16th-19th October 2020
Cairns is approximately 150km from Mission Beach and when some of the family decided to fly up for a few days we thought we would take the opportunity to catch up with them for a few days. It was much easier to leave the van at Mission Beach and head up to Cairns, we got a great package with the Shangri-La Hotel for three nights. Nice hotel in a very convenient spot near lots of eating places and convenient to any water activities that you may want to do whilst in Cairns. We spent the Friday making our way up to Cairns and getting a bit of retail therapy as it was probably the biggest shopping centre we had encountered in the 3 months we had been away. Then it was time to go for a walk along the waterfront, which i must say is very well done, a boardwalk runs all along the water front all the way around towards to Botanic Gardens. The ocean along the waterfront is not ideal for swimming in, as due to the big tidal movements they get there is not always water but just huge mud flats and lots of crabs !! There is however a huge swimming area with many different depth pools to cool off in – a really nice area with lots of bbq’s and lawned areas.
The Saturday we spent the entire day on the Reef aboard Seastar Cruises – it is a small group tour which i guess would have had around 20 of us on board. The tour took us out to Michaelmas Cay which is a seabird and turtle sanctuary where we were given the opportunity to snorkel – plenty of beautiful fish, turtles and coral to admire. Then they took us out to Hastings Reef for a snorkel on the outer reef. The water is so clear and there are hundreds of different fish swimming around, it was an amazing experience. We thought we would give our old Go Pro a run as we hadn’t used it for years, but unfortunately- (not sure if it was user operation (Jeff !!) or if the thing just didn’t work) but we didn’t get any footage 🙁
Unfortunately for us all the day was very windy and rather rough so this did not bide well for a few of us and a couple of our group fed the fish for a little while !!!
The next day we decided to do the Kuranda Scenic Railway up to Kuranda. Wow what an amazing trip on a historic old train that goes up the mountain through rainforests and past Barron Falls, over narrow bridges and through numerous tunnels. The scenery the whole way is just amazing and the trip takes around 2 hours to make its way up to Kuranda. You can then explore the village which is a beautiful old historic village that is really set up for the tourist trade. Lots of markets and thing to do. We took a wander through the butterfly house which had some amazing butterflies and was well worth a look. We didn’t really spend enough time in the village as they had a pretty tight schedule on transfers back to Cairns due to Covid. You could have spent the entire day just exploring the area but we only had a few hours. We caught the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway from Kuranda back to Caravonica Terminal and then the shuttle back to Cairns Station where we had left the car. This is an amazing trip, the views are just spectacular as when you are coming down the mountain you are gliding over the top of the most dense rainforests. Well worth spending the money on this experience.
What a great few days catching up with family and exploring some of the many wonders of the area. Cairns we will be back to explore you more in the near future – Goodbye for now !!
