Cairns is a place that I really enjoy. The town is a very 'happening place' and can be as actioned packed or as relaxed as you want it to be. It is a City with a tropical climate with an annual rainfall an average of 1992mm. of which the majority of the rainfall occurs from January to March compared to an average of just 282mm for Mildura, where we come from. Tourism plays a major part in the Cairns economy and is one of the most popular Australian destinations for international visitors. There are numerous Tourist tours ranging from Reef tours, Fishing trips, white water rafting adventures, the Skyrail and train journeys, Wildlife parks, Art Galleries, and many more. On this trip we have not taken part in many of those as we have done a number of them on previous trips, but rather, chose to 'live a bit like a local' We were so fortunate to have a fantastic apartment in North Cairns for the duration of our trip which had everything we could have wished for and the location was just spot on with all of what we wanted to do. We also had access to a swimming pool which was a bonus. |
After working at Fish Taxidermy, Jess and Mr Roo had the chance to attend the Australian Armour and Artillery Museum just before closing which houses the largest collection of armoured vehicles and artillery in the Southern Hemisphere which they really enjoyed! Mr Roo was impressed at the size of the collection and certainly recommended a far longer visit to get around all of the items held there.
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The timing of Mr Roo having a break worked in so well as we had received a text to say that his brother and wife haded with their caravan in town. It was great having them visit and we spent some quality time catching up. P and J have been on basically a working holiday around Australia since leaving home (near us) around 18 months ago. They had been staying with us over the summer in their caravan, having a break from the wet season but are now returning to work on a cattle property near Cairns. We spent the afternoon relaxing and after Jess had finished her training for the day we all went out to the Cairns RSL for our evening meal with Peter and Joan, took a walk before heading home. Day 10 - Cairns Aquarium, The Magnificent Seven, the Cock and Bull & Roo Wins a Holiday!!!...18/4/2018
variety of fish, but also their shape, sizes, fin shapes and positions, body colours, behaviour, and the array of individualities that admittedly, I had not thought much about prior to meeting Steven at Australian Fish Mounts - Fish Taxidermy.
Unfortunately the pictures do not do the exhibits justice as I had trouble with the lighting on my basic camera. Though we enjoyed it, we perhaps had high expectations as we have been to a number of other aquariums which were larger in size and of course with a wider variety. The difference with this one is that it is Wet Tropics based. Certainly worth visiting! After the Aquarium we took a drive back up to Kuranda as we were keen to do a little more shopping there and browse around the markets again. There were many sections that we had not covered previously. Jess spotted and purchased a really cool print of The Magnificent Seven from the 1960's Western that she really liked! For the evening we joined Steve and his daughter at the Cock and Bull pub which was just a short walk from our accommodation. The unique feature of the pub was its interior decorations, it had numerous animal taxidermy items ranging from deer through to aquatic animals including those made by Steve. We were given a tour around the different mountsand Steve shared a bit on the history of various mounts which was really cool! Now you must be wondering about this holiday Roo has 'won'? Well a few days ago at the Cairns Central Shopping Centre Mr Roo was given a scratchie ticket from a holiday representative to try his luck at winning a holiday. Dubiously he scratched his squares (there were 3) and all three drew a disappointing 'Sorry No Win'.' Then the representative handed Roo a scratchie card and even more dubiously, she scratched hers hurriedly so we could get moving and handed it back to the lady and turned to leave as the lady stared (I'm sure it was well rehearsed) and said "YOU"VE GOT 3 Suns!!" "Do you know what that means?" Roo replied, 'no idea', "YOU"VE WON A HOLIDAY!" worth up to 1 grand! I was pretty... "yeah right..what's the catch"? and to cut a long story short and as a condition of the 'prize' was conditional that we attended a 90 minute presentation. An appointment was made (as this all happened a few days ago) for this morning, and of course a $50 deposit was required to ensure we did not do a runner. So during the past few days, typical Roo had googled all she could about the holiday beforehand and read the reviews. There were mixed reviews both good and not so good, as with most things, plus you cannot always believe what you read online these days... except this blog! *laughs wickedly* So this morning was the 'compulsory' 90 minute meeting and we had already worked out our plan of the 'interview' should the questions turn to us. I was actually interested to hear how their system works but not so keen to divulge information to give them fuel to try their sales tact on us. We were greeted with welcome and the general niceties began. It then moved into a survey process to find out our travel habits and goals. As most of you know the majority of our travels are by road trips with the caravan so we used this as our line of holiday habits which was (we already knew) not helpful to the sales pitch of this particular company as they are looking for middle aged folk, with lots of money, that take regular holidays to motels / apartments. So after 30 minutes of the sales guy trying every avenue to get us to indicate we enjoy luxuriousish holidays (I mean who wouldn't, but we weren't going to enter in onto that) he appeared somewhat exasperated and called in the boss and explained that these hillbillies are a lost cause (well not in those words) and the boss simply said, can't help them, give them the prize and get them out. So we were given our prize voucher, that there is still a catch with, you have to pay what they call a booking fee of 199 to receive a travel voucher of 1000 - as we did not join up as members, but its still not to bad! So Roo won a holiday!! Yay!
Both Jess and Mr Roo had a productive day at Fish Taxidermy and had arranged to have a break tomorrow to enjoy some of Cairns so it will be great having time as a family tomorrow!
