Previously on Modern Hobos: Geoff and Rick’s journey up the Queensland coast has been a whirlwind of misplaced enthusiasm and increasingly questionable decisions. They’ve survived missing Ubers, driving corpses, and towns as vibrant and lively as anything from Omega Man. Armed with little more than sheer determination and a growing suspicion that paradise may not be part of the package, they soldier on as Modern Hobos continues….

Tully to Cairns

Departure 11:30 a.m. noon

Travel time 12+ hours

Champing at the bit to leave Mission Beach—and still scarred by the memory of being stranded in Tully—we arranged our taxi days in advance. So we were feeling pretty confident that morning.

We were dismayed, then, when a white town car pulled up instead of the van we were used to, and a decrepit old man struggled out of the driver side door. He looked at our pile of bags and said, “You want to put those in the trunk?” Um, yes. He leaned back into the car but couldn’t find the latch release. He came around the back, but no. He returned to rooting around the interior again. “Is there a button on the key fob?” I asked, helpfully. “The what?” he said. I pointed to the button on the fob. “Huh. Look at that,” he said, as the trunk opened as if by magic. “I’ve never driven this one,” he confessed.

We were not off to a great start.

That senile old driver nearly killed us roughly 17 times in the 30 minutes it took to get to the train station.[21] Rick's knuckles were paper white, clutching the door handle and the back of the front seat. “CAR!” he'd shout whenever we started drifting into the oncoming lane, usually followed by “DITCH!” as Driver overcorrected.

“You guys want to hear some music,” Driver asked, reaching for the radio and yanking the steering wheel with him. “OH SWEET MARY MOTHER OF GOD WE’RE GOING TO DIE!” screamed Rick. Unfazed, Driver looked back up and got us back into the driving lane. “Maybe I’ll just wait until we come to a stop,” he said.

Miraculously, we made it to the Tully train station alive, though you’ve never seen two people exit a car so fast. I nearly tore the trunk open with my bare hands, but Driver—now an expert in key fob operations—beat me to it.

The two women who had greeted us the week prior were back,[22] but they had bad news—the train was delayed due to an accident on the tracks near Rockhampton.

“Oh, so like another hour?” I asked, not looking forward to waiting on the platform in the heat.

“More like eight,” said Station Lady. 

“Assuming it gets here then,” shrugged Other Station Lady.

Hold up. Say again?

“Well, it’s an accident on the tracks, so there’s no guarantee they’ll fix it as fast as they think. You never know.”[23]

“And if it doesn’t arrive then?” I ventured.

“There’s always Tuesday,” shrugged Other Station Lady.

We debated our options. Plan A: tough it out on the platform, which was, frankly, melting us into puddles. Plan B: score seats on the southbound train back to Townsville, which was in the wrong direction but at least had hotels with air conditioning and pools. Plan C: spend another night—or nights—at the Tully Motel, which seemed like a lot of quality time with our new friend Pat.

Station Lady even offered to lock our luggage in the office so we could hang out in town. But as we’d learned, they ain’t nothin’ in Tully open on a Sunday. They’d go home as soon as the southbound train came through, though, and wouldn’t be back until the northbound train arrived, if it did arrive.

They couldn’t or wouldn’t sell us tickets on the southbound train because “the train is already in motion.” I didn’t even know that was a complication. So Plan B hinged entirely on Station Lady’s powers of persuasion. To speed things along, Other Station Lady retagged our bags for Townsville and we all waited.

It was really starting to feel like a Hotel California situation.

When the train finally arrived, Station Lady intercepted the conductor at the front of the train. The short conversation, punctuated by a lot head shaking and shoulder shrugging, did not seem to be going our way. The verdict? No seats. Not one. The conductor had spoken.

But Station Lady had come up with a Plan D. Once the southbound train departed, she’d throw our bags in her truck and drive us to the Greyhound station[24] where we could catch a bus to Cairns. As kind as it was, neither of us was hot on the bus plan.[25] 

So we officially decided to hang out on the platform, though I kept nudging Rick toward the conductor, who, as luck would have it, had wandered over to examine our bags on the luggage cart. “What’s this?” she said, spotting the tags marked “Townsville.”

“Oh, those are ours,” I said, “for when we thought we’d be heading to Townsville. Because we had no other options.”

“Ah.”

“So nothing open at all, huh?”

“Sorry, no.”

“Because we’d be willing to pay for an upgrade or whatever it takes.”

“No, that’s full, too.”

“What if we spent the whole time in the dining car?”

“Yeah, we can’t really do that.”

“I hear you. That’s fine. We’ll probably be fine just sitting here on this hot, empty platform until later tonight for the other train.”

She got a pained look on her face. “Yeah, there’s been a second accident on the tracks and that train’s not coming. At all. This train will stop in Townsville because we can’t go any further.”

I must’ve looked alarmed because that’s when she broke. She begrudgingly offered to check again about any open seats but cautioned us that we probably wouldn’t be able to sit together.[26] We were clear that it didn't matter.

Surprise! They found two seats. We dragged our bags on board lickety-split before they could change their minds and decamped hastily to the dining car.

In Townsville, things took another turn. Just before we arrived, the conductor announced the train would reverse course and return immediately to Cairns. Passengers could stay in Townsville at their own expense or return north for free. The groans were audible. The staff didn't look thrilled, either. Rick and I were the only happy people on board.

Most passengers got off, leaving us with new seats next to each other for the eight-hour return trip. They plied us with free food and drinks, and we rolled into Cairns late that night. Success!

That second accident? It was a fatal collision involving an SUV pulling a camper and a northbound Greyhound bus. The bus we’d’ve been waiting for back in Tully. If we’d taken Plan D, we wouldn’t have made it out of Tully.

And it was pure dumb luck that we’d left Tully on Station Ladies’ last day at work. After 30 years, mind you.[27] If we’d scheduled our exit from Tully even one day later, we’d still be stuck on that platform waiting for the train to arrive with no options at all.

Somehow, even when things seemed to go completely off the rails, they went our way.

Cairns

Never leaving

Sweet relief

Cairns defied both science and nature. Built on a swamp in Far North Queensland—a place so inhospitable even the native wildlife was annoyed—it somehow thrived. The air was thick enough to chew, the temperatures soared well past human tolerance, and the sea was off-limits thanks to animals that’ll kill you before you finish screaming. And yet, somehow, they'd convinced the world it was paradise.

For all its quirks, Cairns had an undeniable practicality we'd come to appreciate, especially after weeks in beach towns that closed every day at noon. Cairns was practically bustling by comparison, with actual restaurants, full-service grocery stores, and a liquor store within walking distance. It wasn’t beautiful—it wasn’t even trying—but it worked. After the chaos of our journey, that was enough.

We gave in to the tourist experience with tours into the jungle and along the coast. The heat and humidity were inescapable, but the moments of beauty were real enough to keep us moving forward—whether strolling under the palms on the esplanade or watching the sun dip below the hills.

Cairns didn’t try to charm us, and it didn’t need to. Its purpose was clear: a gateway to adventure for people with more money and patience than we had by this point. But after weeks of misadventures, it felt like a place to regroup. The city gave us space to breathe, reflect, and stop pretending that our beach-town-a-week plan had been anything other than a disaster.  It also had a top-notch emergency room and plastic surgeons who could schedule appointments mere weeks in advance. But that’s a story for another day.

It wasn’t perfect, but it worked[28]—and after everything we’d endured, that felt like a win.