We celebrated our arrival in Cairns following the 10 hour bus journey by going straight to bed. The joys of travelling.
The next morning we were up early to explore the Great Barrier Reef. As you may be aware from our last blog, we managed to be the only two on our Whitsundays boat who didn’t see a turtle – so that was the day’s mission. Our skipper laughed at our determination; we were the last two people back on the boat at each snorkel site. But in the end we succeeded!
Andrew nailed his Valentine’s gift by spotting it for Frances. Frances repaid this by ‘accidentally’ holding another man’s hand. She maintains it was the stinger suits causing confusion, and the bearded frenchman has yet to press charges.
We followed up our day on the outer reef with a day trip to Fitzroy Island for more reef snorkelling and to admire the award winning ‘Nudey Beach’. Andrew was suspicious this is was all a ploy to find another frenchman, but Frances assured him it is not actually a nudist beach.
Another turtle and a stingray later, we set off towards Nudey Beach. The temperature was reaching 40 degrees, and in 10 minutes Producing more sweat per inch than we ever thought possible. We were slightly underwhelmed by its beauty, so just headed back to the bar. We finished off the day back in Cairns meeting some friends we’d made in the Whitsundays, and exchanging stories of what else we had lost/ broken since we last saw each other over food and drinks.
The following morning we picked up a car to drive down to the Atherton Tablelands, and a circuit of waterfalls.
The first falling water on our list was the site of the herbal essences advert and Peter Andre’s ‘mysterious girl’ video. Frances attempted the infamous hair flick but realised she isn’t really hair model material.
Exhausted from the hair flicking we made our way to recouperate with a brew at the Nerada tea plantation. We enjoyed some tea and cake whilst trying to spot their resident wild tree kangaroos.
We have discovered during this trip that Frances has a talent for spotting camouflaged wildlife and Andrew does not. She puts this down to her younger days playing ‘Spot the Difference’ and is now considering a career change to put her skills to good use.
The aim for the next day was to drive up to Port Douglas stopping at various points of interest along the way. Instead we ended up spending the whole day at Hartley’s Crocodile Adventures; fascinated by some big and little snappers.
We started off at the saltwater croc feeding session where Beyoncé & Madonna put on quite a show defending their territory. No prizes for guessing the winner there.
We then had a go at pole feeding the freshwater crocs ourselves. Despite looking more evil, they are actually less of a threat to humans than the salties.
Despite this, we reckon Frances still wouldn’t win a fight with one.
After lunch we headed out on a lagoon boat trip and took a look at these crazy kids.
We stuck around for a talk on the deadliest snakes in Australia. Turns out no human has ever died from No.1 on the list; the Inland Taipan. But just in case we learnt how to best manage snakebites (not the drink).
After that was the big finale of the day; the Croc Show – apparently the only show of its kind left in Australia. A man in a cage with a 3.5 metre aggressive saltwater crocodile; you can understand why.
This particular croc was due to be killed by the authorities for trying to eat a couple of golfers on the Palm Cove golf course, but Hartley’s stepped in and gave him a new home.
The next day we headed up to the Daintree rainforest on a Billy Tea Safari. Despite seeing so many yesterday, we were still excited to see quite a few wild crocodiles along the Daintree river, as well as a “small colony” (over 300000) of bats.
Our luck ran out after these though and not even Frances could spot a wild Cassowary, but the views made up for it.
The tour offered a dip in a freshwater creek, but our previous adventures and this sign 100 yards downstream put us off.
The next day we took a slow day and made use of the pool by our apartment. Andrew got a haircut in preparation for a job interview back at home.
Our last day in Australia was spent driving back to Cairns via Kuranda. Unfortunately the waterfall we had planned to visit was more of a trickle due to a lack of rain in the rainy season this year, but we did enjoy a wander around the local aboriginal markets.
In the afternoon we headed to our airbnb to relax before meeting our friends from Fraser Island. Andrew had a nap whilst Frances went to ‘sunbathe’ by the pool. Next thing he knew Quarter-Can Fran had made a surprise giggling return to the room. The airbnb host ‘forced’ her into having a Baileys and ciders by the pool.
We headed out to enjoy some Thai food and drinks before saying goodbye to Australia and some of the friends we had made along the way.
We are now in Bali, enjoying the culture and cheap food to kickstart the last phase of our trip – as of today we only have 15 days left (or, in Andrews new measure of time – 6 more bag-packs). We’ll post again with an update around half way through Indonesia
There & Back Again 