Green Island day

As we opened our eyes we could hear rain pouring down,

so at 0645 I phoned reception to see if the trip was likely to be cancelled but apparently not. We were collected by bus, at 0725, which made another couple of Hotel stops and the bus gradually filled up with Japanese nationals. We arrived at the Ferry pier and it was similar to being at Tokyo Ueno Station in rush hour. I did not realise that Cairns was a suburb of Tokyo.

The very large catamaran, which carries more than a Jumbo jet, left through rain and bumpy seas for about 50 minutes and arrived as the rain, at good tropical strength, proceeded to drench the arriving passengers. It is supposed to be sunny in Queensland (the sunshine state!) but nobody told the man upstairs. The walkway from the ferry to ‘dry land’, Ha, was about 150 yards and without cover most people were very wet when they hit the Island and cover. Lucky it was warm.

We were booked on the 10.00 Glass bottom boat and saw a few fish as we bounced up and down on the waves but not at the clarity we would have liked. Lunch was included in our trip and so after a quick 30 minute walk around the Island (sorry Ginza) we headed toward the food tent and were entitled to ‘plate’ food but we were lucky to be able to be upgraded to two plates, Wow. Lunch was actually quite poor in quality and many of the Japanese had been forewarned and they were getting food from various outlets and putting that on their plate as well.

It rained heavily again as we sat by the pool watching the scuba trainees leaning how to go under without drowning and that was good entertainment for about an hour and then we caught the cat ferry back and arrived back at our apartment at 1600 hrs.

We are staying in a place called the Lakes Resort and I am glad that we booked it as it is of good quality and anything else after our train/bus experience would not have been good. The resort restaurants are nice but also expensive and on the bus ride in the morning we had noticed, about 200 yards from the Hotel, a fresh fish shop which also appeared to provide cooked food as well and this was true. So later we had an excellent Barramundi and chips in the paper and sat outside to eat it. Boy was it good. Then it decided to rain and in minutes the roads were flooded and it chucked it down (Singapore style) for about an hour without a break. We decided that we would give it a go to get back to the Hotel and then suddenly it almost stopped and we got home without being drenched. We watched TV and then went to bed knowing that tomorrow we are under no pressure to do anything.

Incidentally there are no internet connections in the resort except for wireless in one restaurant but then I found an unsecured network from somewhere which I used but this Sunday morning when writing the blog I have noticed that this connection has gone. Damn and blast.