Cairns Australia: Australia's Boracay

Last day in Melbourne, on the way to the airport

We booked an evening flight from Melbourne to Cairns. As we set the car GPS to head to the airport, rain continuously poured in the Melbourne highway. We had to dropby the nearest gasoline station to fill up our tank as we would be returning it to Avis. They would be charging us the fuel needed to fill the tank + service charges and other stuff if we didn't fill up the tank.

Full Tank Please!

Tiger Airways Terminal

How to go to T4 - Tiger Airways Terminal in Melbourne

From the Tullamarine Freeway (main entrance to Melbourne Airport):

• Enter the airport precinct from Airport Drive (main entrance road to Melbourne Airport off Tullamarine Freeway).
• Turn left at Centre Road.
• 20 metres on, turn right into Depot Drive.
• Turn right onto Service Road.

Tiger Airways Terminal in Melbourne

As we parked the vehicle, we unloaded our luggages and the guys from Avis checked the car. Within seconds, they printed out a receipt from their hand printers and off we go to the departure area of Tiger Airways. It's that easy to rent a car in Melbourne!

The terminal was packed with people. There was a long queue for baggage check-in. Unlike the usual airport setup where you line up in a specific area for a specific flight, all Tiger Airways flight queue up on the same line and alternates on each available counter regardless of your flight and destination. It was a good thing that we arrived 3 hours before our flight departs, we had time to spare.

My so-so sandwich and milk tea

We were all happy that our luggage didn't reach the maximum weight. It's not as if we would shop til we drop in Cairns but, we haven't bought much "Pasalubong" yet. Upon clearing security check, we were able to grab some seats amidst the crowded waiting area. We scouted the food kiosks around so we could grab a bite and ended up purchasing sandwiches and milktea for early dinner (as we decided to eat midnight snack upon reaching Cairns). Our flight was delayed by an hour which was fine because we leisurely ate our sandwiches, looked at the recent photos we took and chatted while waiting.

Our flight from Melbourne to Cairns | Flight Time: 3hrs 15mins

The flight from Melbourne to Cairns was quick, or so we thought, because we were busy chatting and discussing. It was already late, around 11pm, so we hailed a maxi taxi and headed straight to our hotel. Basically, a Maxi taxi is a van type of cab. It can fit around 8 people with luggage comfortably.

Took us around 7kms / 15 mins from Cairns airport to All Seasons Hotel

Although Cairns isn't such a busy metropolis like Melbourne, Cairns airport is also nice and modern.

Spacious Domestic Airport in Cairns

Waiting for our bags

Cairns was different from Melbourne, the roads were wider, and there weren't much buildings as this was more of a vacation city. If Boracay would be a bit modern, this is what I imagine Boracay would look like.
 
After checking-in in our hotel (I will be doing a separate post about Hotel All Season Cairns), some of us decided to find a place where we could buy food for our midnight snack. We saw Mcdonald's a couple of blocks down and since we haven't eaten Aussie fastfood burgers yet, we decided to order our take-away food there. Actually, it was the only place open that midnight so we had no choice. We brought the food back to the hotel and enjoyed our midnight snack.

Angus Beef Burger FTW!

We got the Aussie Angus Beef burger. It was huge! I wasn't able to finish my order, but I was very much satisfied. We were all so tired that it didn't take long, we were ready for bed as we looked forward to the next day of activities that cairns had to offer.

BUT WAIT! After checking-in and between going out from the hotel to buy food in McDonald's and walking back to our hotel, something happened! That's for my next post.

Cheftonio
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