Cairns Day 1 - The Esplanade

I'd planned on doing not much of anything on my first day other than adjust to the jet-lag, though I certainly wanted to check out the boardwalk along the ocean.  It's called the Esplanade and its the main drag in Cairns with bars and restaurants on one side of the street and an amazing public pool that looks out over the ocean on the other.

What's up Cairns?

Birds on the beach

Public pool on the beach

Beach left, pool right

After spending some time walking up and down the Esplanade I headed into downtown and stopped for a bite at a little coffee shop.  I was happy to see that avocado toast is a worldwide phenomenon.

Then I headed over to check out the downtown shopping mall.  I was immediately struck by two familiar stores. KMart and Target!?  As a former Target team member of 10 years I had no idea there were Target stores in Australia.  While the logo looked right, the font of the word Target was certainly different.  I decided it was far too similar not to be affiliated with US Target and must just be the Australian version of Target.  Here are lots of pictures of me looking befuddled next to the bullseye.

Gosh, just seeing those Target signs gave me flashbacks to my time spent at Target when irate "guests" would throw shoes at me because I wouldn't return them.  After Target, I wanted to check out a grocery store to see what sort of unique Aussie items I'd find.  Sure enough, there were several!

A sad reminder that I'm missing autumn.

Snap, Crackle, wait, what's a Rice Bubble?

Or a Cheezel for that matter?

Vegemite, more to come on this one!

Day one then came to a close pretty early.  I had to rest up for my Great Barrier Reef snorkeling trip the next day!