After lathering up with insect protection, Roo and an already dubious Ryan (re crocs) asked is it safe here with crocs when we looked at what we had to walk through, mangroves and dark looking (I would almost call it sinister) river waters, to get to the beach, Steve replied, "if you get through the first 30 metres you are doing well!" So then he proceeded with his safety lesson that if we do indeed see a croc, then the first and MOST IMPORTANT step to take is for us all to form a tight ring around Steve! Needless to say Ryan was not impressed!
Though we were pretty assured things would be ok we were a little apprehensive stepping through that first thicket of mangroves near the river entry. The tide was way out and it was a pretty amazing sight and we were able to explore quite a distance along the beach to an area where there were a large number of fallen assorted trees that had not been cleared as it is not a populated beach, not is it accessible from the road because it bordered private property. We found a couple of hopeful and suitable pieces for the mount that Steve had in mind so he was pretty happy. The walk itself was a great chance to see nature, and without any one else around. There was lots of wildlife, birds, crabs and aquatic animals though we (including Steve) was surprised to see a large number of small sharks and large fish dead on the beach. They appeared to have had no obvious trauma so it was a bit of a mystery and Steve said they will be carried out when the next tide comes in. We spent all afternoon there and arrived home just on dark. A great day!
evidence of flooding even though it was the worse flooding in 18 years. One of the notable features of Cairns is the number of outside workers constantly tending the lawns and gardens in and around the town, especially early in the day and throughout the mornings. The gardens, parks and walkways are always in immaculate condition. No doubt the Cairns Regional Council steps up the Garden maintenance and are at the ready when wet season arrives.
Just near Redlynch we took a drive through to the Crystal Cascades but by this time it was bucketing down with rain. A sign on arrival said that the walkway was closed due to a landslide so we did not stay but hoped to return later during our stay if we were able to. When afternoon arrived the weather had cleared a little so Roo decided to take a walk to Fish Taxidermy to check out how the workers were faring and ended up staying to watch the remainder of a saratoga fish casting taking place. A very interesting process. More about that in a later blog entry!
There are numerous sights to see at Kuranda including the Skyrail, the Australian Butterfly House and Birdworld but we had seen these on a previous journey to Cairns back in April 2014. There are still other venues we had not visited in Kuranda but may yet to do these in the coming days.
After lunch we decided to tour further up the Captain Cook Highway to the popular town of Port Douglas, The route to Port Douglas is spectacular as it meanders up the coast with the ocean on one side and the rainforest range on the other. The town of Port Douglas was founded in 1877 after a nearby gold discovery. The population grew quickly but dwindled again once the Scenic Railway from Kuranda was built in 1891. A cyclone levelled Port Douglas in 1911. The town was largely left alone till the 1980's when Christopher Skase financed the world class Sheraton Mirage and The Reef Marina. In 1996 then US president Bill Clinton and the First Lady enjoyed a holiday at Port Douglas as their only Australian holiday stop. In 2006. World renowned Steve Irwin - the Crocodile Hunter died at the Batt Reef, out from Port Douglas. He was injured by a stingray while filming a documentary. We enjoyed exploring the town of Port Douglas and took a drive up to Flagstaff Hill Lookout which has an amazing view out along the Four Mile Beach at Port Douglas We made it back to Cairns just on dark - a really great day!
Then it was onto Gordonvale which is a sugar cane growing area about 27km south of Cairns. It was a really scenic drive was through the sugar growing valley that was bordered by soaring rainforest ranges. We met Bill, a fellow fish taxidermist and friend of Steven's and were shown his taxidermy work which were all very interesting and included a dugong!
As well as seeing the great work of Bill's, Steven was needing a couple of large fish molds, in particular certain sized blue marlin molds to assist with doing repair work on a blue marlin piece that had been badly damaged in a recent cyclone. The right fit was found pretty quickly amongst the huge array of assorted fish molds. It was interesting seeing the different fish form molds and sizes and some were humongous! We then spent a fun evening returning to the Cairns Night Market where the kids wandered for a bit whilst Mr Roo and I watched the Commonwealth Games on the Big Screen just outside on the Cairns Esplanade sprawled out on the huge bean bags that they had for the public to use which was a really relaxing way to see out the day!
So instead we decided to take a drive over to Barron Falls which was approximately 6km from Kuranda village. Barron Falls is a deep chasm lined with dense rainforest foliage. There was a great short walk down to the lookout which did not disappoint. Admittedly the falls were not gushing despite the recent rains of Cyclone Nora last month and the water had well and truly passed though, but the rock formations of the chasm are still a spectacular sight on their own. The best time to visit is during the Wet Season from December through to March to see the falls as its best.
On the return from Kuranda, Ryan located a spot to see some planes on the Machans Beach Road and caught some great shots of a plane he had hoped to see - Silk Air. After picking up Jess and Mr Roo from their 'work day' we headed out to visit the Cairns Night Market which was packed with tourists but very interesting. There was also a '12 Day Cultural Festival 2018' happening to celebrate the 2018 Commonwealth games which included converting the Esplanade into an alfresco dining space, with live music, performances and interactive activities. Tonight we enjoyed listening to the cultural music from Papua New Guinean ensemble Melanfunk Collective who were awesome! Another great day in paradise! |
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July 2023
About UsIn June /July and August of 2013 Roo and family embarked on a travel experience of a lifetime in the Australian Outback and initially created this website for those family and friends to follow us on our Journey. |