Waving palm trees, lush green mountains in the background, humidity that causes my hair to explode of frizziness and tropical birds singing their songs… Am I back in Southeast Asia?
Nope Eef, you’re in Cairns. Cairns is located in Tropical North Queensland, and oh boy – tropical it is. From Sydney you’ll fly to Cairns within three hours, and if you stare out of the plane window long enough you gradually see the scenery changing.
Cairns is known for being the perfect base to go explore the Great Barrier Reef from, as well as for its green rainforests and countless of waterfalls. Time to check it out ourselves!
Snorkeling in the rain? Oh well, you’ll get wet anyway!
Early in the morning we sailed off into the Great Barrier Reef with one mission: to spot as many beautiful sea creatures as possible. Because I get seasick quite easily we booked the biggest boat we could find. Early in the morning we checked in at the fleet terminal while the rain was bucketing down. Oh boy, this was going to be an interesting snorkel trip…
Nemo, where art thou?
After about an hour and a half of sailing we arrived at our first spot, and yay – I didn’t get (very) sea sick! We put on our stinger-suits (just in case that one deadly jellyfish decides to show up and puts us to sleep forever) geared up in our snorkelling gear and dove into the water. Hundreds of beautiful fishies happily greeted us, and later that day we’d also encounter multiple turtles, some stingrays (rip Steve) and even a white tip shark! Mission snorkelling the Great Barrier reef: complete ✓.
So that’s why they call it rainforest…
Rain. You’d think the average Dutchie can handle a fair dose of water falling from the sky. Well, you’re right, but this was something even us cheeseheads couldn’t have prepared for. Rain was still coming down faster than you could imagine, and it didn’t look like it was going to stop any time soon. But hey, you’re only in Cairns once (or twice) so you’d better make the most of it! We rented a car for 24h for $70 (AUD) and drove off to chase some waterfalls in the rainforest.
Safely hiding under our umbrellas we walked through the rainforest to find those wonderful waterfalls everyone had been raving about. And as the sound of swooshing water became louder (which always makes me need to pee for some reason, lol) we knew we found the falls. And whoaaaaa! They were SO intense! Because of all the extra rain water the waterfalls were nowhere safe to swim, but they were SO EXTREMELY GORGEOUS! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a waterfall that wild. Totally worth getting wet for!
At last: the sun!
Miracles do happen, and around noon the skies cleared up and the sun even came out. Whoohoo! We headed back to Cairns to go for a dip in the Cairns Esplanade Lagoon. The waters around Cairns aren’t suitable for swimming, so they created a man-made lagoon! This lagoon is the perfect meeting spot for backpackers, children and everyone else who loves to soak up a bit of that Tropical North QLD sun 🙂
Cairns is simply amazing, and even though I feel like we’ve seen a lot, I know we still haven’t seen it all. Next time I go to Cairns I’d also love to visit the Millaa Millaa falls and Cape Tribulation. I guess plenty of reason to go back to Tropical Cairns soon… 😉
❤ Eef
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