Traveling to Australia March 2009 - Looking for suggestions

If you have a car in Cairns for a week,there are a couple of good day trips. Firstly, the road between Cairns and Port Douglas on the coast is beautiful - but once you are in Port Douglas, take a drive up to Mossman Gorge, have a look around, and then head to Daintree and take a boat tour.

The other option is to head up to the Atherton Tablelands, there are some great waterfalls there - the biggest being Barron Falls. The Ellinjaa Falls (part of the Milla Milla Waterfall Circuit) are also great and the views of the rolling countryside from the nearby Milla Milla lookout is worthy of a stop. You will be there during the wet season, so the waterfalls will look superb. The Barron Falls at full flow is truly spectacular.

Finally walking along Four Mile Beach at Port Douglas near sunrise or sunset is one of the great pleasures of life. The nearby lookout over the beach makes for a great view and some great photos.

It has been a long time since I have been in that part of the world, but these are the places that I remember the most fondly. Reply to this

Thanks Terri for the reply. The rainy season is a tropical one, so you can get massive storms in the late afternoon and pleasant times for the rest of the day and night.

However, occassionally, hurricanes (similar to typhoons and cyclones) head to that area and then it just rains and rains. This can really cause problems to roads, so make sure you have some good travel insurance in case of delays. The Cairns area has just received a battering from ex-cyclone Charlotte.

The good thing is that the Atherton Tablelands has much fewer problems then the coastal strip in this regard. I was once in Cairns a few days after a cyclone passed through - and the area was stunning - very lush and green, full waterfalls - so there are still some positives. Reply to this

Suggestion on "Things to do" in the Cairns area, "Cassowary Connect" is a LOCAL website that lists all sorts of local events for all walks of life in Tropical North Queensland. It is a free not-for-profit site run by one volunteer (me!) and at the moment has HEAPS of free events listed on it, especially on 26th Jan, Australia Day. Cassowary Connect is essentially for locals in the Cassowary Coast region but I reckon visitors to the area might find it useful too. CassowaryConnect.com
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oooo... yes this is the WET tropics.
Here comes the scary news...
We had a category 5 cyclone here through the tropics a few years ago on the 20th of March... BUT! Although there was less than one day's warning last time, there is plenty of warning and news hype about anything remotely cyclonic approaching the coastline now. The BOM http://www.bom.gov.au/ Bureau of Meteorology is the best site to keep an eye on for forecasts.

AND IT'S THE TROPICS!! I remember visiting Singapore, from my home-land South Africa, for the first and only time with my dad (a pilot) as a young teenager and being enthralled by the enormous afternoon thunderstorms that hurled down "power-shower" rain. The weather of an area is part of the experience.

Having said all that, you might get lucky and have a week of sunshine. Yesterday was clear around my way all day except for a short (less than an hour) shower in the afternoon, and this morning as I write the sun is shining with just a few scattered clouds about.

This place is green and lush and beautiful. I'm sure you'll have a great time no matter what the weather!
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There is so much to do in and around Cairns even in the wet.
I lived in Cairns for 5 years and worked in tourism for 4 of them.
The most important thing to do is not to book too much in advance. Wait til you get there.
If I was in your shoes, I'd hire a small campervan, that way you can go up to Port Douglas, then to cape Trib, then up to the tablelands for the waterfalls and through to mission beach which is arguably one of the pretties beaches I've ever seen and is home to the Tully river which is Australia's largest white water rafting river (which is even better in the wet season) 😊
The best thing about the campervan is you can go when and where you want, without having to book accomodation. And you can tailer your trip depending on what the weather throws at you.
The reef can still be amazing in the wet, infact, the visibility is often better this time of year, because there's less south easterly winds which stire up the bottom.
There's a couple of companies you can hire campervans with... Most have minimum 14 day hires, but I think there's a new company called Jucy that have a 5 day minimum and they go for around $35/day which was cheaper than any car company that I could find.

Let me know if you need any more info.

Otherwise, GOODLUCK! Reply to this

No probs. The tablelands isn't too far from port douglas. About 3 hours from there.
When your doing the drive around the tablelands, make sure you take a bit of a detour and check out josephine falls. Such a good swim! It has a naturally formed water slide 😊

Good luck, and let me know if there is anything else I can help ya with 😊 Reply to this

check out the official website for the tropical north queensland tourism www.tropicalnorthqueensland.com.au heaps of suggestions on there Reply to this