We arrived in Cairns very tired! We had had to swap planes at Darwin and hadn't slept much at all on our overnight flight. We were able to get a taxi bus to the door of our hostel (Bohemia Central) which we had booked a couple of days before.
When we arrived at the hostel it was pretty busy, and when we tried to check in it seemed only Mark had a bed booked. The woman at the desk seemed to blame us for this and was a little abrupt, but she easily found another bed! She told us we couldn't go to the room until 2pm....which we weren't overly happy about as we were only staying in a dorm and were really tired. We went and had a sleep by the pool...and got bitten to shreds by mosquitoes before being allowed in the room eventually at 12.30pm (we now know that all the rooms are ready at 10am and it's down to whether the woman on the desk likes you, if you are allowed in early or not!!)
After a bit of a snooze we had a walk around the town which was pretty strange after being in Singapore....no high rise buildings or busy streets anywhere! But we did have a nice meal at the end of the road we were staying on.
The following day we checked out the Lagoon next to the beach at Cairns. The actual beach resembled a muddier version of Weston Super Mare as the tide was out and wasn't really a beach beach. However the lagoon is really nice, and is a salt water swimming pool with a little sand round one edge and big squirty metal fish. Around the edge there were families picnicing and a bbq area. That day we also booked our tours for the rest of our stay in Cairns, a day on a boat snorkelling to see the Great Barrier Reef and a day visiting the Rainforest at Cape Tribulation.
Our first trip the next day was to Cape Tribulation. This is a world heritage site and is pretty special as at one point the Rainforest comes right down to the coast and meets the reef, and therefore its where two world heritage sites meet. We had a really funny guy as our tour guide who was also very knowledgeable about the area.
The first stop on our trip was Mossman Gorge. Where we walked through the jungle across bridges and paths until we came to an amazing river with a suspension bridge and further down the gorge. We also stopped for a really good banana from a woman selling them at the side of the road...our guide told us they were the best in the world but I dont think there's any proof of that!
Following Mossman Gorge, we stopped to take pictures at Alexandra bay, and then went on to the zoo. The zoo was really small and more of a wildlife sanctuary. We got to see loads of birds up close, as well as crocs and we were able to stroke a joey. He was really cute until he tried to steal one bloke's camera!
After, on the way to Cape Trib we stopped at a bat sanctuary where some baby bats had just been born. These were also really cute and were wrapped up in a towel asleep.The bat sanctuary rescues injured bats and then rehabilitates them back into the wild. The fruit bats are really important to the Australian eco system.
When we arrived at Cape Trib, we had a picnic lunch (salad, pasta, fruit and cold meat for Mark) before walking along the beach and round to a viewing point through the jungle. We couldnt go too near the sea on the beach as there were not only jelly fish but also Crocs! but it was still a cool place to see.
Following that we went on a walk with our guide through the jungle and mangroves where he told us lots about the environment and the nature that was there. It was really interesting. When we were driving in our minibus, a cassowary also crossed the road infront of us. A cassowary is a big bird (grows to about 6ft) with black feathers and red and blue neck. It's really important to the rainforest as it can swallow big seeds and its poo is how alot of plants grow! Its also really endangered so we were really lucky to see a wild one!
After Cape Trib we went on a boat trip down the daintree river, and our guide on the boat pointed out crocs, snakes and tree frogs. A bright green tree frog even jumped into our boat....we were all quite thankful it was the frog and not the snake or croc!!
The cape trib day was really fun and we both really enjoyed it. In the evening we were so tired we went straight out for something to eat with Jackie (a girl from Canada who had been on the trip with us) and Justin ( a diver/videoer who was working in Cairns) both of whom were in our dorm, for something to eat. Our guide from the trip that day had recommended a restaurant so we headed for that. When we got there 'Dundees' was a little posher than we expected but we sat down anyhow. Mark ordered a roo Rock and the others had a Croc rock (Theresa had a prawn salad ..... yawn!).
When the food came out the Roo rock was Kangaroo that you cooked yourself on a hot plate and the Croc rock was a lump of Croc, a piece of Roo, a piece of beef, and a barramundi fillet again which you had to cook yourself. Everyone was a little apprehensive at first but it all turned out to be really good and we had a nice evening.
The following day we went on the reef trip. Our boat was the 'Passions of Paradise' which was really nice and a small catarmaran. We set off with some muffins and tea to our first destination Michaelmas Cay. Mark had put us both down for a free introductory dive. But we weren't really that interested in doing it and didn't really want to spend the money for a full one. As soon as we were in the water with the gear on though it seemed we didn't have a choice. However after 15mins Theresa convinced the bloke to let us go back to the boat. We were then able to go snorkelling. We first watched Kathryn, a girl we had met on the boat, do her dive as she was really nervous and needed a bit of encouragement!
When we went snorkelling it was amazing, there were so many fish. Our first stop was next to a small sandy island and was really calm water. We saw white and black stripey fish, yellow fish, purple fish...well the works!! We even saw a sting ray under a rock!!
We then got back on the boat to see Bo (someone else we had made friends with on the trip) do her dive. She was really sweet and although she couldn't swim she gave it her best shot and she said she'd seen loads of fish! After we had a big lunch...or as the boat called it a 'tropical smorgasbord' though it just looked like salad, veggie hot pot and chicken curry to us!
After lunch we went snorkelling at the second location of the day which was Paradise Reef. Here it was a lot more open and the sea was a bit rougher but we still saw some amazing fish. Because it was rougher a lot of people didn't even bother to get in here, which would have been a shame as we saw loads of really cool fish and coral. We swam right out to the edge of the coral and here we even saw about 10 massive fish which we think were Maori Wrasse. They were really big, with big cheeks and mouths, and were dark blue. We tried to take a picture with an underwater camera but we aren't sure if it will come out. When we got back on the boat we were speaking to some of the crew and they didn't believe that it was possible that we had seen these big fish....they tried to tell us it was something smaller, so we really hope the pictures do come out!!
The following day it was time to move on to our next destination mission beach. We had purchased Greyhound passes whilst in Cairns and set off for the early 7.00am bus. We did hope that we would be at our destination nice and early with only a few hours on the bus....yeah right like that was ever going to happen!!
love Theresa and Mark xxx
More thumbnails ...
1 vote 
