Cairns, Australia and the Great Barrier Reef

During our scheduling of this trip, one place we wanted to get to was northern Queensland, Cairns specifically. Cairns is the hub for any/all activities related to the Great Barrier Reef and we just couldn't pass it up! Especially with temperatures in the low-90s (and temps in Victoria in the 40s w/rain), we were ready to tackle the ocean, crocodiles and tropical forests.

It was a bit of a hassle getting to Cairns from Bribane (planes delayed and cancelled unannounced to us), but we still managed to persevere. Due to plane hassles, Heather and the kids landed in Cairns a couple of hours before Bodie.....just after midnight. So Heather, with two sleeping boys and a very brave and helpful young girl, waited for Bodie in the ghostly empty and quiet Cairns International Airport. By the time we caught a cab to the resort , it was nearly 1:30 in the morning! All up at 7am to face the beautiful day!

We basically had three full days, with the first being to rest a bit and play on the beach. All was fine until Heather and Maddy passed the crocodile warning signs. In this part of Australia with many crocs, great whites and box jellyfish, heeding this advice is quite wise. Following suit, Queensland offers many swimming enclosures for your day-long swimming adventures. Quite a sight to see; vacant beaches, then full beaches with many swimmers, then vacant beaches.......Heather wasn't buying it and opted to watch from shore.

The next day we took a cruise out to Green Island in the Great Barrier Reef. The island proved to be a great respite from day-long swimming/snorkeling in the reef (none of the aforementioned predators were supposedly found in or around our island. All were wide-eyed during the first hour of snorkeling and cutting off circulation to Bodie's hands). All did well until we got into reefs full of fish that were bigger then most of us; then folks were retreating to the island and Bodie snorkeled by himself. It was quite ironic that the last fish Heather tangled with in the Cook Islands (2000) was the first fish to greet her in the Coral Sea.....the globally-feared Picasso fish!

The next day we were off to the Atherton Tablelands via gondolas and train. We took the Skyrail , to Kuranda In this part of the tropical North the rainforest is home to the Djabugay aboriginal people who have lived here for over 10,000 years. Exploration by Europeans in the early 1800s opened the way for gold prospectors and the timber industry and settlement by the pioneers. Kuranda was first surveyed in 1888 by Thomas Behan, and the building of the railway and the road from the new seaport of Cairns paved the way for trade and the movement of people over the mountains. A spectacular place where the kids got to see their first live crocs. Too cool!

A great weekend in top end of Australia that was really quite spectacular, but we were really looking forward to our return trip to Victoria to see all our friends. That is coming in our next post.