Alice Springs to Cairns and beyond
Trip Start
Nov 23, 2005
1
11
31
Trip End
Jul 12, 2006
Where I stayed
Cairns, Australia
Tuesday, February 7, 2006
Managed to get up without a hangover in time for checking out then onto the airport for our flight to Cairns. Before we left, we made a visit to the Alice Springs Royal Flying Doctors centre in town. It was a fascinating tour of the operations centre followed by a look around the museum that showed from old out of the ark radios to modern day technology. After a nice smooth quick flight we landed in Cairns & found a bed for the night, & guess what, you get a free meal here too. Same deal cheap stuff free, may try it tomorrow, tonight we'll just settle with the rest of the tasty pizza like rolls we bought & a huge icecream.
Weds 8th Feb
After shouting, prodding & eventually waking a German dorm mate at 7am (he had a bus at 7:20 & his alarm woke us but not him!) we had a lie in till about 10 followed by a visit (easy Dave!) to several travel shops to book some things to do. We ended up booking a trip out to the Great Barrier Reef with an intro dive inc. in the price for Thursday, & a 2 day trip to Cape Tribulation on Fri/Sat. We also spent most of the evening trying to sort out our first big leg of our Oz tour down the East Coast to Melbourne. It's either Oz Experience & let them do the hard work, or Greyhound & try to sort out our own tours individually.
Thurs 9th Feb
7:30, a nice early start to go out on a boat trip to the outer barrier reef. At 8:30 we board the Sunkist & get briefed for our intro dive. After about a 2 hr boat ride we tie up right by the reef & anyone not diving yet can go snorkelling. We're in the first group with our instructor Reece (who looks like Richard O'Brian) & we go diving! It was much better than my first attempt & Cathy did quite well once she got used to it. The reef & colours of the fish (or fsh!) were amazing, & after lunch we saw even more fish when we went snorkelling & could get even closer to the reef. It really is like a barrier that sits above the surface, & the view from the boat was pretty cool too. After another 2 hr boat ride back, we went to the Woolshed for our free meal & then got our gear packed & ready for our Cape Trib trip that left at 7.30 in the morning.
Fri 10th Feb
Another nice early morning & we got picked up by our tour bus to Cape Tribulation. After about an hours drive we stopped at the Daintree Mangrove Sanctuary where we fed a Cassowary, saw some Sugar Gliders, Tree Frogs & a few Pythons that were asleep in an enclosure. After crossing the Daintree river by ferry, we stopped at the Alexandra Range lookout. Then we took a quick stroll along the Marrdja Boardwalk where we saw a huge strangle fig tree among other rainforest natives, some new & some old. We arrived at our accommodation (Cape Trib Beach House) just after 12, where we could chill out & do some walks. After some lunch we took a walk along the Mangrove covered beech to the Cape Trib lookout. Along the way we saw these funny looking sand balls around a small hole. We soon discovered that it was from these small but very fast crabs that blended in with the sand very well. After dinner we had a beer with 2 of our room-mates Louise & Emma where we chatted about our travels.
Sat 11th Feb
Woke up nice & refreshed from our rainforest hut experience, & we did ok with the local creepy crawlies unlike one girl in our room who got bitten all over. We found out later that her bed had bedbugs in it! After checking out, we had a 2 hour wait until our bus came to collect us, so we had another walk along the beach & then sat down to plan our route. At 12:00 our bus arrived to take us to the Daintree river for our Crocodile river cruise, where we spotted 1 female croc by her nest & lots of Fruitbats in the surrounding trees. From there we drove to Mossman Gorge where we had a walk to the swingbridge & a quick paddle in the water. On our drive back to Cairns we had a quick stop in Port Douglas, then from a lookout nearer to Cairns we watched a Paraglider & a Hanglider catching the thermals like a bird. Then to finish the day off we saw a huge group of Wallabies in a field right by the road. Awesome!
Sun 12th Feb
After a nice lie in we went about the mission of booking a boat for the Whitsundays, a tour for Fraser Island & bus ticket down the East coast. There are so many boats to choose from but we finally decided on a Ketch called Madison, next Sunday for 3 days & 3 nights. At the moment we're on standby for it, but fingers crossed we'll be on that one. We made the best of our last night in Cairns by having a good old roast for only $5 & Cat had BBQ ribs for $6, bargain & very nice after living on pasta & rice for the last few weeks. Finally managed to find somewhere to download this ruddy thing too!
