Cairns – Day 1 – Sunday 21 June 2009

A pretty evening in Cairns - with high tide



The public pool overlooking the inlet



The marina and pier in Cairns



No more entering the water round here!


After rising early and packing our bags, we bid farewell to Lord Nelson’s Brewery Hotel and snagged a taxi to the airport. It was just before 7 am and traffic was minimal, so when a taxi driver was driving through the middle of the intersection and saw two people emerge from the building with an entourage of bags he literally stopped mid-intersection and backed up to meet us at the curb.

We quickly found ourselves at the domestic airport in front of a cheerful lady from Qantas. Our flight today from Sydney to Cairns was one of the absolute best flight experiences we have ever had in our lives. We boarded the plane, seats 23A and B and nearly passed our seats because we thought they were still business class ones. We were the first seats after business class and thus had about two and a half or three feet between us and the divider that separated us from “business.” Our flight was just under three hours but in that time we were offered the following amenities: lots of legroom, lunch choice of chicken in white wine and mushroom sauce or lamb curry, toberlone chocolates with tea or coffee, free headsets and access to the in-flight movie, and chocolate mousse ice cream popsicles towards the end of the flight…this was a domestic flight….it wasn’t even coast to coast. We felt like royalty. And, to make matters even better as we approached Cairns, green mountains rolled up from the ground and stopped just short of the coastline. As our plane landed we caught glimpses of the reefs and islands off the coast and with a very excited look at each other realized we were indeed in Cairns, would be in the rainforests in a few days, and were headed out into that crystal blue water that undoubtedly contains many a fishie – tomorrow!!

We landed, collected bags, and took an inexpensive taxi to the FigTree Lodge. It’s a beach hotel, although it’s a few blocks from the beach. We changed into warmer climate clothes (although we all know Daniel was already in warmer climate clothes and had been receiving weird looks in Sydney), and set out to check out Cairns’ Esplanade and the pier. When we reached the coastline we were surprised to see that the “beach” was about 100 yards of mud. It looked like it might be low tide…or a low water season? We weren’t sure, but you couldn’t take pictures of a brilliant blue port with mountains encroaching on each side like a mouth. The Esplanade was very family friendly and was a variety of parks right along the water. On one side of the side walk were volleyball courts, skate parks, brightly painted playgrounds, water fountains and little kid’s water play areas, and on the Pacific Ocean’s side was a short beach with a sign that said Danger! Crocodiles – do not enter, can be fatal, etc. We eventually reached the livelier part of town – a huge public pool that was designed to look as if you were swimming at level with the harbor water. There were lots of people laying out and swimming.

We grabbed a late lunch/early dinner deciding we would just have some snacks tonight and then wandered through some of the stores. Our big accomplishment of the afternoon was finding an underwater camera rental store where we rented a 12 mp camera to use on our dive trip tomorrow! The boat offers a rental but it’s really expensive per day and this was a much cheaper daily rate. Granted, we had to pay for Thursday, which is a day we’re not diving, but we still save a good bit of money and have a pretty good camera to use for all of our dives. They gave us a really nice case and everything. I don’t think it has quite sunk in that by this time tomorrow we will be going to bed our on a boat in the Great Barrier Reef and we will have started diving!!! Diving in the keys is fun…but…I’ve never done something like this!!

So we ordered our camera got a “lesson” aka fill in on how to use its features and were told to check back in just a little while to pick it up (they have to wait til they come in off the daily boats). We also get a DVD of all of our pictures and they sent us out with backup batteries and 10 GB worth of memory cards. So after that we decided to work on our snacks for tonight and buying our stuff for breakfast tomorrow morning. Okay, so something about foreign grocery stores is like being in a candy store to me – I love it! I love checking out the different foods – the breads, the meats, the fruits and veggies, the crackers, the cookies, the chocolates, the cheeses, the wines – I just love it! So we piled a basket high on things to eat for dinner tonight – we will be enjoying rolls and ham, an “Aussie” pack of cheeses – with several different kinds of Australian made cheese, and sesame and poppy crackers, over a bottle of West Australian wine, topped with chocolate covered macadamia nuts. Delicious! We picked up yummies for breakfast too – which include fresh apple mango juice – which we already broke into and is excellent. I turned to Daniel at one point and said “I’m sorry, I’m just like a kid in a candy store” and he said “no, you’re like Beth in a foreign grocery store”… enough said. : )

So we picked up our camera and dragged all our stuff back – it wasn’t too bad, I always bring a Publix bag with me when I travel because they fold down so well and fit on your shoulder when you’re carrying things. And now we are enjoying our leisurely dinner of rolls, meats, cheeses and wines. …And macadamia nuts. We are going to have to do some strategic repacking before tomorrow because you’re allowed a very specific amount of luggage, including your dive gear and we’ve known all along we’ll have to leave one or two of our bags locked in their storage.
We read somewhere today that we may have internet while diving? But we had thought we definitely would not. The Spirit of Freedom is picking us up in the morning and we set sail at noon!! We will be doing are checkout dives some time tomorrow after lunch and will spend Tuesday and Wednesday diving. Thursday we wake up at Lizard Island and will be taking a low flying plane back over the reef and will arrive back at the Cairns airport. Where, if all goes well, we will pick up our rental car, return the camera, and head on up to Daintree!

Today was another good one and oh! as we were walking home we realized that it was just the tide – because the inlet was full of water as the sunset – much prettier. It cooled off nicely in the evening – really beautiful temperate weather here! Hope everyone is doing well!

Cheers!