Back to Cairns

Time to head from Cape York back to Cairns, but because of reasons, we weren’t flying directly out of Bamaga, but instead from Horn again.

So another early start: brekky in the hotel before a quick trip to the Seisia wharf, and back to Thursday Island on the ferry, for a very brief reunion.

Then we had a connection to a water taxi (well, a hired ferry, as the regular schedule didn’t work for us) to Horn Island, and another minibus to the airport. Thankfully this multi-modal trip all went smoothly – as they often do when each connection is carefully co-ordinated.

There was a short delay getting through airport security. At Cairns on the way up, authorities had decided that some used bullet casings (obtained by some of our party at the Tank museum there) could be taken in carry-on. But at Horn they determined that they couldn’t; they should have been in checked luggage. So one of our party had their souvenir confiscated. Oh well, what can you do?

While we waited (perhaps 5 minutes) one guy behind us seemed determined to walk through the scanner even though it was clearly temporarily not staffed, and was roped off. Yeah good on you mate – that’d be a great way to breach security and force everyone in the terminal to be scanned again.

It amused me greatly when a little later, Mr In-A-Hurry set off the metal detector when he did get scanned. Yes sir, you were asked to take off your belt.

There was of course plenty of time before the plane was ready. Once in the waiting area, I was suddenly conscious of the number of people coughing loudly in the small terminal. Damn, my masks were in my checked luggage.

For take-off the plane went all the way to the western end of the runway then did a U-turn and took off east.

Otherwise the flight was uneventful and we got back into Cairns in time for lunch at our favourite local Vietnamese place while we waited for accommodation check-in time.

My sister and her family were heading back to Melbourne later in the day; my cousin and his mum would stay one night in Cairns before returning to Brisbane, and I was staying three more nights in the warmth.

After a feed and getting into the hotels, some of us rested, and some of us headed to the Shields Street mall, where we moseyed through the Samurai Gallery (very interesting) and enjoyed the festivities outside – more First Nations culture as part of the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair.

We also had a walk around the waterfront, which was pretty nice. Alas, no meal on the “Prawn Star” seafood boat restaurant this trip. Maybe next time.

In the evening we caught up for dinner with some more relatives – James and his family – at a Balinese restaurant, which was great.

And we spotted our only croc of the trip: on a skewer. Kind of fishy-chicken, some people reckoned, and I think they were right.

Great food, great conversations. And more of Cairns to explore tomorrow.