Our Trip
After a 27-hour day we finally arrived at Cairns airport in northern Australia, Queensland. Note to self, never fly international on China Eastern. We were delayed in Shanghai for 2 hours than sat on the runway for another 2 hours. This caused us to miss our connection flight in Sydney. We arrived in Cairns 7 hours or a half-day later than planned. So essentially we missed half a day of exploring. This trip is not starting out on a pleasant note!
Once we landed, we rented a car and made the 25-minute drive to Palm Cove just north of Cairns. We stayed at the Sanctuary Palm Cove and had a two-bedroom apartment. We loved the extra space and having a car allowed us to really enjoy the beautiful coastline. The apartment was clean had a fully stocked kitchen, laundry and everything else we needed for our 5 night stay. The pool was a little small and not as luxurious as the website depicted but the units were a short walk to the beach which served our purposes. It's really a perfect place for a laid back family vacation. We loved it here and would go back tomorrow if we could.
Our first day in Cairns (Sunday) was spent hanging out at the beach and eating very expensive food ($75.00 for breakfast, muesli for me pancakes and omelet for the family and no Bloody Mary!). After seeing the bill I should have had a Bloody Mary. This is going to be an expensive trip! After that we went to the grocery store to stock up. Can't eat breakfast out every day at those prices! The beach was fun. We couldn't swim because of the box jellies but Sophie entertained herself as usual building sand castles, while Sean and Scott tossed the football. The next day we'd planned the big snorkeling trip, the whole reason for coming to Australia. We chose to stay near Cairns because I really liked the company organizing our trip. They had a marine biologist on board that explained everything about the reef. Sean wants to be a marine biologist when he grows up so I was really excited to hear his thoughts after our adventure. That is when we got the call from the tour company (Wavelength Marine Charters) asking if we'd mind changing days to Tuesday. They said they thought the winds were too strong for Sophie, but according to all we talked to, the water was beautiful that day. We think they needed our seats for other people. Anyway, we were fine with this arrangement. I'd factored in 2 extra days for bad weather.
When we arrived back at our room late Monday night we were told our snorkeling was cancelled for Tuesday due to cyclone Yasi (category 5 storm downgraded to category 2 after we left Cairns) that was supposed to hit Cairns and most of northern Australia on Wednesday afternoon. This was really bad news for us. The main reason for going to Australia was to see the Great Barrier Reef and now that was not going to happen. And, on top of that we would have to leave Cairns a day early as our travel agent managed to get us out on a Wednesday morning flight straight to Sydney, or so we thought.
After a few phone calls I did manage to get our rain forest bush walk tour moved to Tuesday, which turned out to be great fun. We went on a long hike through the forest and learned about all the bugs and flowers we could eat in case we ever found ourselves stranded in the forest. Sean ate an ant, Scott ate a handful of different ants and we all ate lots of flowers. Our most memorable experience was probably licking the butt of an ant, as it tasted like a starburst candy. Yummy!! After the hike we went swimming and had lunch on a river that we could actually drink the water it was so clean. We ended up on the beach learning about which plants could heal wounds and all of Sophie's mosquito bites. It was a very long tiring day but well worth it. By the way, we went through a company called Daintree Rainforest Specialised Tours and had Pete as our guide. He knows everything there is to know about anything and made sure the kids were always having fun. I'd recommend him to anyone wanting a down and dirty trek through the rainforest.
Fun Facts &Tips
We flew into Cairns, Australia with is located on North Queensland on the eastern coast of Australia.
Of all our trips around Asia, our trip to Cairns was the most educational for us in terms of the environment, animals and the rainforest. We were amazed at how clean this country is and how much they treasure their rainforests and animals indigenous to the region.
We arrived thinking snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef was the only reason to come to Cairns but we left with a greater appreciation for the rainforests and Australia's aboriginal culture. Below I've listed a couple great activities we did in Cairns during our too short of a visit.
I guess if we could offer once piece of advice it'd be to stay flexible in your trip planning. I like to have everything planned out to the minute and when cyclone Yasi ruined our snorkeling trip we were all really disappointed. In retrospect, we had a great time without snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef.
Kuranda Village and Rainforest:
You can easily spend a whole day exploring this area with village markets, Birdworld, the butterfly sanctuary, koala gardens etc. We chose to take the Kuranda train there and the skyrail back, which takes you over very beautiful rainforests and mountains.
Be prepared, it's a bit touristy but my family loved the skyrail trip as it makes stops along the rainforests and lets you get out and walk around.
Daintree Specialised Tours:
The oldest tropical rainforest in the world is Daintree Rainforest. We hired Pete from Daintree Specialised Tours and went on a 10-hour bushwalk of bushwalks that absolutely was the highlight of our trip. Pete packed homemade lunches and cookies for us and kept the kids entertained the entire time. I would highly recommend his services if you are visiting the area.
Sanctuary Palm Cove:
Our hotel was in Palm Cove just north of Cairns. It's a quiet little town with a great boardwalk within walking distance from our hotel, and plenty of convenience stores very close for food. We stayed at the Sanctuary Palm Cove, which are fully stocked apartments. We were surprised at how modern and clean everything was and would definitely stay there again if we find ourselves trying for a second time to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef.
We rented a car, which unlike Sydney, we needed. Captain Cook Highway has an amazing scenic drive that takes you past rainforests and coastal beaches. We were glad to have the car for this experience.
Welcome to North Queensland, Australia
Walking through the Kuranda Rainforest.
Instead of snorkeling we took the train to Kuranda, which is an aboriginal village in a rainforest about an hour west of Cairns. The town was very touristy but had great shopping and a wonderful petting zoo where Sophie got to hold a koala and afterwards both kids were able to feed and play with the kangaroos and the wallabies.
After our day in Kurandra, we took the sky rail back to Cairns overlooking the rainforest and the ocean. The sky rail was well worth the trip to Kuranda.
Pete from Daintree Specialised Tours teaching us about the Rainforest.
Sean eating a live ant. It took a lot of convincing for that to happen!
Our last day in Cairns, picture taken from road.
After we returned from our day we were tired and dirty. We took a much-needed shower, I started laundry and Scott went to get our rental car filled up and some pizza for dinner. While he was gone, the front desk called to tell us our flight the next day was cancelled because the airport was closing due to cyclone Yasi. We had to scramble to try and get a flight out that night. All flights were booked and for a while we thought we'd have to ride out the storm. We finally called our travel agent, Vickie Baensch, at Australia Expat Travel and an hour later she had found us an evacuation flight to Sydney. We had less then an hour to pack our wet clothes and get to the airport. Our plane left at 10:30 that night and we arrived in Sydney at 9:00am the next morning. A three-hour flight from Cairns to Sydney ended up taking 11 hours due to a layover in Brisbane. When we arrived in Sydney we were all exhausted not only after our very long day in the rainforest but the overnight flight as well.
Check out the photo album.