Rainforest, reef and waterfalls in tropical Cairns

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Day 224: Sunday 8th February - Arriving in Cairns

After a bus ride around Magnetic Island, a ferry ride to Townsville, a bus transfer to the airport, a flight to Cairns and a bus transfer from the airport (makes me tired writing it, never mind doing it!),I arrive at my hostel in Cairns 6 hours after I’d left my hostel in Townsville. After all the travelling I’m shattered but Ricky who I did Fraser Island with is staying here and I’ve agreed to a pool challenge with him. I lose by the odd frame in seven, but more importantly its good catching up with Ricky who is without doubt one of the best people I’ve met in Australia. Ricky is off to Melbourne tomorrow, and he tipped me off about this hostel which looks like one of the better YHA’s I’ve stayed in complete with pool and Jacuzzi. The only downside is the humidity which is stifling but at least it’s not raining! There’s lots of things I want to do in and around Cairns but I’ve nothing booked and don’t even know if I can do them all or more to the point whether I’ll want to if the weather doesn’t behave! I book a tour or should I say a transfer to Kuranda skyrail station for tomorrow. I also discover that my Whitsunday sailing trip should have cost me $1000 had I not got my free upgrade, instead of the $400 it did cost me…..cool!

Day 225: Monday 9th February - Surrounded by rainforest in Kuranda

I’m dead to the world when I get up this morning. The heat is debilitating and I could do with at least another few hours in bed but with a trip to Kuranda booked that’s not on the menu for today unfortunately. I get picked up at 9:30am, whereupon it’s a short transfer to Kuranda skyrail station a few kilometers outside Cairns. The sun is shining behind the clouds, there’s no rain and I’m a happy boy. This is the first sun I’ve seen since I left Mackay almost 2 weeks ago.

The skyrail journey takes about two hours including two stop offs to cover the 7.5km to Kuranda. The journey is in a cable car suspended metres above the rainforest canopy allowing you to look down on to the vast array of different species of trees, vines and ferns. The rainforest expands out across the horizon as far as the eye can see. At the first stop at Red Peak Station I take a guided walk around the boardwalks in the rainforest learning about the king of the jungle the Kauri Pine, the Strangler Fig, Basket Ferns and the native bird, the Cassowary. The Cassowary plays an important function in spreading the seeds of a number of species of trees and plants and they are presently on the endangered list which is worrying for the future of the rainforest. From Red Peak station it’s back on the skyrail to Barron Falls station. At Barron Falls there is another opportunity to walk through the rainforest again, wander around the educational rainforest interpretative centre, but the highlight is the waterfalls. There is always an upside to travelling up in Northern Queensland in the wet season, and whilst all the rain of the past few weeks has been a pain in the backside, the Barron Falls are at their powerful, majestic best due to all the rain. The flow of dirty water being carried down the falls is incredible. The Barron Falls in the wet are probably the second most impressive falls I’ve ever seen, only behind Iguassu Falls on the Brazil/Argentina border. Nothing could ever beat Iguassu, it possibly being the best wonder I’ve ever seen on this planet. After I leave Barron Falls, the rain comes and the view of the rainforest almost disappears. Thankfully, it’s a short, sharp outburst and doesn’t affect my day as I’m under cover in the skyrail and once I get to Kuranda I just hang around the station for half an hour until it clears.

Kuranda, is basically a village in the rainforest which is incredibly touristy offering a variety of B-grade merchandise. I get some lunch and wander past all the souvenir shops but it doesn’t really have anything that would make you want to visit the place. However, it’s the journey that counts and the skyrail journey here was fabulous and now I’m heading back to the railway station to catch the heritage train back to Cairns. The station is bang in the middle of the rainforest and the platform is covered with a variety of tropical plants. It takes an hour and a half along the scenic railway to get back to Cairns, passing the Barron Falls for a last look and other smaller waterfalls as the track cuts through the tropical rainforest. Apart from getting out to see the Barron Falls, I spend the majority of the journey fast asleep. I can’t cope with the heat and humidity, it’s going to be an early night for me as I’m exhausted.

On the way back to my hostel, I pop into the tourist information centre to get their opinion on doing a helicopter ride over the Great Barrier Reef. A girl behind the desk in the hostel advised it won’t be worth the money in this weather but after spending a day here, and with a similar forecast for the next two days, I still think it would be a worthwhile experience. The ladies I speak to at the tourist information bureau agree with my view and they have a special offer of a $50 discount, so I book a reef cruise and return helicopter with them for tomorrow there and then. This proves to be an unnecessary ordeal as the lady I deal with doesn’t speak English as her first language and just ends up being a barrier between me and the tour company until I grab the phone off her to talk to the guy myself. Why staff a tourist information centre with someone who hasn’t a clue?? They are supposed to make things easier for a tourist, not more difficult! Whilst I’m down on the Esplanade I also get a look at the Cairns lagoon, which is basically a swimming pool beside the sea front as the sea is too dangerous to swim in.

