Holiday Down Under - Part 1: CAIRNS

As many of you know, for this year's winter holiday I went to the land down under! Australia!  I have so many things to share, so it's going to be split amongst 2 or 3 different posts.

To start: Cairns!

I know a lot of people might have to google that to find the location because it's not really one you hear about like Sydney or Melbourne, or places like that.  Actually two of the three places I stopped are like that.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Cairns.  It's a small city in Queensland on the north-east coast of Australia.

I ended up arriving in Cairns at about 6:30 in the morning, and so after I dropped my bags off at the hotel and changed into some more weather appropriate clothing, I was able to go out and do some exploring.

It was maybe a 15 minute walk to get down to where the water was, and along the water they have an esplanade that goes for about 2.5km (the point where I was was maybe a little more than halfway through...). I took that down into the more downtown area, where I made a stop at the local tourism office.  After that I wandered around for a bit more trying to get a feel for the area.

See the warning about crocodiles, and notice the small children ignoring it

The marina (part of it)

Nice shady place to cool down in

I found our family's street!!

At one end of the esplanade is the marina, so I wandered around there for a bit (also to find where I'd find my boat for the next day), and then went all the way down to the other end, and walked more to go visit the Cairns Botanic Gardens.  It was nice!  From some research I had done, I knew that from the Botanic Gardens there were a number of hiking trails you could go on, but as it was quite hot and I was tired from traveling through the night, I decided to pass for the moment.  I spent the rest of the day wandering around and exploring all around.

At this point, I was thinking...ummm...this IS Australia, right...

There were also some forest style paths you could go through...here's a quick look at one:

If the video isn't working, click here.

It was also quite interesting because when I was in the supermarket I ended up talking to a few people.  The first person was this older Australian man, who had commented that I looked really hungry.  The truth was, I was actually really excited because there were so many new, different or flavors of food that I hadn't seen in a long time, and I wanted to try them all, but I couldn't because I couldn't eat that much food, so I was actually just having a hard time to decide. Hehe...
Then after that, I ran into a group of 3 older Japanese women.  They were talking in Japanese about looking for milk, but they couldn't find it anywhere, and started looking at cartons of custard and yogurt and things like that.  Eventually, I think I made eye contact with them, and one of them asked me "Milk....?".  Since it was my first time in that supermarket too, I didn't really know where it was either, but I had a general idea, so I took a look, found it and then showed them where it was.  During that time, we were talking together in Japanese, and they were really impressed that I could speak Japanese, and thought it was great luck that we ran into each other.  I was happy too! It's always a little strange being around so much English after being in Japan for a while.

The next day, I got up bright and early because I was booked in to go out on a boat to go to the Great Barrier Reef and do some snorkeling!!  When I visited the information office, they had said that this day had the best weather conditions, so...I went for it! And it was amazing!! It was a beautiful sunny day, and the water was quite calm as well.  It was actually my first time to go snorkeling, so while I was a little bit unsure at first, once I got the hang of it, it was great!! Just a note: when snorkeling and you have your face under the water, don't laugh. It makes the water go into your tube and you drink salt water. It was also interesting because while I was on this boat, I met a Japanese couple who were from Osaka (which for those of you who don't know...that's really close to where I am!). It's a small world!

Heading out on the boat

One of the locations we stopped at on the reef!

The water was really warm (although we were wearing wetsuits as well, but that was more for protection from jelly fish...) and I didn't want to get out!  The boat stopped in two different locations on the reef, and both were amazing! I got to see lots of pretty coral and colorful fish!  There were many jellyfish as well, (but according to our guides, they weren't so dangerous) and they were really fun to watch!  You could see their luminescence under the water -- so pretty!  Speaking of pretty, the rays of light shining through the water were also beautiful! I wish I could show you, but I don't have a camera that I can take underwater, so sorry...no pictures.  Use your imagination!

But I can show you this one instead! Not on or in the water, but..in Australia!

The following day, I met up with a family friend.  She took me to Rusty's Market (a famous place in Cairns), where we had some delicious fresh fruit juice, and then we went to her beautiful house, and I got to play with her cute and very funny dog for a while. We also took a walk together, and had dinner as well as talking a lot.  It was really nice!  On the way back, she took me to a field where wallabies always hang out, and then showed me where all of the giant bats (flying foxes) hang out in Cairns.  I had actually heard them before, but I didn't realize they were bats...I thought they were just birds.  It was so loud!!!

