July 18, 2007

A very leisurely first day in Cairns, we spent the morning lounging about and had a late breakfast. Apparently baked beans are a fairly standard item to a lot of Australian breakfasts, and we finally tried some today (along with our eggs, toast, etc). They were quite good baked beans: heavier on the tomato sauce than American baked beans, and a little less sweet. After breakfast we walked around a bit and got Rob a bathing suit. Then we went back to the hotel thinking that we would have a swim in the pool. We had not realized that the wind had picked up and that the pool was still in the shade. Too cold for swimming, we read by the pool for a bit instead. Then, to continue the leisurely day, we wandered down the waterfront to find a late lunch, then wandered around Cairns some more. We walked past the “man made beach” called the Lagoon – a public swimming pool in the middle of the waterside park, with a stretch of sand along it. It’s a very popular spot. Then we wandered to a pretty empty mall at the end of the Esplanade, where we booked a trip into the rainforest for tomorrow.
For the late afternoon we decided to go to the Cairns Show that we had read about in the morning paper. It happens once a year, and is a very big deal around here, though apparently not amongst tourists. The big events for this year were billed to be acrobats and fireworks and petting zoos. We got somewhat lost on our walk there and stopped in a very busy hostel to ask for directions. With a pause and a slightly quizzical look, the woman who worked at the hostel pointed us in the right direction, and we found it. She also gave us a map that included the fair grounds, which is outside the “downtown” found on most tourist maps. By the time we got there it was very clear that this was a thing that was very popular amongst local residents. It also emphasized that this is really a blue-collar working town, which just happened to have a tourist boom with the start of reef trips a few years ago. The place was a giant carnival with rides and carnival booths and cotton candy that wrapped around and around itself. There were also farm equipment displays, petting areas of ducklings and baby sheep, and a few craftsmen displays. We found the blacksmith just as he finished making a lizard for the crowd watching him. Eventually we found where the performers were, just in time to catch the very end of the acrobatics display. It wasn’t that impressive (and given it was the very end of the show) until they reminded the audience that the male of the pair of performers was 72 years old! Next we watched chainsaw competitions for a little while. There were speed and skill competitions, and I thought that it not only demonstrated skill, but also a great deal of trust in your chainsaw-wielding competitors. Yikes! And last we saw some very well trained horses perform coordinated routines with only a little direction from the rider on one of them. It was impressive! Next: back into the heart of the city, by a much more direct route, for dinner and then desert along the Esplanade.