East Coast Stop Eleven (Final Stop in Australia!) - Cairns

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So here we are – our final stop in Australia😞 before moving on to New Zealand. We only had a short drive from Mission Beach to Cairns - only around an hour and a half altogether. We got to Cairns way too early to check in, so we parked up in the town centre and had a walk around the shops for a while. We stopped off at the Commonwealth Bank so that we could sort out a travel card for New Zealand and the Cook Islands, and loaded up some New Zealand dollars on our new card, ready for the next month of our travels. It was a quick and easy process and means that we won’t have to pay any extra fees for using any other cards over there, and there won’t be any ridiculous exchange rates as the money on there is already in NZD.

For lunch we found an Asian food court, where we both opted for a delicious BBQ pork and chicken teriyaki combo with rice. We walked around for a little longer until around 2pm, when we then drove up to the Njoy! Travellers Resort, where we would be staying for the week. Our room was nice and spacious, with a few extras like a fridge and lovely cool air con - needed up here now it gets to around 27 degrees every day, even though it’s the middle of winter! The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent checking out the hostel and looking online for car lots that we could visit the following day, to see what kind of prices we were looking at for our car, as we would need to sell it in the next few days. We also went out for dinner as the hostel offers a free meal voucher at a local pub in Cairns called the Woolshed, so we would be eating here every night for the rest of our stay. There were a few choices for the free option, such as chilli con carne or spaghetti bolognaise, though you did have to pay for a drink before 8pm, or you could pay to upgrade to any other option, ranging from an extra $5, $7 or $8, which was still pretty cheap and also meant that you didn’t have to buy a drink if you upgraded.

Emma’s sister Hayley was coming over to visit for a few days on Sunday, as she is currently living and working out in the rural town of Dimbulah, which is a couple of hours inland from Cairns, and she was hoping to book on to our Great Barrier Reef trip on the following Monday. However, when she tried to phone up to book a few days before, they had told her that the boat was actually in dry dock for maintenance, and they were not sure if it would be ready for Monday. Emma then called up and was told to call back on Saturday to see if it would be ready. So on Saturday morning, we called up again and unfortunately, our boat was still not going to be ready until Friday, which would be much too late as that was the day that we fly to New Zealand. They had a few other options for other boats so we told them that we would pop into their office on Sunday once Hayley was with us and we would sort it all out then.

Selling the car was going to be our last big task before leaving the country, so on Saturday morning we set off early and drove around to a few different car lots in the local area. Unfortunately, due to Sheila’s high mileage (nearly 300,000kms on the clock!) and the fact that it is registered in NSW (it would have to be re-registered and issued a new roadworthy certificate for QLD, which can be costly if anything is wrong), we were only being offered around $300 for her! Feeling a bit deflated and thinking that we might just have to resort to these low offers for a quick sale, we returned to the room and decided that we may as well stick it on Gumtree and see what happened. We listed it on there as $1200 ONO, thinking that we might get around $800 or so for it, and then crossed our fingers.

Hayley had text Emma and asked if we could pick her up the following morning in Mareeba, a little town about halfway between Dimbulah and Cairns, as she could only get a lift that far. We arranged to get there for about 9am on Sunday morning, so we set off at around 8am, driving up through the rainforest roads and the tablelands before emerging onto the much flatter landscape towards Mareeba. We picked her up from a McDonalds, then drove into the town as they were having a ‘Christmas in July’ event there that day. We were not sure why exactly it was called this, as we saw nothing related to Christmas at all, not even one Santa Hat or piece of tinsel! Instead, there were hundreds of market stalls selling the usual arts and crafts, various food, clothes and accessories. We had a wander round for a while, then made our way back to the car for the drive back to Cairns.

On the way through the rainforest, we stopped off at a place called Barron Falls, where there was a short walk above the rainforest floor on a wooden boardwalk, before emerging out onto a lookout point across from the falls. We were not sure if there was going to be any water there at first, as they have had very dry weather up here in Queensland since the floods in the summer, however we were pleased to hear the gushing of water as we got closer, and we saw that there was plenty of water flowing from the cliffs down to the pools below, though we guessed it would be pretty spectacular in the wet season when there would be a lot more water.

We also made a stop off at the Henry Ross Lookout, which gave a great view of Cairns from the high vantage point that the road followed. Once back in Cairns, we drove straight into the town and grabbed some lunch, which ate sat on the front along the Esplanade. We then made our way to the booking office so that we could rearrange our boat trip. After being given a few different options, the guy explained that there was another boat that would give us all the same inclusions as the other boat which would cost the same price, so we just transferred straight onto that, and Hayley paid for hers – although she wasn’t able to add the diving option due to her asthma. All booked up, we were told that the transfer bus would pick us up from our hostel at 7:10am the following morning, which meant an early start for us!

