So we arrived in Cairns but this is a leg with a
difference. For a number of family
reasons we have been planning a trip back to Canberra and this seemed the best
(and cheapest) location to do it from.
We booked the van in for a service and a few minor repairs (we had
managed to break a seat, a flywire window and a few screws were now loose) and
the same for the car. We stayed for a
couple of nights in a convenient but ordinary van park – but our focus was on
two things: getting ready for a trip back and a most serendipitous visit with
one of my long standing great friends who lives in Melbourne!
We met up with Maureen and her family on the esplanade in
Cairns. As we have discovered northern
Queensland towns have invested in seaside water parks and Cairns is no
exception. We all met up at the lagoon
for a nice long swim. The day was
overcast and rainy, but hey it was warm rain and the humidity was enough to
make a swim feel nice. We then hung out
for an icecream before all too soon it was time to part ways with a promise of
a longer catch up when we reach Melbourne.
Before leaving we had an afternoon in Cairns city, ending up
with dinner and some shopping at the night markets. I will admit to having seen many better
markets – but for the kids they had light, colour and many things that
they wanted to buy. We settled on a
family set of small cute pistachio nut magnets made to look like Pokemon and
local animals.
I am not really going to blog much about Canberra – it was
all about family. I will say that the
temperature difference of about 25 each day in Cairns to -7 one night in
Canberra was stark. But we must be truly
acclimatized Canberrans because it didn’t feel that bad after a couple of
days. I would like to say thank you to
everyone who helped us with our stay, with accommodation, extra clothes and
toys for the boys and for all the catchups.
We arrived back in Cairns to some sunny weather and stayed
at the Cairns Coconut Holiday Resort. After
so much time with their friends and family we thought the boys would be missing
company so opted for a caravan park that would help distract them. We had one comment on the first day about
wanting to go back, but after 5 minutes in the heated pool with a slide and the
promise of so many more activities the next day we never heard anything again. I will admit we have had to do quite a bit of thinking about how the boys will and do react to the various parts of our journey and we try hard to envisage how they will react and work with that. Sometimes with success, as with this occasion, other times maybe not so well.
We spent a whole day just mucking around in the caravan park – the boys
trying most of the activities (including a free snorkelling lesson), David and
I resettling back into the caravan and the tropics (away with those winter
clothes!!!!).
We had put a trip to Kuranda on our to see list a while ago.
Kuranda is a small, tourist oriented village in the mountains behind
Cairns. But it isn’t actually Kuranda
that is the main attraction it is the vintage scenic rail trip up and then the
amazing Skyrail trip back. The train
climbs up the mountains through the rainforest, over a waterfall, near another
one. The views back to Cairns are
amazing and we were lucky that it was such a beautiful, sunny, clear day.
What a view
Whilst in Kuranda we took in the Butterfly Sanctuary which was
an interesting comparison having seen one in Coffs. Maybe it was that we had already been there
done that a bit or maybe it was that we had had the Coffs house pretty much to ourselves
as we sheltered from a massive thunderstorm waiting for the deluge to
pass. But while Cairns is bigger, but we
liked Coffs. It should be said that the
butterfly house here does have more of the amazing Ulysses and Cairns
Birdwings, the former is almost impossible to photograph as it never never
seems to sit still. I will mention that
one of the things I have learnt on this trip is to look for the deals. We had
used a great one to see the theme parks at the Gold Coast and here too they
have a four ‘park’ pass. For a
reasonable sum of money we could see the Butterfly House, the Rainforest
Station, Cairns Zoom and the Port Douglas Wildlife Habitat.
The elusive Ulysses
A Cairns Birdwing
We finished the day off with a nice lunch at a Kuranda café
and a long stroll through the markets as the boys weighed up the merits of each
of the cool necklaces all the stalls had to offer before finally buying
themselves one each. We meandered
through the galleries and other shops.
Stopped for an icecream before heading to the Skyrail station.
As usual the boys
find new friends wherever we go
We loved the Skyrail ride but the queue to get
on was really long (considering it was a quiet day at Kuranda) which was
puzzling considering you get a booked time.
The next day we went to Cairns Zoom. Now this is a wildlife park in a dome on a
casino (after all what else would one do with ones roof if one was a
casino). The wildlife aspect was a bit
well naff and aimed at overseas tourists, although I thought the albino
kookaburra was cool.
In contrast the Zoom aspect of this place was cool. We paid the extra money for the boys to do
the only rope course their height currently qualified them for and they LOVED
IT. As a second round wasn’t too much
more we let them do it again. I have a
feeling that they will now be traversing Australia looking for activities such
as this one to do again, and again and probably again.
Summing up Cairns – it’s a great base with a few activities
that you want to do from Cairns but it isn’t my favourite place. However, as we had travelled nearly 3000 km
we weren’t finished with the region yet.
We wanted to spend time in Port Douglas, the Daintree and the Atherton
Tablelands because this is an amazing area with so very much to see.
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