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Published: November 7th 2005
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CAIRNS
Colorful Cairns. Whether it was the fish and coral in the Great Barrier Reef, the flowers, the stained glass panels of St. Monica's Cathedral, the food, gelato or the characters we met, Cairns was colorful.
Our biggest reason for going to Cairns was to get to the Barrier Reef. One day we went out for some diving and snorkeling. We want to mention the outfit that we chose because they were really, really good. We went on the Sea Quest with the Deep Sea Divers Den crew. It was a newer fast boat with a small number of passengers and a fairly large crew, so we got a lot of personal attention and it only took us an hour and a half to get to the Reef, so we had more time in the water and less traveling to get there.
Doug rented an underwater camera onboard, so we tried to take a lot of pictures, but the fish didn't always co-operate and we ended up with a fair amount of photos with either nothing in them or just the fish's tail. We included a lot of the photos where the fish were a bit more photogenic
as well as some of the coral and anemones. One especially friendly fish was Wally, the giant parrot fish that is in a photo with Mary. I think he was fed so much food, that it was like Thanksgiving for him and he couldn't move too quickly. That was cool to be so close to him. I guess I was also close to a reef shark. The snorkeling guide asked me when I came up if I had seen the 4 foot shark that swam six feet in front of me and I had to say no. I guess I was so busy chasing the other fish down for a photo opp that I missed him! I was also so busy trying to be the Annie Leibowitz of the Reef that I didn't reapply sunscreen before the second snorkel and burned the back of my legs from the wet suit to my ankles something fierce. They were so tight, you could bounce a quarter off of them.
One day we took an old train to a town called Kuranda. The ride up wasn't that scenic for us because we had an inside seat, but we did manage to get
some photos of the Stoney Creek Waterfall (on our side of the train, hah!) and the Barron Falls. The town is small, consisting mostly of shops selling unique clothes, jewelry, knick-knacks, etc., but we did go to an Aboriginal show as part of the tour. We saw some dances, heard the didgeridoo, threw the boomerang and took a duck boat through the rain forest with a really funny driver/guide. We also got our photos taken with a koala and saw some of the native animals in the zoo (koalas, wallabies, wombats, kangaroos, crocs and dingos).
We took a newer (10 years old) monorail back down the mountain. This gave us a bird's eye view over the rainforest, which was also cool. It is so lush and dense in there with a variety of plants and trees, you wonder how they all manage to survive together.
On another day, I went fishing in the estuary for a half-day while Doug tooled around town. OK, let's be honest, he went looking for bars to hole up in. I had a friendly guide and group on board, so it was fun. After we spent about a half hour catching our bait
in a weighted net the guide threw out and retrieved the little green sardines, we actually started fishing. In the first spot, I caught a perch, although it looked nothing like the perch back home, and a small barracuda. I have a photo of the cuda. I think between the eight of us on the boat, we caught ten different kinds of fish. I also caught a lot of tiny black bugs, which have left their mark (and their itch), even days later.
As for the characters we met....we were fortunate to have a blues bar at the end of our street where we were staying. It's called Johno's and I recommend it to anybody who goes to Cairns. The second night we were there we saw Johno in all his glory. It is hard to say how old he is, but I'm guessing close to 80. He had on white pants, a red floral shirt and a hat that I think he stole from Huggy Bear. He sang, played a bit, hopped around onstage and hit on the ladies, most of which were in their twenties. One thing we were disappointed in was not being able to see
the Gong Show, which is every Sunday. We were there and saw the contestants signing up, but they still hadn't started by 12 and we had to get up early the next morning for our boat trip.
We also met some Aboriginals in another bar. There aren't too many of them in town but when they are, they go to certain "local" bars, which we happened to be in one day. A lady with a couple of teeth kept poking Doug and tried to have a conversation, but he couldn't understand her. I had a barefoot guy pull up a chair next to me and tell me how much he liked my white skin. I had to correct him and tell him it was red, but he didn't seem to mind. After he started touching my leg we were out of there. But one additional note, the bartender at that bar was very, very nice and spent a lot of time talking with us. He is from Victoria, backpacking through Australia, and plans on visiting an Aboriginal reservation which, by the way, is by invitation only.
I went to St Monica's Cathedral in Cairns. I mention this because
it had some of the most beautiful stain glass windows in it that I have ever seen. There were 24 panels, 12 on each side of the church, which told the story of Genesis with a definite local influence/inspiration. Although it wasn't literal, it was neat to see how the Australian history was inter-woven into the panels. The creator/designer taped an explanation of each of the panels and pointed things out that may not have been obvious to an outsider and I was fortunate enough to catch one of those. Not only were the designs unique, but the colors were also extremely bright and vivid.
And now for the food and beverage review. There were a lot of restaurants of international cuisine. Indian, Indonesian, Greek, Italian, Malaysian, Mexican, and the list goes on. One night while Mary was at church, I went to a Mexican restaurant early and had 'Ritas. Once Mary joined me, we had a (Doug says average, Mary says Good) Mexican dinner. We also tried an Indian joint. As most of you know, Mary and I are Indian food connoisseurs. This restaurant was good, but the food was from the northern part of the country. We
prefer the southern cuisine. However, we did have fun selecting our own bottle of wine from a wine shop and taking it along with us to dinner. Doug's favorite food experience in Cairns was at a Malaysian restaurant. Neither of us had ever tried Malaysian before. For an appetizer, we had a finely diced/chopped meat dish that we put in lettuce leaves, rolled them up and enjoyed. For entrees, I had a chicken dish with vegetables and Mary had a mixed meat dish (BBQ'd pork, shrimp, etc.) with noodles. I asked for hot and that's what I got! As far as the beer goes, I don't think we experienced any new beers that we had not previously tried in Sydney. Food: "A-", Beer: "Same as Sydney".
Overall, we give Cairns a big thumbs up, like Doug in the photo. It is a relatively small town and has a very laid back attitude, but you can get all of the comforts of home. If you are at all interested in water activities, this is a place you should come to at some point in your life. And did we mention it was 85 and sunny every day?
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Diane
non-member comment
Hello mates!
Great photos! I especially like the underwater ones and stained glass. Like you said, the colors are very vibrant. Sounds like things are going well -- except for the sunburn. Thanks for keeping us updated. Too bad you only have a month left....