I’ve barely settled back in the hostel when I get a call from the tour agency to tell me there is a (imaginary) problem with the boat I’ll be sailing on, therefore there will be no tour tomorrow and instead it will go on Wednesday. It doesn’t bother me as I have no plans for that day but why do they lie instead of telling me they haven’t got the numbers for the helicopter which is the more likely reason why the tour isn’t going tomorrow. I now have tomorrow to fill, so I call up to book on to a tour of the Atherton Tablelands. Not long after 9pm and I drag myself to bed. Half of my dorm are already in bed, obviously the heat and humidity is getting to everyone.

Day 226: Tuesday 10th February - A road trip on ‘Gus the Bus’ to Atherton Tablelands

I’d been told that a tour to the Atherton Tablelands with Uncle Brian’s tours is a lot of fun and the fun and games start before I even get on the bus with those on it having to guess what nationality I am with me stood on the pavement looking bemused as to why I can’t get on the bus. As we climb to the tablelands, cousin Sherene, our driver, then has us waving at all the road workers that we pass. We also get stories about Gus the Bus’s girlfriend (volvina) and his bit on the side (an ambulance in Babinda! What is this tour??, it’s mad!! Our first stop of the day is at the Boulders, where we have a short walk through the rainforest, encountering several huge spiders and a stick insect. The scale of the rainforest is just crazy, you feel tiny amongst all the trees, ferns and vines. From the Boulders, we head to Josephine Falls. With all the rain the past two weeks the flow of the water is too fast to be able to swim, but the upside is that we see the waterfalls at their absolute best. On the way to lunch, Sherene has us playing a game of pass the polo mint using only a matchstick and introduces a box of puzzles to keep the bus entertained. Whoever said the journey was going to be boring??

After lunch we drive to Millaa Millaa falls, the highlight of the day. Unfortunately we get the only rain of the day whilst we’re at the falls. Nevertheless, it can’t detract from the beauty of the falls, a perfect sheet of water dropping over a fern-fringed cliff-face. The falls were made famous by an advert for Timotei Shampoo around 20 years ago, featuring a gorgeous girl with long blonde hair flicking it over her shoulder in-front of the falls. I may not have the hair to re-enact the advert, but I have plenty of fun messing around in front of the falls whilst getting some photos! A number of us also climb behind the falls. As we journey to Lake Eacham, we sing songs encompanied by a tambourine, waving at anyone who passes and we also encounter a random woman in one town we pass through who comes out to greet the bus. Apparently, she does this every day….crazy stuff! Lake Eacham is a volcanic crater lake and it is pleasantly warm to swim in the clear waters. Some of the group climb a tree to jump into the lake but I can’t be bothered with the effort. Our final stop of the day is to go platypus spotting which proves fruitless, but having seen them already in the wild I’m not at all bothered. From there it’s a joyous musical journey home to finish a fun filled tour. The Atherton Tablelands are a beautiful spot, tropical forest giving way to beautiful rolling countryside reminiscent of home or Ireland. Add in the falls and lakes and this place is a must visit whilst in Cairns. Doing the tour with Uncle Brian’s certainly enhanced the experience and was lots of fun.

It’s been a full day, and I don’t arrive back in Cairns until 8pm. I also discover my next destination after Australia - I’ve been waiting on a response from my insurance company. Whilst I had hoped to travel to East Timor next my insurance company will not cover me as the government is currently advising people to travel their only if it is essential. It’s a bit of a shame as I had wanted to visit a country which is almost untouched by tourism and do some really intrepid travelling. It also made sense from a logistics point of view as I was then going to island hop all the way west through the Indonesian archipelago. I’m pretty sure that the only other place I can fly to in Indonesia from Darwin (my planned exit point in Australia) is Bali, which will mean back tracking east if I want to still do the island hopping as it is fairly central in the archipelago. Such a hardship having to go to Bali next!! I can work that out another day but unless the UK foreign office downgrades the travel advice in the next 3 weeks then East Timor is a no go. Things must be bad in East Timor as in comparison, Iraq and Afghanistan don’t appear on the list of 7 countries which the UK government advise people not to travel to. Being cynical, why do we hear little of the 7 countries that do appear on the list if the situation in them is so fragile or dangerous? Nothing to do with the fact these 7 countries don’t have much oil or aren’t part of the much hyped war on terror, and are therefore of little strategic importance to the UK and consequently the suffering of the people is viewed in the media as being of no interest to the wider British public?

Day 227: Wednesday 11th February - Diving, snorkeling and a helicopter ride over the Great Barrier Reef

Another early start, but that seems par for the course for Cairns. I walk down to the reef terminal to check on to my boat which departs at 8:30am. It takes an hour and a half to reach Saxon Reef, the first of the two reefs we will be visiting today. It’s a common misconception that the Great Barrier Reef is one continuous reef, rather it is 2900 separate reefs. The boat is crowded, there must be 60 people at least on board. I’d been warned that Cairns isn’t the best place to visit the reef due to the crowds and the subsequent damage that has been done to the fragile reef, so originally I was going to give it a miss. However, things didn’t quite go to plan on the weather front at Heron Island and I feel I’ve still to experience the Great Barrier Reef proper. I’ve signed up to dive at the reef and shortly before we reach the reef, all the introductory divers are called to a briefing.

