Following 8 weeks of trawling the job websites daily for an interesting assignment, we found a Relief Management job in Papua New Guinea advertised on the PADI website. So, after some emails and a phone call, we were set to manage Lissenung Island Resort in New Ireland Province. At the same time, with the help of our friends in the dive industry we started a dialogue with a company in Yap and made arrangements to fly out on a ‘research trip’. So, we packed up our gear and said goodbye to John & Steph and flew up to Cairns, which will be our setting off point for both locations.
Cairns is a small town squeezed in between the sea and the hills. The town centre caters to the backpackers with hundreds of pubs, internet cafes and tour companies offering trips to the Great Barrier Reef and the Tablelands etc. There are no beaches, just a muddy waterfront, so they have created a park near the marina with a man-made beach and water fountains so that people can sunbathe. The harbourside area has swishy restaurants and loads of new condos are being built near the marina. 
We stayed at Cairns Colonial Resort for the night (a massive 1970s type holiday resort) the rooms are a bit shabby but the staff are great and they provide a town & airport bus service that worked well for us. They also offered to store our dive bag for free while we flew to Yap, so we re-booked 2 nights with them for our return a week later.We ran around town looking for some smarter clothes (couldn’t find much without a huge Billabong logo across it) then re-packed again ready for our midnight flight to Guam.