We then made our way back to the hostel, and Hayley checked into her room and brought some of her stuff up to ours - she was staying in a dorm so couldn’t see the point in getting a locker when it would be just as secure in our room. In the meantime, we had been receiving quite a few emails, calls and texts regarding our ad on Gumtree for the car! A couple of people had made arrangements to come and view the car, and one of them turned up just after we got back to the hostel. He had a quick look, went with Craig for a test drive and then offered us $800 for it. As we had a few others that were interested, we decided to try for a little more, so asked if he could do $1000. He went to talk to his wife, and then came back with a counter offer of $900, before finally agreeing on $950! He went off to withdraw the money while we filled in the registration documents, then got him to fill in his parts upon his return. We exchanged cash and keys, sorted out all of the paper work and he then drove off, whilst we did a little mini celebration at how much we had got! After all the worry about not getting much for her, we were pretty relieved to have sold Sheila for as much as we did, and we also covered the cost of getting the brakes fixed a couple of weeks before. Hayley then went to her room for a nap for a couple of hours as she had been working long hours at her two jobs working nights in a pub and days on a farm, whilst we relaxed in our room, browsing the internet, reading and playing on the DS. We all went to the Woolshed later for our dinner, and all enjoyed a great meal before coming back to the hostel for an early night ready for our day at the Great Barrier Reef!

We were up bright and early on Monday morning, and were outside waiting for our shuttle at 7:05am. It soon arrived, and we were taken down to the marina and directed over to the Compass Cruises boat. We were each assigned a number by one of the crew as we boarded, mainly for safety reasons so that they didn’t leave anyone behind out there, but also to keep a check on people that were doing extra things such as diving or the glass bottom boat. We found a seat on the top deck along the side, and settled down as we watched others boarding the boat. We eventually set sail at around 8am, and made our way out to the reef, which would take around 2 hours to get there. On the way we spotted a few dolphins splashing around, which Hayley got quite excited about as she had never seen a wild dolphin before!

On the way, we were given a few safety talks, and we went to pick up our wetsuits, flippers and snorkelling gear ready for when we reached the reef. As we got closer, everyone was gathered inside for a talk on snorkelling, and then those that were doing the diving were given a more in-depth talk and demonstration of the basic techniques and hand signals. We were both in Group 1 (divers went in groups of 4 with each instructor), which meant that we were the first to go diving, so we were told that once the boat started slowing down as we got to the reef, we were to put on our wetsuits, flippers and masks and make our way to the back of the boat. Although we had bought a waterproof case for our camera, it wasn’t advised that we took below a couple of metres underwater, so we decided to pay $50 to rent a proper underwater camera for the day – after all, it’s not likely that we would be back here for a while and we wanted some lasting memories!

As mentioned before, Hayley wouldn’t be doing the dive, but would still be snorkelling, so she headed to the side of the boat with her snorkel, whilst we went to the back of the boat. We were each geared up with our Scuba equipment, and then Emma went in first, following the instructor along a rope down into the water, around 5 metres below the surface. The instructor then checked over her equipment, made sure that her breathing technique was ok, and then making sure she could demonstrate clearing her mask underwater (you press the top of the mask and blow out of your nose), taking the regulator out and putting it back in. Once the instructor was happy that Emma was comfortable in the water, he went back up to get Craig, who then went through the same process. We were then joined by another couple, who also went through the checks with the instructor. As we waited, we spotted Hayley (hard to miss with her bright red hair) watching us from above where she was snorkelling, then she waved us off as we were taken on a 20 minute dive around the reef.

I won’t go into detail about everything that we saw as the pictures speak for themselves, but we were soon swimming along the bottom of the ocean (a depth of around 12 metres in that particular area) and looking at the coral and the fish. As we had been snorkelling before, it didn’t take long to get used to breathing using the regulator as it’s sort of the same technique, although we did have to keep clearing our ears (like you do on a plane) to stop them from popping from the pressure.

The instructor showed us a few cool things, like these little creatures that popped out from holes in the coral, and when he clicked his fingers they shot back into their holes and disappeared. We were also given a sea cucumber to hold, which felt quite slimy and weird! We also got a photo with the official photographer holding a ‘Cairns’ sign, and also took plenty of our own using our underwater camera. Our dive was soon over, and we were brought back around to the back of the rope before our instructor pressed a button on our suits which caused several pockets in our suits to inflate, bringing us back up to the surface. We climbed back onto the boat and took off the Scuba gear, then went back into the water with our snorkels. Hayley and Emma got a couple of pictures with the photographer holding the ‘Cairns’ sign, which we later bought, along with the one of Craig and Emma from their dive. After about 20 minutes, the crew started to call us back in as they were serving lunch, so we made our way back onto the boat and enjoyed some marinated chicken, sausage and various types of salad set out buffet-style. Full up, we decided to not go back into the water until we got to the second reef location, and soon enough the crew were pulling up the anchor and we were making our way across to the next stop.

