Sailing Around Australia - Falling for Cairns

22/7/2014 – Falling for Cairns

With Easy Tiger safely tucked in at Marina Adelaide, Leanne and I have taken another short break from our sailing around Australia adventures. We travelled to Cairns to visit our daughter Bree and timed it perfectly to meet up with our son Luke at the same place.

After six years of working on remote dive boats all over the top of Australia Bree and her partner Rhys have decided to settle in Cairns and have rented a house in Redlynch. Luke has been working on a luxury super “yacht” that has been travelling around the world. They came in to Cairns a couple of days ago. So this trip has been very special for us.

Bree has taken us out each day to show us the sights of Cairns. What a beautiful tropical wonderland this area is.

1^st we saw the Chrystal cascades which is a lovely walk up to a waterfall and many rock pools, then to Kamerunga and some more great waterfalls and rock pools after  a steep walk.

Next day we went up to Kuranda, a nice village markets type atmosphere then a visit to the barron gorge, where you guessed it, more waterfalls were viewed.

Yesterday we drove down to a small town called Babinda where we went to the Babinda boulders and yes, the Josephine Falls. There, Bree and I swam in the very cold but highly refreshing rock pool.

We finished up with a visit to the Botanical gardens in Cairns, which sounds like a lovely stroll around the paths looking at the collection of plants. Unfortunately for Leanne and I and our various body parts, there was a very steep path going straight up to the lookout. Bree assures us that it’s easy and sometimes does it twice up and down just for exercise! Unfortunately our legs, knees and hips have become very used to living on a boat. The mountain climbing gear was packed away long ago. I am proud to say that we made it to the top, even if we were too out of breath to marvel at the vista.

We are so glad that we undertook this adventure. We might be still in Bunbury freezing cold and going to the job everyday, wishing that we could be somewhere else.  But we are somewhere else.

We sit here on the deck of Bree's house and look out to a sea of green trees and high hills in the background and smile.We smile at each other as our two offspring chat and compare diving stories. We smile at each other when the Adelaide weather is read out. 13 degrees one day and 12 the next. It’s 26 today in Cairns, but that’s hardly a topic of conversation as it has been 26 every day for a week.

I don’t know whether it is that our family are together, the brilliant weather or the beautiful waterfalls, but there is something about Cairns that we are falling for.

We can’t wait to sail Easy Tiger here on our sailing around Australia Adventure.

Cairns from mountain goats lookout

And the vista from the other side of the hill.

One of a dozen or so waterfalls we have visited.

and another... all of them beautiful

And great for a swim

Just f f f f freezing!!!!!

We are loving Cairns.