TripTracker.net - Me, She and Him, Over There, Starting at The Lakes Resort

Starting at The Lakes Resort En Route to the Reef Pellowe Reef, Australia Flynn Reef, Australia Flynn Reef, Australia Coffee Farm Survey -- Tichum Creek Mareeba, Australia Coffee Farm Survey -- Jaques Coffee Plantation Coffee Works, Australia Coffee Works, Australia Trinity Beach, Australia Kates Sugarloaf, Australia Davies Creek, Australia Shoteel Creek, Australia Four Mile Ridge, Australia Red Peak, Australia Trinity Beach, Australia Edge Hill, Australia Edge Hill, Australia Earl Hill, Australia Port Douglas, Australia Trinity Beach, Australia Kilkeary Hill, Australia Flat Peak, Australia Flat Peak, Australia Struck Island, Australia Mount Hutchinson, Australia Mount Hutchinson, Australia Flat Peak, Australia Malanda, Australia Moregatta, Australia Moregatta, Australia Hugh Nelson Range, Australia Barron Falls, Australia Milln Reef, Australia Thetford Reef, Australia Green Visitor O'Reilly's Rainforest Sanctuary Brisbane Sydney, Observatory Hill Taronga Zoo New Year's Eve 2007 Sydney, Australia Bondi Beach Melbourne, Australia Torquay, Australia Aireys Inlet, Australia Crowes, Australia Princetown, Australia Port Fairy, Australia Rendelsham, Australia Cape Dombey, Australia Adelaide, Australia North Adelaide, Australia Barossa Wine Tour Medina Grand Treasury Glenelg, Australia Brown Creek, Australia

Nekura Neko

Me, She and Him, Over There

Starting at The Lakes Resort

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Dec 4 2007, 08:55 PM

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Nekura Neko

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Location

Edge Hill, Australia

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The key thing about Real Estate is Location, followed by Location and not forgetting about Location. The Lakes has nice buildings, good rooms, nice staff, all that stuff -- but it's sitting next to the airport and an $11 cab ride from the Cairns CBD. Thus the food which is rather expensive is comparably affordable if you rack on the going and coming from the location which is pounded by jets taking off from the airport rather frequently. It was good -- except for their internet access strategy and food prices -- but the greatness of the building architecture and room layouts (looked great, laid out great) was really mitigated by it just not being a very good place to be.

I'd say "so we'll likely stay at the Hilton again next time," except that Cairns has lost some of the wild-abandon charm that it had 3 years ago. More style-over-substance restaurants have cropped up, more lodgings, more dangerous drivers, more dodgy kitsch shops -- it's more of everything it was except for the wild abandon of interesting ways to be an insurance liability to an adventure tour guide, so now the ratios are off. Still a great point of departure for the Great Barrier Reef, though.

Fetta's Greek restaurant looks like a dive but the food -- or at least the meat portions, which is what I was caring about -- is fantastic and the service is wonderful, just like it was 3 years ago. It's a great way to start of a vacation in Cairns. Mango Jam that served us our first serious food 3 years ago moved to Port Douglas, so we'll be catching up with them in a few days. The Hog's Breath Cafe was pretty good with decent atmosphere if you like marbled steak -- good all around, I might go there again. Conversely, the Rattle & Hum was all atmosphere with unimpressive food and I don't think I'd try eating there again.

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	58. Brown Creek, Australia Jan 13 2008, 03:47 PMBrown Creek, Australia1 photo Proof that our GPS-to-camera was a bit off: this was actually in Adelaide's central park. Look closely and you can see the GPS coordinates and the official surveyed position.

	57. Glenelg, Australia Jan 13 2008, 11:31 AMGlenelg, Australia6 photos We spent our last day of leisure in Australia at least partially on the beach out at Glenelg, a pretty simple train ride out of the CBD. The water was clear and the beach was replete with larger scallop shells, though it was neither particularly large nor warm -- but the water was certainly...

	56. Medina Grand Treasury Jan 12 2008, 09:57 PMAdelaide, Australia2 photos The treasury building got converted into a wholly adequate hotel which has the good fortune of being in an interesting building. These photographs were taken in the cellar.

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