If you haven’t seen the news, Bali’s experiencing some pretty hefty issues with its Volcano - Mt. Agung. This of course has happened smack bang on when we were meant to fly there and spend two weeks living in paradise. After two trips to Singapore’s airport, numerous flight cancellations and a few phones calls later (we don’t even want to think of the phone bill!), we made the decision to skip out Bali and head straight to Australia. As it’s so close to Christmas, we were concerned about getting stuck in Bali if this volcano decided to blow! It really sucks but at least we’re still on the other side of the world!

So we ping-ponged our way across Australia - flying to Melbourne first and then up to Cairns. We met our amazing Airbnb host, Annie, straight outside of arrivals. Rich did a last minute booking and got us the cutest little Queenslander Private Room about a 20 minute walk from the centre of town. Annie had lots to say about Cairns and how we could fill out two weeks. She previously worked as a Scuba Diving Instructor and was keen to get us out on the Reef. She also helped us skip a lot of the tourist charges that normally come to a place like this.

When I think about what I’ve read and heard about Cairns, I hate to admit it but not a lot comes to mind. I knew it’s pretty small in comparison to places like Brisbane and is a place where lots of backpackers come whilst on their trip. I also knew it was boiling hot and close to the Reef. Apart from these four things, we weren’t really planning on spending any time at all in Cairns! After a week, I’ve come to the conclusion that Cairns does offer more than Reef, Rum and relatively basic living arrangements.

As we wander around the grid blocked streets, it’s clear that the locals are appealing towards the crazy all-night partying backpackers and students that come here to visit. There’s numerous Tour Shops, dodgy Tattoo Parlours, a massive swimming/ sun bathing area and the standard Irish Bar. Some streets come close to the ones you see in places like Kavos or Malaga, however when you look a little closer you start to see a little bit of the old town of Cairns.

As we’re staying longer than the average traveller, we have found some great parts to this city that refuses to grow up.

Bats & Parakeets

Annie, the AirBnb host, was right to say that this place comes alive at night. From the moment the sun sets you can see and hear hundreds of bats and parakeets. It’s so incredible to watch them fly about from tree to tree. Even in the day, you can see then fanning themselves from the shaded branches.

The parakeets are incredibly loud and easy to find. We headed to City Hall at around 6pm to see them.

Kuranda

Only a short 30 minute drive north of Cairns you will find a small village in the middle of a rainforest. Kuranda was a big recommendation from Annie, she mentioned it as her close friend opened a jewellery store there and she was heading up to see the opening. Kuranda is a hippy haven - filled with market stalls that are nestled into the side on a mountain.

Cape Tribulation

We can all agree that spending two weeks in a small place can give you major cabin fever, so we were so relieved the day we rented a car to explore north of the city. We headed up to the Daintree National Park and Cape Tribulation. Here we drove between rainforest and the coast for what seemed hours in search of watering holes. It's actually the oldest rainforest in the world. You can definitely see why as it looks like something straight out of Jurassic Park.

We found a very special one called Blue Hole, which is a sacred aboriginal area. It has its name from the crystal blue waters. You could easily see fish and terrapins swimming around!



Other places we visited were little coves and boardwalks that were dotted up the coast. We couldn’t swim or even relaxed on the beaches as the waters are salt water crocodile infested and we weren’t planning on taking the risk.

We finally stopped through a little Yacht town called Port Douglas. After a long day of walking, we felt were deserved a Schooner before we drove back to Cairns. We stopped off at Hemmingway Brewery, which was right on the Pier. A lovely little place where it brews its own beer.

Great Barrier Reef

If you’re stopping in Cairns, it’s rude not to see the reef. As we’ve missed out on one of the biggest highlights to our trip, we felt that the reef was a big must do. We were recommended Passion of Paradise by our Airbnb - this actually got us 20% off!

We had the whole day on the boat - including Breakfast and Lunch plus two dives spots at Norman Reef and Hastings Reef . It’s currently stinger season so we had some very attractive body suits to wear. These suits would protect us from all the jellyfish that were in the water but it still freaked me out whenever I saw them bob past. We were able to see loads of beautifully coloured fish as well as some amazing coral. Sadly, no turtles or sharks!

On the way home the team held a short talk on the reef, the current state of the coral and also the fish that call it home. This was a really interesting session that I didn’t expect to enjoy so much. Did you know that the Great Barrier Reef is the same size as the state of California? I bet you didn’t!

The Esplanade

Cairns does have a lot of free things to do - which is perfect for people like us who are counting the pennies! The Esplanade is the centre of Cairns. There’s an open grassy park and a swimming pool with a pretend beach. Here you can relax in the sun all day (we did this like 5 times and still look pale!). You can also take part in the many fitness classes that they host daily - all for free.

We’ve really enjoyed relaxing in this part of the world and we’ve seen a lot that we were sure not going to see if our plan wasn’t dramatically altered - but now we’re ready to get going south towards the Whitsundays and Fraser Island!