Our adventures in Cairns

We left Sydney and flew to Cairns, even after being there I still don't know how to pronounce this city! Some pronounce the "r" and others leave it silent. Cairns is a lovely tropical city in Australia. It was a welcome relief as the temperature was really cold in Sydney the day we left, the high was about 17C (62F). This was really cold to us! I am not sure what we will do in the US in December, I guess freeze. It was a short flight, only about 3 hours up to Cairns. It is funny that I consider 3 hours to be a short flight. We stayed a the Lakes Resort of Cairns. It was a lovely resort with some great swimming pools. We didn't spend a lot of time there as we kept very busy. Ted was just telling someone last night that it wasn't a relaxing vacation as we were on the go a lot. But I think it kept the kids occupied and some what out of trouble.



We spent one day heading to the Kuranda Rainforest in which we took the train to Kuranda and rode the Sky Cable car back. While in Kuranda we hiked through some forests and took in some beautiful sites. The train ride up was spectacular with deep gorges and waterfalls. I kept thinking about all the snake and spider bites the men that built the railroad must have gotten.





The second day in Cairns was spent going to Green Island to see the Great Barrier Reef. I must admit it was a terrible trip. The reef was almost non existent, too many people are taken out there and the coral reefs have been killed due to people standing or touching reef. I went away that day thinking that the Great Barrier Reef was not so great. We decided that we really wanted to try again in a different spot. So we chose a boat that went out to the "outer" reef. I can know say the Great Barrier Reef is great! What a totally different experience we had. Ted did an introductory scuba dive and was able to scuba dive for about 25 minutes.




Everyone really enjoyed snorkeling until the last reef when it seemed to be plagued with jellyfish. That really unnerved us and we decided to head for the boat. Fortunately we all had on wetsuits to that may have offered us some protection.

On another day we rented a car and Ted drove us up to Port Douglas and Mossman. Ted did great driving on the left side of the road, just in case though we took out the insurance! The drive was just beautiful, a curvy road following the rugged Queensland coastline. I offered to drive so he could enjoy the view but I think he valued our safety! Port Douglas was a nice little town with some lovely views! We then headed to Mossman where we visited the Mossman Gorge. The kids really wanted to swim in the water but the current can be quite swift and the water was freezing so they just waded.