The End of the Road.... for the Campervans

From Airlie Beach we had 2 days to make it to Cairns. We decided to drive most of the way which was  6 hours to a rest stop in a small town called Tully. It was apparently the wettest town in Australia?! Their landmark was a huge boot/wellie that you could go up inside and they produced a lot of sugarcane there. It was an odd little town where apparently a lot of people did their fruit picking and regional work.  (The girls are poking their heads out of the top of the boot here, sorry the picture is not great)

We stopped at a rest stop for the night beside a transit bus centre which had a bathrooms and one cold shower, we weren't too fussed as it was free - we are such gypsies now. The next day we drove another 2 hours and got to Cairns. It was HOT out. SOOO humid. We stopped off and booked into Gilligans Hostel which was recommended to us which I could definitely recommend, it was like a hotel, with hostel prices, free meal every night, huge pool and huge bar and club. 

We then drove to the depot to drop off our Campervans :( It was a sad day! We were vehicle-less. 

We headed back to Gilligans, they drove us back there for free :) Yay! We then headed for the pool, ate the free dinner, which was sausages and mash potatoes, actually quite nice, 'free' is my favourite flavor. For the rest of the night we hung out at the bar, drank a few 'scooners' which is 3/4 of a pint.... a 'pot' is half a pint and that's what Australians usually drink apparently.... us Irish & English are the ones who super size our drinks to pint size, makes more sense I think, less walking to the bar. 

We also played some sort of bingo, but the DJ was an Aussie so we didn't understand half the numbers he yelled out. Bloody language barriers. haha!

The next day we spent all day looking for regional work (fruit picking or farming jobs) up North or South near Melbourne. We thought it would be good to get our regional work out of the way.... plus we could save a lot of money to set ourselves up better in Melbourne. We must have rang over 50 places. We also attended a talk in one of the travel agencies about regional work but apparently this round of workers for this season are already hired and the next round isn't for 6 weeks. I don't believe these people anymore, too many travel agents have lied to us. So we had a meeting and decided to go with our original plan of heading for Melbourne. We booked a flight, got it for $160, for a next day 3.5 hour flight down South. The travel agent in Gilligans told us she could get us cheap flights for 350. LIARS!!! Case and point!

That next morning, we were on a flight out of HOT Cairns to cooler Melbourne. The girls took advantage and had a nap.... while catching flies!

We arrived in Melbourne and had to put shoes, jeans and jumpers on. WTF??!! I do love jeans though, haha! But I do prefer jean SHORTS and HEAT!!!! It just so happened to be a colder day though, and apparently they can have 4 seasons in one day.... Frost Valley??!!! ha! 

Oh and a tip, for other travellers.... when you don't have an iron.... use a hair straightener :)