Blogs from Cairns, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 10

Hi all, we have reached our first destination which is the Coconut Palms park in Cairns. We got here in the dark to a welcome from the grand kids and my son and his wife and a few others. After 3 days driving and over 3,000km we are glad to have reached this point. Was another interesting day today. We stayed overnight at Barcaldine in self contained cabins. Went across the road to an open eatery and I had pork belly. I was in heaven. The day this morning started at 6am and we were in open country and plenty of kangaroos around. I had another 3 near misses and we counted 211 dead kangaroos and I pig between Barcaldine and Muttaburra. These are really dumb animals. They see you coming and just head for the ... read more

Attended a lecture this morning given by a fellow passenger and author named Betty Jane Wylie, from Canada. She has a quick wit and was full of inspiration for me. She instilled some confidence that I am on the right track as I go forward with this blog. After all, who am I trying to impress? I just want an semi-interesting, somewhat witty account of what we are doing and experiencing on this trip. Am I achieving that? I think so but you can judge for yourself. Arrived in Cairns (pronounced cans) this afternoon. We walked several blocks from the wharf and found a liquor store to purchase a couple of bottles of prosecco to bring with us to dinner at the home of a couple we met two years ago on our cruise around South ... read more

Geo: -16.923, 145.76624th March - 11 April 2015We returned to the coast from the Outback for a little light relief after the harsh conditions and extreme heat. Then we pottered around Airlie Beach, where we went out snorkelling, visited Ingham to visit the Tyto wetland reserve and then moved on to Kurrimine Beach.We did a night rough camping, the first one since leaving the coast some weeks ago and found that we had a problem. The fridge failed during the night as the auxiliary battery was drained. We charged it again and it lasted only a couple of hours during the day. That meant we could not maintain the fridge temperature unless we were plugged into the mains. As we were only about 100 kilometres from Cairns we decided to head into the Travellers Autobarn Base. ... read more

Hello People, As we had decided not to go to Cape Tribulation (because it was so expensive to get there and we hadn’t met anyone with a car), we decided to go to the Lagoon in the center of Cairns. It was relaxing and sunny! We also booked up Frasier Island- 3 days and 2 nights on the island with a night at the hostel before and after the trip on Rainbow beach for $400 each. This was probably the best deal we found for that amount of days, however we have seen bulk deals including the Great Barrier Reef, Whitsundays, Fraser Island, and nights at Mission beach, 1770, Rainbow beach etc. for about $800 each. This is probably cheaper than doing it separately than booking it separately in advance like us but it does run ... read more

Hi All, A rest day in Cairns was on the itinerary today; having a lie-in until 8.30am was definitely needed. We also needed extra sleep after the disturbed night due to this drunken German girl getting into our room claiming she had lost her phone but she went after about 15 minutes. This morning we cooked scrambled eggs and bacon on toast in the hostel kitchen then we sat in the common area drinking free tea, chatting, and planning the next week down the east coast. We’ve selected our next two bus journeys with ‘Premier’ (stopping at Mission beach and then to Airily Beach). We’ve decided to only take one of the free nights accommodation that came with booking a tour through the hostel as it would mean spending an extra day here so losing out ... read more