Cairns, Australia 1 – 7 July, 2006

We arrived in balmy, tropical Cairns on Friday (1 July) and were met by our exchange hosts Yvonne and Bob at the airport and settled into Bob’s nice house after a little orientation. It was nice to have some summer weather in the middle of the Australian winter. Cairns is the main departure point for the Great Barrier Reef and is packed with lots of backpackers and tourists, many Japanese. Most of the action here is out of town, either on the reef, the beaches north of town or in the rain forests that surround the town up and down the coast. Cairns is built on a narrow coastal plain between the Coral Sea and a range of mountains. On Sunday our hosts took us for a tour of the Atherton Tableland, a plateau of green beautiful rolling hills, crater lakes, waterfalls and farm land beyond the mountain range. We stopped at a birthday party for a friend of our host, who was hosting a party at their newly renovated farm bed and breakfast accommodation. It was fun and interesting chatting with the locals. On Monday we took a trip to a crocodile farm and a cruise through the mangrove swamps on a nearby river where we actually saw a small crocodile in the wild. Although we did see some large crocs on the farm, it was a bit lame since it was a working farm where they breed and raise crocs mainly to make shoes and handbags. They are however not permitted to kill crocodiles that were to them from the wild, only the ones born on the farm.

On Tuesday we took our first trip to the Reef, to Green Island. The boat trip took over an hour and had over 300 people on board. When we arrived there were three other boats of around the same size there. The little island and the clear, clear blue and green water were beautiful but the place was a little crowded and much of the coral was in poor condition. By snorkeling a little further away from the beach we did see some beautifully colored fish and a fish feeding at the boat brought up some very large fish of a several varieties including a shark, parrot fish and remora. The weather was too windy to really enjoy snorkeling for very long, but the Lycia suits we rented helped take the chill out of the cool water. Next week we plan to make another reef trip to the outer reef if the wind dies down a bit.

On the 5th of July, while you all were celebrating July 4th, we took a leisurely 65 km drive north to Port Douglas which is a beautiful upscale resort town. Along the way we stopped at several beautiful beaches and overlooks. The town of Palm Cove was particularly lovely with gorgeous palm fringed beaches and nice restaurants and shops along the beach.

Yesterday (6 July), we took a narrow gauge railroad from the Cairns railroad station to the town of Kuranda. Building the railroad in the late 1800s was a huge undertaking due to the very rough steep terrain and had 1500 people working on it at times. The train had very quaint with old wooden cars and turquoise blue diesel engines with colorful Aboriginal paintings on them. The train wound its way along the very steep gorge, through 15 tunnels and by waterfalls to the lovely tropical village of Kuranda, which was an old mining town but now basically caters to tourists. We saw an interesting butterfly sanctuary and an outdoor concert in the park given by a band of mostly Aboriginal people, including a Didgeridoo player. The trip home was by Skyrail, a cable car above the thick rain forest canopy. We felt a bit like birds. There were stops available along the way so we got out and took a short stroll on a boardwalk that allows you to see some of the amazing plant life in the jungle.

We have only eight days left in Australia and we plan to stay a couple of days in the Daintree National Park to see the tropical rain forest up close and personal. If weather permits and the winds die down we hope to do more snorkeling on the reef before packing and heading to Fiji.