil ice cream. I walked down to the water, and stumbled upon the Cairns Lagoon, which appears to be a public pool right next to the coast. I could only wonder how busy it might get during a sunny day.

I headed back to the hostel, and got the chance to wash up in the outdoor shower, which was refreshing.