December 9 - Australia: Cairns
We slept for at least 10 hours last night! It must have been a good thing, too, because we had an incredibly productive day! Compared to the disappointment of yesterday, today was great.
Deep Sea Diver's Den (www.divers-den.com)
Our first stop at 9:00AM this morning was to a dive shop that seemed the most promising yesterday. But the guy we spoke to yesterday (Spike) couldn't give us enough information. He told us to come back today to speak with Dean, the head of training.
Long story short: Deep Sea Divers has an "Instructor Training Program" which allows Dive Masters to work up "credits" to help pay for the IDC (Instructor Development Course). The DMs can work as crew on the dive boats by leading dives, manning the boats as lookout, or other required tasks. Each day worked translates into $50 toward a course at Deep Sea Diver's Den.
This is PERFECT for us as it does two things. (1) Allows us to get our additional 40 dives without having to pay for them. (2) Pays us to dive! The credits we'll get for working the dives will help defray the costs of the IDC. It's fantastic. We also get discounts on the gear in the shop and any catalogues they stock. Good thing because we have NO GEAR with us at all, and the stuff we have at home is minimal and pretty old. No other dive shop had the Instructor Training Program (we asked them all yesterday), so we were sold.
Medicals
We happily left the dive shop with all our paper work and "To Do" list and went straight to the Cairns 24-Hour Medical Centers to get our Scuba Medicals done. This is required by PADI and the dive shops to ensure the healthiness of all instructor candidates. We were there for an hour or so and went through a few different tests: hearing, breathing, blood pressure, diabetes, balance, among others.
And I was especially happy because my blood pressure is within the normal range. Last year I found out that I have high blood pressure, which was a pretty hard thing to deal with. It turns out that high blood pressure runs in my family (no one tells me these things!) so it makes sense that I have it too. For the past year, I've been controlling it through exercise and diet. But since we've been traveling, the diet-control has been very difficult and I've wondered what it's done to my blood pressure. The fact that it's completely normal proves one thing: VACATION REALLY IS GOOD FOR ME!
Search for an Apartment
Our next stop was to look at some of the apartments we found in the paper yesterday. We had the addresses and our map, so we set out for a day of apartment hunting. Before we made it even two blocks we pulled over to an apartment complex "just to see" what their prices were. Next thing we knew, we were shown an adorable new little townhouse for a great price.
Done. Sold. Gimme.
It's two stories (as town houses usually are), fully furnished, two bedrooms, full kitchen with dishwasher, cable, telephone, all utilities included, one and half baths, washer/dryer, a garage, and a balcony. The complex has two pools, is minutes from downtown Cairns, is two blocks from the water, and is only a year or two old.
Jon could barely control his laughter at how cheap this place was. In fact, when we got in the car after making our move-in arrangements Jon said, "I'm sorry. I just have to get this out." And he laughed like crazy.
You should ALL come visit!
Search for a Car
So it was barely noon and we'd accomplished so much! We never thought that we'd get all this done in one morning. Our next mission was to find a car. We will have to charge it on the credit card, so we're limited to used car dealerships instead of the regular classified ads. But we picked up a newspaper anyway, just to get an idea about prices. Then we drove around Cairns looking for the car dealerships.
After 20 minutes of driving around, we finally found "dealership row" not far from where we started. There were plenty of used car lots with a variety of cars and 4-wheel drive vehicles.
Unfortunately, they were all closed because today is Sunday.
Now, wouldn't you think that most people do their car-shopping on the weekends? I would think so. But apparently I'm in the minority because not even ONE dealership was open. So we just made the rounds of the long road and checked out what was in the lots. We've decided that we want a used 4 wheel drive because then we'll be able to get into the Australian national parks when we travel. The national parks here require either 4WD or organized tour groups, and we don't want to have to do the latter. So a 4WD definitely meets our needs. This little gem of information was provided to us by a Dutch couple we met in New Zealand. So we checked out the 4 Runners, Land Cruisers, and any other truck these dealerships have on the lot.
Luckily, I happen to be traveling with the world's greatest car buyer. The boy is world-renowned for his negotiating abilities and passion when it comes to car shopping. He can't wait. He loves this stuff. Good thing, too, because I want nothing to do with it.
The Afternoon
We made our way back to the Floriana at 3:30 to reflect on our very productive and wonderful day. We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in the cool air-conditioned room.
Finally running in Australia - Run #26
My first run in Australia. Determined not to run into the same problems with the heat and humidity I encountered in Singapore, I waited until about 6pm or so, which turned out to be a good thing. I also decided that I knew I was in good enough shape to run long if the conditions permitted, but being so hot I decided to cut the run time down a bit until I had a chance to adapt to the heat. Turns out to have been a good thing. I had a great run but decided by the end that I would have to get my runs in early in the morning because the heat does get a bit oppressive while the sun is out.
Not a bad run all said, a bit uneventful so not much more to say except that it was along the shore in Cairns, which isn't much of a beach but there is a great park running along the entire length of the coast with two running paths along the shoreline.