After around half an hour we stopped once again, so we put our snorkelling gear back on and got back into the ocean. Once again, the reef looked stunning, and it actually came up quite high in some parts, enough that you could touch it if you wanted to, though they asked us not to touch it as it causes a lot of damage and kills the coral. The current was quite strong and the water was quite choppy, and we could feel ourselves being pulled around a little as we snorkelled above and around the reef – even the poor fish were being dragged from side to side as they tried to feed! At one point, three large waves came from nowhere and gave everyone a bit of a scare as it was completely unexpected! A lot of people went back to the boat at that point but we continued to swim around, and Craig was diving down to get a better look at some of the coral and to get some better photos. If you look carefully in some of the pictures you will see that we also found Nemo whilst out there!

As Craig was off diving down, Emma heard someone shouting for help, and spotted a young

guy in a bit of a panic, waving his hands and shouting. We were about 15 metres or so away from him, and there were plenty of other people around him, some with the floating ‘noodles’ to help them swim and stay afloat, however everyone seemed to be ignoring this poor guy. Just in case he panicked and dragged her down with him, Emma grabbed Hayley (who at first thought Emma was saying that she needed help, lol) and they both swam over to the guy, made sure he was ok, then held him up and waved at the boat for help. One of the crew soon spotted us and a couple of them dived in and pulled him back over to the boat. We were pretty proud of our heroic act of the day, but amazed that everyone else had just ignored him when he could have drowned, as they were safely sat on their stupid noodles – there are some right ignorant idiots in this world…

We stayed in the water for a little longer - thankfully we didn’t have to rescue anyone else – then made our way back to the boat, exhausted from fighting the current just to stay in one place. We had actually paid for the glass bottom boat tour, as this was included in the original boat, however the water was too rough for this to run, so we were told that we could get a refund on the $15 each that we had paid for this. By this point it was around 2pm, and once everyone was back on the boat and accounted for, the boat started to make its way back to Cairns, which would take around two and a half hours. We sat back at our spot on the top deck, however soon moved when water started gushing over the top of the boat! We grabbed our stuff and joined a couple at a table inside. The sea was really rough, and the boat was swaying everywhere as we bounced over the waves and the swells. A few people got seasick, and the crew were running around handing out paper bags and having to clean up a few unfortunate accidents!

We were all shattered so we all tried to get as comfortable as we could and have a little snooze, though it was difficult when every so often there would be a loud crash from something falling over or falling off a table! Eventually, the water calmed as we got nearer the shore, and we pulled into the marina at around 4:30pm. We found our transfer shuttle, and were soon back at the hostel, where we all went to our rooms and collapsed on our beds after a long day! We later met up to get some food from the Woolshed, but soon returned for an early night to get some rest.

We had a bit of a lie-in the next morning, then set out to the town as we had a few things to do, such as sending off the car registration documents, printing out our plane tickets and some of the New Zealand hotel reservation confirmation emails, getting our hair cut and getting our refund for the glass bottom boat. We went first to the tour booking office, where we all got our refunds, then we made our way to the library. We actually went the wrong way first, although we did end up having a look in a church which had the world’s largest stained glass windows. They were very impressive, covering all sides of the church and depicting various scenes of nature and landscapes, rather than the usual religious figures, images and scenes found in most churches.

As we walked under a large mangrove tree, we heard what we thought was hundreds of birds being very loud above us, but when we looked closer, we realised that the tree was actually covered in bats! They were all hanging upside down from the branches and all seemed to be shouting at each other. We got a few pictures then eventually found the library, however, all of the computers were taken and the fee to use them was quite high, as was the cost of printing, so we figured it wold probably cheaper to just do it back at the hostel.

We walked back into town and found a place called ‘College Cuts’, which did really cheap haircuts as they were done by trainees. We only wanted a trim so we were not too bothered by this, so we asked if they had any appointments available that day. Hayley was able to be seen pretty much straight away, whilst Emma was told to come back in around an hour. Craig decided to instead get his cut at a barber shop just across the street, so while he had his hair cut, Emma went back to the hostel to print out everything needed for New Zealand. Craig met her back at the hostel, and we then both made our way back into the town with the car registration documents, along with a little note that we had printed just explaining that the car had been sold to a Queensland resident, and so would be re-registered there rather than New South Wales.