There are only two of us that go down in my group with the dive instructor after the girlfriend of the other guy I’m diving with decides it’s not for her when we get in the water. Despite seeing and swimming with a Green Turtle the dive is disappointing. We’re only down for 15 minutes (usually intro dives are double the length), and there isn’t much marine life, be it fish or corals to see on the dive. If this is all there is to the Great Barrier Reef then I’m going to be disappointed. The two dives I did in the Red Sea a year ago were much better than this. The warning not to dive at the reef off Cairns looks like it was right. After the dive we get the opportunity to snorkel the reef, which is no better. It’s not due to the visibility as the sea is calm and the weather isn’t bad at all, cloudy but not overcast, rather there is simply not much to see. At lunch, I get talking to two guys from Manchester, Matt and Pete. They are of the same opinion as myself, that Saxon Reef was disappointing and they’ve seen better reefs elsewhere.

After lunch the boat sails on to Hastings Reef. I’m not bothered to dive here, to be honest I feel a bit cheated with only getting 15 minutes at Saxon reef. After giving my lunch time to digest I get my wetsuit on and go snorkeling. Five minutes later and I’ve fallen in love with the Great Barrier Reef. Hastings Reef is so much better than the Saxon Reef. The visibility is better, but more importantly there is abundant marine life. Corals every colour of the rainbow and many of the different types of coral can be seen, every reef fish imaginable and certainly too many to mention here, clams, sea cucumbers…..wow! I don’t want to get out of the water, but with my helicopter transfer being just over an hour away from the time I got into the water, I swim back to the boat. I’ve still got 20 minutes so I get back in the water to discover more. How glad I am when just as I’m returning to the boat for the second time I come face to face with Wally. Wally is a Maori Wrasse, a blue fish with a hump on its head, and a fish which is as big as me. I reach out and stroke Wally and he loves it. Most fish would swim away as you extended an arm but Wally is totally comfortable with the attention, just brilliant. The second snorkel of the day at Hastings Reef must rate up there with those I did in the Galapagos Islands as the best ever. Not quite as many fish or the stand out marine life of the Galapagos but the variety of marine life is unparalleled. I’m buzzing and I’ve still got the helicopter ride to look forward to.

At 3pm, six of us leave the boat to get a dinghy across to the most unlikely location for a helicopter pad. The pad is sat in the middle of the reef, miles from anywhere. A helicopter ride isn’t a first for me, I’ve done it previously at Iguassu Falls in Brazil. Nevertheless, it’s still exciting and a great way to finish off the day as well as get a different view of the reef. It takes 30 minutes to fly back to Cairns during which we fly over several other reefs, a coral cay and also fly near to Green Island. The weather is decent, not brilliant but the skies are more blue than grey and my fears that it will rain don’t materialise. The helicopter flight is a good way to finish my experience off of the Great Barrier Reef. Despite a slow start, I’m on a high after a great afternoon of seeing the reef from below and above the water.

Back in Cairns I have a stroll to the shopping centre across the road, which I follow with a dip in the pool and Jacuzzi. I bump into a guy in the hostel, Joe from Wales, who I roomed with all the way down the coast in Newcastle. We compare our journeys up the east coast and we both agree that the east coast of Australia is overrated. By overrated I mean overrated in comparison to the numbers who travel this route each year. A lot of the people who travel the east coast of Australia seem to fall in the 18-22 bracket, people on gap years who it appears are after a good travel infrastructure which the east coast definitely has, safety in numbers with other travellers (definitely has that too!) and also plenty of opportunities to party. Being a cynical old bugger maybe some of the young people who are out here haven’t got the independence of mind to travel somewhere different and just follow the crowds. Whatever the attraction is, the route from Sydney to Cairns must be one of the most travelled routes in world travel, but talking to Joe (and later to other experienced travellers), we feel it doesn’t have any truly outstanding highlights. There are definitely some good experiences to be had, from the contrasting beach cultures in Byron Bay and Noosa, the adventure of driving Fraser Island, a great city at the start in Sydney and of course now the Great Barrier Reef. Perhaps the best of the east coast is in the tropics. Sadly, my experience was affected by the particularly bad wet season that has hit Australia this year, which definitely adversely affected my Whitsunday sailing trip and stay on Magnetic Island. The weather has been kinder during my time in Cairns, and the last three days of seeing rainforest, waterfalls and the reef have been amongst my best up the east coast. For me, Cairns isn’t the end of the journey up the east coast, there’s one final stop - Cape Tribulation, where the reef meets the rainforest. I’ve heard nothing but good reports, I can’t wait.

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