Landed and Ubed to the AirBnB. It’s a nice apartment owned by a very chatty woman. She works at home, isn’t greatly ambulatory, and really, really likes to talk. I have a nice room with an en-suite. Clean comfortable and relatively quiet – in comparison to the hostel. The noise is from the traffic on the fairly major road thirteen floors below. All the windows are left open, because she has no AC. With open windows, and ceiling fans, it works. I would prefer to have a place to myself, but things here are pricey.
Did a long walk around the city after plopping my bags, and changing into walking gear. There is a lot of WWII history here though, which I found interesting as I walked. It’s quite hot and sweaty, but I understand the rain yesterday was something of an anomaly, as it’s currently the dry season, and the switch isn’t for several months. Hot and dry is preferable, but I sweat well, and there is beer available for rehydration. I was a bit surprised at the prices here, but I guess most items need to be brought in, as there is little in the way of agribusiness in the vicinity. Eggs are more than $5 USD dozen. Yikes. Restaurant prices match USA, and are maybe even more than in the tourist town of Cairns. That took me by surprise, to be sure.
I've decided I’m probably going to be good with the four days I’ve booked here and call it done. It’s really a quiet place, with not a lot of people out and about. Even though I tend to drift through life – like a pelican soaring just above the rolling and crashing messiness of the waves, never quite touching – I do enjoy crowds from a distance. I like to watch. Take that as you will. There just isn't a vibe of "Hey Slang, why not hang?!" No vibe, no stay.
I may spend some time today arranging a tour/trip to a nearby national park before I move on, to get as much as I can out of my trip this direction. And I will definitely be checking out the botanical gardens and trying to capture more photos of birds.