Craig then went to the post office to buy an envelope and stamp and post it off, and Emma went back to the hairdressers for her cut. Craig popped in and as there wasn’t really much of a seating area, he went off to have a wander around town, where he eventually found some free wi-fi and just played on his phone while he was waiting. Hayley’s hair was finished just as they had finished washing Emma’s hair, so she also went off for a wander around town. Unfortunately, the girl cutting Emma’s hair was a bit more of a newbie, and although she did a good job, she had to keep getting the supervisor to check every bit of hair that she cut, so it ended up taking forever – though the supervisor ended up cutting most of it herself, much to Emma’s relief! About 2 hours later, she was FINALLY done, by which time Craig and Hayley had both returned and were sitting on chairs inside the salon waiting. Emma paid up (after having some photos taken for the girl’s portfolio) and we were finally out!

All errands run, we all made our way back to the hostel. Hayley was meeting up and staying with a friend that she had met when she first got to Cairns as it was her last night here before going back to Dimbulah, so she went off with them while we went to the Woolshed for our food and then just chilled out in our room for the evening.

The next morning, Hayley came back to our hostel as most of her stuff was still here, however she still wasn’t sure how she was getting back to Dimbulah, as public transport is pretty sparse around there! She then came up with the idea of renting a car for the day, so we went to ask at the car hire opposite (called Rent-A-Bomb, funnily enough!). It would only cost $40 which was pretty reasonable, so Hayley paid for the hire cost and we split the petrol costs, as we figured we might use it a bit until we had to return it at 12:30pm the following day. We were given the keys to a little red Hyundai Getz, and Craig volunteered to be the driver.

We drove it back around to the hostel, where we all had some lunch before packing up Hayley’s stuff in the boot and setting off towards Dimbulah. The journey would take around 2 hours, and it felt amazing to have lovely cold air conditioning blowing in our faces as we drove! We had originally just put in ‘Dimbulah’ as a town option on our sat nav, however we’re not quite sure where it decided that was, as we ended up going completely the wrong way and having a 20 minute detour around someone’s farm! We did see a few little wallabies – though had to stop suddenly to avoid running them over as they just jumped in front of the car!

We put in the address of the hotel/pub that Hayley was staying and working at, and were back on track to Dimbulah, and eventually arrived mid-afternoon. Hayley gave us a bit of a tour around the small town, and we got to meet some of the locals – Hayley knew them all of course, everyone knows everyone in these kinds of places! They were all lovely people – really friendly and welcoming – and we could see why Hayley loved it here so much. We took a drive down to a nearby creek for a walk around, then went back into the town where Hayley picked up a few bits from the local supermarket.

She then asked one of the farmers if we could go and see his dog Tess, who she had told us about, and he said that we were welcome to, but she might get a bit excited! His land was just up the road, and Tess soon spotted us from under a tree and came running over. She was so cute and very happy to see us, and Hayley had bought some dog treats from the shop to give her, which she soon munched down! We left her to it and she went back under the shade of the tree – apparently she is usually with her owner most of the time but she is free to just go wherever she wants really as she is not fenced in or anything. As we walked back to the pub, we passed Tess’ owner who told us that she had dragged in a dead kangaroo the night before from somewhere – nice!

We then went back to the pub and asked the owner if we could go and see the dogs around the back. They were currently all caged up as they had their chickens out, but the guy said that we could let the three older ones out but not the two younger ones, as they would try to eat the chickens! We let them out and then spent a while playing with them and giving them lots of fuss and a few treats that Hayley had. Once again, they were very happy to see us and were all extremely fussy and trying to climb onto our laps as we stroked them! Eventually, it was time for us to leave as it would be soon getting dark, and we didn’t want to run the risk of hitting a kangaroo and damaging the hire car – they tend to get more active as it gets dark – so we said our goodbyes to Hayley and her friends before getting back into the car and starting on our journey back.

It took a lot less time to get back to Cairns without the stupid detour, and we were back by around 7pm. We went to get our meals from the Woolshed then came back to the hostel for the night. Thursday was our final full day in Cairns, and in Australia – we still can’t believe that we have been here for 9 months and as expected, the last 2 months in particular have really flown by! We had a drive up to the nearest K-Mart (about 15 minutes away) to get some new shoes and also a few new items of clothing, then drove the car back to the hire place, where the guy had a quick check over it and we gave him back the keys.

The rest of the day was spent doing some washing and packing up our cases. We played a few games of pool as this was free at the hostel (Emma thrashed Craig 3-0 in case you were wondering!) and just had a generally relaxed day before our flight to Auckland the next day.

We have really loved it here in Australia and although we’re excited to visit New Zealand, we are pretty sad to leave such a great country. We’ve found the people here, generally, to be really friendly and welcoming, and the scenery here is just stunning. We will be taking lots of amazing memories back home with us and we’ll definitely be back here one day – there are still loads of places that we still want to visit, we’ve barely even touched the surface! For now though, farewell Australia, it’s been great! Bring on New Zealand!

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