On the way to Cairns we had a couple of stops planned around the Atherton Tablelands. First was Milla Milla Falls, a high waterfall surrounded by tropical forest with a viewing platform from the pool below. Afterwards, we stopped off at the classic Teahouse B&B Cafe for coffee and scones out on the back patio overlooking the hills of the tablelands. Next stop was to see the Babinda Boulders and Devils Pools. This is a popular tourist site with trails taking you from the calm upper stream along the creek that is filled with giant smooth boulders until it reaches some rapids that lead into the Devils Pools. The pools are churning whirlpools which have taken the lives of many who have swam there (there’s warning signs around the area indicating there’s no swimming in the area and deaths have occurred). We did find a place to swim at the top of the creek that was quite nice and not as foreboding.
After another hour of driving, we arrived in Cairns where we had booked a motel for three nights after finding a cheap deal on booking.com (this actually ended up the same price as staying at a powered site at any of the caravan parks in town). We popped into a tourist info centre and booked a cruise with Great Adventures to visit the Great Barrier Reef at Green Island with snorkelling and a glass bottom boat tour for $102 per person. After checking in to the motel, we enjoyed some city pleasures, walking around the night markets and getting Vietnamese for dinner.
The next day we walked to the Marlin Marina to board our Great Adventures cruise. The giant catamaran takes about 45 minutes to get to Green Island, a small sand island with lush vegetation right next to the reef. It takes about an hour to walk the perimeter of the island. There are tracks that take you to different points on the island and have information about the natural flora and fauna. We headed back to the jetty for the glass bottom boat tour (included in our tour package) and saw a white tip shark in the water next to us. The glass bottom boat was awesome – we saw hundreds of different species of fish swimming underneath us, as well as sea cucumbers, giant clams, clown fish in sea anemones and learnt a bit more about the Great Barrier Reef. After the tour, we went and grabbed our snorkelling gear from the dive shop on the island and snorkelled for an hour or so just off the beach. We saw a green sea turtle and followed it around for a while. We relaxed a little on the beach and went back for another snorkel – this time we saw a stingray. We headed back to the catamaran at 4:30 pm to go back to Cairns.
We had dinner at the Grand Hotel (otherwise konwn as the Croc Bar), which have cheap burgers and a giant crocodile on the bar. We also went for a beer at The Jack, another nearby pub, but things were pretty quiet since it was a Wednesday night so we headed home after a long day.
After three nights of sleeping in a bed, we were ready to get out of the city and continue our journey north. We checked out of the motel and headed to the Animal Welfare Op Shop where we had a browse and ended up donating Muzz’s old gumboots. We then went for a quick stop to Rusty’s Fruit Market in the CBD where we got some juice and locally-grown bananas and looked around at all the variety of tropical fruits (a lot of which you can’t get in Sydney). There was also a guy selling a whole lot of slingshots which was pretty cool, but we didn’t know what we’d use it for aside from shooting tinnies of beer so we gave it a miss (but kind of regretted it as soon as we left). We also decided to sell our bikes and get rid of the bike rack (that kept us in bloody Brisbane for so long). Despite only having had the chance to ride them a handful of times, we were glad to be rid of them as we knew we’d be driving on plenty of unsealed roads from here on out and there would be some bumpy rides ahead.
On the way to Cairns we had a couple of stops planned around the Atherton Tablelands. First was Milla Milla Falls, a high waterfall surrounded by tropical forest with a viewing platform from the pool below. Afterwards, we stopped off at the classic Teahouse B&B Cafe for coffee and scones out on the back patio overlooking the hills of the tablelands. Next stop was to see the Babinda Boulders and Devils Pools. This is a popular tourist site with trails taking you from the calm upper stream along the creek that is filled with giant smooth boulders until it reaches some rapids that lead into the Devils Pools. The pools are churning whirlpools which have taken the lives of many who have swam there (there’s warning signs around the area indicating there’s no swimming in the area and deaths have occurred). We did find a place to swim at the top of the creek that was quite nice and not as foreboding.
After another hour of driving, we arrived in Cairns where we had booked a motel for three nights after finding a cheap deal on booking.com (this actually ended up the same price as staying at a powered site at any of the caravan parks in town). We popped into a tourist info centre and booked a cruise with Great Adventures to visit the Great Barrier Reef at Green Island with snorkelling and a glass bottom boat tour for $102 per person. After checking in to the motel, we enjoyed some city pleasures, walking around the night markets and getting Vietnamese for dinner.
The next day we walked to the Marlin Marina to board our Great Adventures cruise. The giant catamaran takes about 45 minutes to get to Green Island, a small sand island with lush vegetation right next to the reef. It takes about an hour to walk the perimeter of the island. There are tracks that take you to different points on the island and have information about the natural flora and fauna. We headed back to the jetty for the glass bottom boat tour (included in our tour package) and saw a white tip shark in the water next to us. The glass bottom boat was awesome – we saw hundreds of different species of fish swimming underneath us, as well as sea cucumbers, giant clams, clown fish in sea anemones and learnt a bit more about the Great Barrier Reef. After the tour, we went and grabbed our snorkelling gear from the dive shop on the island and snorkelled for an hour or so just off the beach. We saw a green sea turtle and followed it around for a while. We relaxed a little on the beach and went back for another snorkel – this time we saw a stingray. We headed back to the catamaran at 4:30 pm to go back to Cairns.
We had dinner at the Grand Hotel (otherwise konwn as the Croc Bar), which have cheap burgers and a giant crocodile on the bar. We also went for a beer at The Jack, another nearby pub, but things were pretty quiet since it was a Wednesday night so we headed home after a long day.
After three nights of sleeping in a bed, we were ready to get out of the city and continue our journey north. We checked out of the motel and headed to the Animal Welfare Op Shop where we had a browse and ended up donating Muzz’s old gumboots. We then went for a quick stop to Rusty’s Fruit Market in the CBD where we got some juice and locally-grown bananas and looked around at all the variety of tropical fruits (a lot of which you can’t get in Sydney). There was also a guy selling a whole lot of slingshots which was pretty cool, but we didn’t know what we’d use it for aside from shooting tinnies of beer so we gave it a miss (but kind of regretted it as soon as we left). We also decided to sell our bikes and get rid of the bike rack (that kept us in bloody Brisbane for so long). Despite only having had the chance to ride them a handful of times, we were glad to be rid of them as we knew we’d be driving on plenty of unsealed roads from here on out and there would be some bumpy rides ahead.