View from the restaurant we ate at

 Wallabies!

They are so cute! If it doesn't work, click here.

Big bats in the trees

Looks extra spooky!

They are not birds....

You need to hear this sound so you understand why I thought they were more of the tropical birds that were around....

If the video doesn't work, click here.

The day after that, I had a relaxing day of just hanging out at the beach at Palm Cove.

My last full day in Cairns was a busy one.  I took what they call the Scenic Railway to a village called Kuranda. The train itself is quite old, and while the views were nice, I actually preferred the cable car on the way down. Kuranda has all kinds of little cafes, various shops, and wildlife areas as well.  There was a place for koalas, a bird sanctuary and butterflies as well. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to do all of those things because I had other activities booked as well.  To get back down, I took the SkyRail rainforest cableway. I quite enjoyed this one, and since there weren't so many people, I was able to get a car all to myself.  The cable car stops in two different places before you get back down to the bottom, and you can get off and wander around on some short paths into the rainforest.  The first stop lets you see a big waterfall, and the second one, the rainforest.  At the second stop, I was lucky enough to be able to join in on a short guided walk by one of the local rangers who told us all kinds of interesting things about the local plant life.  Like how there's one plant that if you eat the berries, you lose your sight for a couple of days, and they have a vine that they refer to as the "wait-a-while" because it has thorns that hook into you really easily but are incredibly hard to remove.  And apparently, the rainforest in Australia is older than the Amazon rainforest.  I did not know that before!  Although I imagine most people don't since rainforest isn't exactly the typical image that you think of when you think of Australia.  At least not me anyway.

Freshwater Station -- Where you go to board the train 

Hanging around inside the station

The colorful engine

The more subdued passenger cars

Here's some views from along the way up to Kuranda....

Yep, that's right, I was on the train....

Arrival in Kuranda...

hehe...

After wandering around in Kuranda for a bit...time to head back down, via cablecar!

I'm telling you, I really was there...

The end!

If the video doesn't work, click here.

Following that, once at the bottom, I took a short little walk to Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park.  This was a really interesting and fun place.  I actually really recommend it.  Unfortunately, other than a couple pictures while I was waiting to start, I didn't take any pictures here.  It felt....disrespectful.  Sorry. But I did get to do and learn all kinds of interesting things!  We started off with a talk about bush foods and medicines and what various plants could be used for and such, and then they gave a talk about some of the weapons their people used to use, and also passed some around for us to look at and touch.  Then they explained about how to play the didgeridoo, and some interesting information about that as well.  Apparently women aren't allowed to use it at all for various reasons.  After those talks, we went in and they gave a presentation, which was half projected story, half them acting it out, about their origins and creation story.  After that, they took us to this amphitheater kind of area and they did some traditional dancing and singing (and more didgeridoo). At the end, they made all of the guests join in as well.  Following that, they took us to these big fields, where we got to try throwing spears with an atlatl kind of device.  And then we got to throw boomerangs!  It was great!  Those were all of the things that you could do on general admission, although they also have other activities that you can add-on as well.

Outside of the Tjapukai building

The waiting area was really pretty...

For my final day, I spent most of my time doing a little bit of shopping and walking, and then relaxing on the esplanade before I had to catch my flight down to Brisbane.

While most of the above has been talking about my days in Cairns, the nights were really nice too!  The esplanade is a nice place to walk, and there are lots of open air cafes and restaurants you can go to, they have lots of barbeque areas where people are always cooking and hanging out, the night market has all kinds of foods and various shopping, one of the streets has some fancy lighting going on, you can check out the bats, and there's always lots of people doing various kinds of busking around the lagoon area.

So here are some evening photos of around Cairns...

The way they had the above set up was interesting....they didn't all show up at the same time, it changed which design was showing at different points, and they rotated slowly as well...Maybe it's easier to see like this:

If the video doesn't work, click here.

Ah! I didn't talk about the lagoon!  Basically, near the marina they have an area that they call the lagoon...basically, it's like a big, free outdoor swimming pool.  It even has a small artificial beach and is patrolled by lifeguards as well.  It seems to be a very popular place for people to hang out, and there were always people there at all time throughout the day and evening.  They had a similar place in Brisbane as well, but I'll talk about that in my next post!

The next part will be coming up soon!! (and I may or may not add a link for more photos later...it's not decided yet...)