Arrival In Cairns...

First view? Well it's very different from Sydney. We arrived at around 10am on the Wednesday morning to find a fairly close 25 degree heat. It wasn't unpleasant but I definately wanted to get back into shorts and out of the combat pants I travelled in.

We went and picked up our rental car and headed out. The first thing you notice is how much more tropical Cairns feels than Sydney. So many more palm trees, and fields full of what we think is sugar cane plants. There are also signs up warning you off swimming in the river because there may be crocodiles... Nice!

We made our way up the apartment we are staying in which is reasonably pleasant. It's a place called Cairns Beach Resort, which is at Holloway Beach, around 8km North of Cairns. We arrived and had a look round the apartment, and then the surrounding area.

To put it frankly there isn't really a great deal here. A couple of restaurants, and off license, a beach, and a convenience store and that's about your lot.

We decided that as there wasn't a lot else we would have a ride North in the hire car up towards Port Douglas. It was a nice drive along the coast between here and Port Douglas so on the way we stopped in at Palm Cove and another beach a little further up. Both were either deserted, or had a couple of people on them.




One thing I have noticed here is that you tend to catch a glimpse of some form of creatures scurrying away when you walk places which is always a little disconcerting given you haven't a clue what they were.

When we got down onto the second beach we noticed lots of round holes in the beach where something had clearly dug itself a hole. Once again I find myself not sure I want to know what! :)

Had a wander over to some rock pools on the beach and found tiny baby crabs, little fish and even a couple of little lizards, all of which scarpered if you tried to get too close.

We eventually made it up to Port Douglas and found that although it was a bit bigger there wasn't much there either.

Ahh well. The weather was good and it was a nice change in pace from life in Sydney. After a couple of hours we headed back to the apartment and tried one of the local restaurants. The dining area was literally a few feet from the beach and was pretty nice. We had a reasonable meal, and just as we were about to leave one of the waitresses started doing a fire display down on the beach. Have to say she was very good so we hung around until that finished before calling it a night.