After my day out on the reef, I still had 2 more days to enjoy Cairns. I was pretty happy just hanging out at Redbird and Cameron's house, but there was lots to see and do. This is a picture out of their kitchen window. Basically if I wanted a banana on my cereal in the morning all I had to do was pluck it off the bunch. They also had starfruit and papaya trees in their yard!
Friday morning Cameron gave me what he called his "$5 tour" of a lot of the beaches stretching north from Cairns. I couldn't believe how beautiful it was!
This is how happy I was to be in such a great place:
After the tour Cameron dropped me off at the Cairns Tropical Zoo. I mainly wanted to see kangaroos and koalas, and was able to get up close and personal with both!
That kangaroo is asleep, not dead, I promise! And as cuddly as koalas look, they have really sharp claws! That little one had quite the grip on my shoulder.
Friday evening I went out on the town with Redbird and Cameron. Redbird belly dances, and was performing at a Greek restaurant Saturday, but since I was leaving Saturday evening and would miss it we went for dinner at the restaurant Friday and saw one of her troupe members perform. Cameron is a drummer in a band, which had a concert that evening, so after dinner we went and caught the second half of the concert. Fun!
Saturday morning was absolutely beautiful and after the driving tour of the beaches the day before I knew I needed to actually go sit on the beach for a few hours. I met up with Karen, who I had met on my diving trip and we spent the morning at the Palm Cove beach.
This is a crocodile warning sign on the beach. Apparently there are crocodiles everywhere around Cairns, although the only ones I saw were at the zoo!
This is me about to go test out the water...it was great! Nice and warm. The only downside to this whole morning was that I missed a few random spots with my sunscreen (like my belly button) and kept finding small burnt spots that afternoon. Luckily Cameron and Redbird had aloe plants in their yard!
A view of the beach from my beach towel =) In Australia you have to swim between the flags if you want the lifeguards to rescue you!
There really are wild kangaroos everywhere. After I left the zoo the day before I spotted a whole herd of them out in a horse pasture.
If I had had to go straight to the airport from the beach Saturday I might have purposefully missed my flight. However I had the afternoon still, and Redbird and I went and took the Skyrail Rainforest gondola, which goes up and over the rainforest canopy for 7.5 km to the town of Kuranda. There are two stops along the way, where you can go for a little walk in the rainforest. It was a great relaxing way to spend the afternooon.
Cameron picked us up in Kuranda and we had to rush back to the house so I could head to the airport. They sent me off with some take-away fish and chips, a bucket of their homegrown bananas, and lots of great memories! If I go back to Australia again I think I would go for a lot longer and use Cairns as my home base!
1 comment:
This DOES make me want to go to Australia!!!
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