Cairns

When I was planning this trip, I looked long and hard at how we would be best to get from Melbourne to Japan. Eventually I decided that taking everything into account, the best way was to fly to Cairns and then to fly on from there to Osaka.

Bearing in mind Ian's unfortunate experience when he got stuck in Cairns for a night when his flight from Melbourne was delayed, I decided that it would be best to plan for an overnight stop rather than risking missing a connecting flight with a budget airline (who would almost certainly have made me pay for the new onward flight). And then I thought: that's silly; we've neither of us ever been to Cairns.  Let's have a full day there and have a look around.  So that's what I organised.

More lately, Lindsey decided that she too would come to Cairns, although she has been several times before.  And so on New Year's Day, The Builder and I flew up at lunchtime and Lindsey flew up on a slightly later flight.  The Builder and I went and laid in wine, tea and milk supplies for when she arrived.  And we had dinner in the Cock and Bull English-style pub down the road.

On Wednesday we resumed our walking program and walked the 3 km into the Cairns town centre along the promenade, admiring the bay and enjoying the sunshine (although it was perhaps a wee bit too humid!).  Then we had a potter about in the town centre, admired the shops, sat in the sunshine, ate ice cream and generally meandered about.  And then at lunchtime we hopped aboard a boat which took us out to Green Island, in the Great Barrier Reef Maritime Park. And there we went on a glass bottomed boat and admire the fish and the corals that form the inner reef.  And we saw TURTLES swimming about in the reef :-)

We walked around the (quite small) island. And we saw MORE turtles in the sea as we were wandering along the beach. They proved to be remarkably difficult to photograph, but Lindsey managed to get a very brief video of one

Then we had a restorative glass of something cold and caught the boat back to Cairns. It was a lovely, lovely afternoon.  We wandered back the 3 km to the hotel.  Lindsey and I had a leisurely swim to cool off. Then we headed back to the pub for dinner, none of us having any real desire to walk all the way back into the town centre for something more local to eat!!

And now Lindsey has abandoned us to do the last leg of the GWT unaccompanied by her. Her flight back to Melbourne has just left if it was on time.  And we are about to leave Australia and head to Japan where we will summarily be plunged back into winter.  We have jumpers and winter coats at the ready!

Bye bye Australia.  We'll see you again in twelve months or so

Click on Frannie and Jim to get to the Cairns album