"Please believe me, I'd hate to miss the train..."

Day 18: Saturday, July 4th, 2015
Steps taken: 16,676

I reluctantly woke up, packed up the last of my things, and headed to the bus stop.  Airlie Beach is a loud ass place at 4:30 a.m.  A few others were already there, and then everyone else showed up in a drunken stupor...everyone except for Caitlin.  The bus was late, but when it arrived we explained to the bus driver that our CEO was MIA.  People tried calling her, but her phone was off.  Martin was the last person to see her at 1:30.  She still wanted to stay out, and was adamant about that.  The bus did its normal loop, and came back to see if Caitlin woke up.  She wasn't there, and no one knew her room number.  We were all worried about Caitlin, but we had to move on.

We headed towards the train station, and dropped off our bags.  A few people jokingly made me new CEO, and asked what our next course of action was.  Asides making a stop for breakfast since our train was running late I thought that it would be a good idea to take the tour to Fiji by hijacking the bus, and then a plane. (JUST KIDDING, TSA!)  I would have hijacked the bus, and taken us to Mexico if this happened in the U.S.

By the time our train arrived, we had confirmation that Caitlin was awake, and would meet us in Cairns.  That was a relief...and a little bit funny.  Now it was time for a ten hour train ride.  While this sounds terrible, it really wasn't so bad.  The train was comfortable even for coach.  First class had these space age almost Emperor Palpatine-esque chairs except that they looked extremely comfortable.  Once again, get your shit together, America! (Also, Happy 4th of July!) On the train I watched two movies: What We Did on Our Summer Holiday, which was about a couple who were separating but took their three kids to Scotland for the husband's father's 75th birthday, and Still Alice, which was about a linguistics scholar who develops early onset Alzheimer's, and how she and her family struggle as everything she knows starts fading away.  Both really good films in different ways, but the main thing that connected them was the concept of family.  Both had excellent casts (even with Kristen Stewart being in Still Alice).  Aside from watching movie I read and had a chicken salad sandwich on whole grain that I bought on the train for lunch.  Lunch was okay for a train sandwich.  Still...GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER AMERICA! I would take Amtrak cross country if they weren't awful.  Love you, America, but I love the world more.

Thankfully the train ride didn't feel like ten hours.  We arrived in Cairns at 4 pm, and was picked up by a guy who worked at the NOMADs hostel there.  We settled in and then Lazar, Carlo, Martin, and myself walked into town.  We took the shore line esplanade to get there, which took about half an hour.  It was a nice, scenic walk.  There were exercise stations, playgrounds, and pools all along the boardwalk.  There was also many cool looking metal work sculptures, and a few war memorabilia sections.  The other side was like a salt marsh or a bog leading up to the ocean since the tide was extremely low.

We walked around town getting a sense of the area as the sun was setting.  Lots of nice food options.  I wanted to stop at every dim sum, dumpling or sushi place I saw.  There were also a few museums there that peaked my interest.  Most of the shops there were closing up for the day, and unfortunately many of them were closed on Sundays.  I saw a comic shop that I would have liked to have checked out, but it was closed until Monday which is when I was leaving.  We headed back to the hostel, this time down Lake Street and got back at 6:30pm leaving us an hour before dinner.

We relaxed until then, and down to the bar/restaurant in the hostel.  They had a crocodile burger on special so I ordered that.  We also got a free drink ticket.  I tried to order a Strongbow hard cider, but it wasn't included, and I wasn't allowed to pay the difference, so I got a Victorian Bitters instead since Dave who I met in Sydney raved about them.  Honestly, I'm glad I didn't pay to try it.  There was nothing special about it.  It was just beer.  Boring, liver killing beer.  Still a wee bit better than Budweiser though...I don't feel like reiterating what I said before about America.  During dinner, Caitlin arrived, and we all had a good laugh.  Glad she got there all right.  I ate most of my burger (Do you want me to say that it tasted like chicken? It didn't.) which was pretty good.  I was feeling extremely lethargic and drained, so I went to bed with no great plans for the next day.  Sometimes those days can be great too.