Cairns facilities

[AstralTraveller]

Planning has reached a stage where it's time to ask the really boring, nitty gritty questions. We won't be in Cairns long and need to find a few basic things.

1/ a good shopping centre open on Sunday, preferably in the northern suburbs. I imagine there are a few options.

2/ a place that fills lpg cylinders - not a 'swap n go'. Unfortunately they are becoming rare. We frigged about for half an hour in Broken Hill last year looking for a place.

3/ the cheapest diesel in town :).

Any local knowledge out there?

[gary]

Hi David,

Cairns is a pretty big city with all the usual trappings of supermarkets.

I had already planned to hit the Coles Supermarket in the Clifton Village
shopping Center off the Captain Cook Hwy at Clifton Beach which you access
via Elford St.

[Barrykgerdes]

I haven't been in Cairns in 25 years but I think there are still plenty of shopping centres outside the main town.

I don't think gas of any kind will be hard. There was a CIG centre there in my day where I used to get Oxy, Nitrogen, CO2 etc cylinders filled regularly. There are also depots for the oil companies that will surely have LPG gas recharging and fuel at city prices.

When I was regularly in Cairns 1970-1985 I was much in demand by boating people because I could fix their radios, radar and sonar. This I did free because I was employed by the Navy to do the same for the patrol boat refits (had plenty of spare time on my hands). This got me trips (free) on all the local cruises and game boats. Met some interesting people. They even flew me to Gove and Lizard Island on weekends to do emergency maintenance. Never got to TI or Weipa though.

I also belonged to the Cairns golf Club. Played golf at odd times with the city's business leaders. Billetted some of the young pros a couple of years ( I had a unit in Makira Lodge) while they were on tour and based in Cairns for two weeks (got me an automatic start in the pro am).

Barry