2nd July 2012
The title says it all.
We drove the vehicle back slowly first thing in the morning to the public pay phone to ring head office customer services to find out our options. Luckily, we managed to get refunded for the last 3 days of our contract, get the vehicle towed back to Cairns and also get a free taxi back to Cairns via Mareeba, the place we wanted to check out yesterday. All sorted then! We expected to have a battle on our hands to get back to Cairns.
The taxi arrived and we piled in and headed back.
You may think that I would be pissed off for having my camping experience cut short but actually, I wasn’t too fussed. We’ve already been to Cape Tribulation and Cooktown where we meant to go. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see Mareeba but I didn’t feel the need to go there and we were planning on returning to Cairns tonight anyhow.
As we stopped off in Mareeba for a coffee break, as the poor woman driver has driven from Mossman to Mount Molloy to pick us up, we checked out the town for a few mins. It certainly was a stark contrast to the extremely quiet environments we have been in as this was a bustling town full of high profile shops, supermarkets and everything you could need.
Then back in the taxi for our trip back to the regional office of our campervan company to get our refund. We did. Hooray!
The rest of the day was spent going on a shopping spree! Noting how the weather would get colder as I go further south, I knew a jacket would be called for, I do have a jumper but sometimes it may be just a tad hotter than me. On this shopping trip, I found a lush jacket, some sandals to replace my already knackered ones and a pair of aviator sunglasses. I looked the part. I didn’t realise I could become even more handsome. It’s unbelievable!
Finally, Smera, Elsie and I booked a reef tour for the next day and got it at a bargain price of $70! Wicked! How? Buy me a pint to find out! :p Usually, reef trips cost $120 to $175.
The rest of the night was spent chilling out uploading my pics and then meeting up with a backpacker I met in Chiang Mai in Thailand at Gilligan’s. Heledd. Great to catch up with people that you meet on your travels time to time! Goes to show how small the world is!
But we couldn’t stay out for too long as we had reef trips booked for the next day and we would have to get up at the ungodly hour of 6am.
Nemo! I’m coming to find you!
