Friends, Waterfalls, Croc Bars and Parades - Fun in Cairns



Home with Tim and his lovely dog Callie.

We're still in the Cairns Marlin Marina.  There was a plan to move to the Half Moon Bay Marina in Yorkey's Knob tomorrow ... we drove over to have a look at the Marina in our rental car a few days ago and decided to stay here in Cairns for another week.  There isn't a lot around the Marina over at YK and we still have 3 weeks to go before the Louisiades Rally departure so we thought we'd stay here in the "big smoke" of Cairns one more week.  And we haven't been idle.

On Saturday we rented a car and drove up the coast.  Originally the plan was to check out the Yorkey's Knob marina and then look up Tim's house and come on back to the boat.  But when we got to YK there wasn't much there so we drove on up to Port Douglas for a look around.  The drive up the coast is pretty spectacular and Port Douglas was humming with the usual tourist.  The Captain and I had a quick lunch at the pub and decided to hit the road back to Cairns with a stop over at Tim's for a cuppa on the way.  All up the drive is only about 60km but with the winding roads hugging the coastline and hillsides it took an hour and a bit to come back.

Saturday night the Cairns Festival kicked off with a big parade down the Esplanade.  We went down to watch it and had a surprisingly good time!

The whole of the Cairns community and its surrounds participated in the parade and, as usual, there were lots of colourful floats and children in costumes!

There is a large community of Chinese and Japanese here and they were well represented on the floats! 

We went out for an Italian meal afterwards - multi cultural all the way!!  And over our glasses of wine and Caprese Salad entre we missed the fireworks.  Another good night in the far north.

The plan on Sunday was to co-cook a dinner at Tim's house and stay the night.  But over our wine at dinner the night before the Captain suggested we get up early (groan) and drive up to the Atherton Tablelands for a quick look before arriving at Tim's around 4:00pm.  First thing is you don't just have a "quick look" at the Atherton Tablelands - the area takes in a large area of tropical rainforest wonders and small to medium villages.  In a more sober vein early on Sunday morning we decided to drive up the mountain to the small rainforest town of Kuranda.

On arrival in Kuranda I discovered it was a village right up my "alley" and full of "my tribe"!!  Hippies and People after an Alternate Lifestyle running little cafes, shops and nature museums ... all under the canopy of the rainforest.  Heaven.  There was a cool feeling to the air - no more heat from beside the water - and the smell of the air was intoxicating. 

We started out with a walk around the market stalls and then a coffee and a muffin and after the walk to Barron Falls we had lunch.

There are stairs between the levels of shops in the rainforest canopy.  All in all there are about 3 or 4 levels of little Hippy type shops.  At the top of this stairway is a Japanese Tea room!  Beautiful.  You can sit there and take in a pot of green tea with a view over the tree tops in perfect serenity. 
 

We had lunch here in this wholefoods organic restaurant...again sitting out amongst the trees.

In between coffee and lunch we drove to the "canopy walk" through the rainforest to the Barron Falls.  What a spectacular sight!  Again, as has happened so many times on this trip, we didn't know anything about the falls or the area.  The walk was great....a raised walkway right in the treetops and down to a sudden reveal of the Barron Gorge and Falls.

The lower walkway - we had come down from the treetops.

The Barron Gorge and Waterfall.  The picture just doesn't do it justice.  It's really deep and almost gives you vertigo looking down into it!  Beautiful.

After a full day exploring Kuranda we drove back down to Tim's house for dinner and a good catch up.  We see Tim way too little and it was so good to spend time together.  We went for a good long walk on the beach with his dog Callie and then sat in his tropical gazebo having reef fish for dinner!  The captain and I are looking forward to spending a lot more time with Tim over the next few weeks.

Dinner in the night breeze next to the pool ... tropical bliss.

And one more thing.  We went for a beer in one of the pubs way in the back of Cairns the other day and I had to take a photo of the bar - its a crocodile!!!  I do love this place.

Love the bar ... and check out the crocs above as well!