Down Under

Monday October 22nd - Sunday October 28th

Our second week in Australia and this week has been all about the 3 Rs: rainforests, reefs and roasting hot temperatures.

Cairns, or Ceaaaaaans as the locals like to pronounce it, is in the tropics and has on its doorstep areas of wet tropics that are designated as World Heritage Areas. We've visited a few this week including Behana Gorge, Crystal Cascades and Lake Placid. The first two of these involve walks up a river valley to waterfalls at their heads. At Behana the waterfall had helped to create a great swimming hole that was much needed after a hot slog up to it.

The bonuses of these swimming holes, of which there were more at Crystal Cascades, is that a) they're very refreshing b) they're fresh water and c) they don't have anything in them that can eat you. The front page of the Cairns Post this week carried a photo of a crocodile that had been caught by a fisherman in a creek in town and then a couple of days later another was spotted at a local beach meaning it had to be closed. Add to that the fact that in a week or so it's 'Stinger Season', i.e. jellyfish-tastic and the beaches aren't such an exciting proposition.

We also went up to Kuranda this week, there are pretty much 3 ways of getting there; by tourist train, by a 7km long cable car or by your own transport. Luckily Zoe has been kind enough to drive us around while we've been here so we took that option. Kuranda is at the top of a winding mountain road which passes through more rainforest. It's very strange to think that it's rainforest that you're driving through when you normally associate that with places like Brazil or Borneo and access is really difficult, while here we are driving easily through it.

The main thing that Cairns is probably renowned for is its proximity to the Great Barrier Reef, if you're going to do a trip out to it here is probably the best place to go from...so we did. Zoe and Mark's friends Mark and Dawn own a company, Reef Daytripper for anyone looking for a good reef trip in Cairns!, and were able to get us onboard for a trip out to Upolu Reef this week. What a fantastic day. A lazy cruise out to the reef itself onboard the catamaran and then the chance to snorkel (my preferred option) or dive (Rach's choice de jour). We got to see all manner of fish and wildlife and of course the amazing coral reef itself.

We headed out to the reef again on Sunday, this time to Fitzroy Island. Zoe and Mark's boat was used to good effect once again, although it took a battering from the waves on the way back and after a swim (and yes that did include me!) and snorkel at Fitzroy we circled the island before heading to Turtle Bay. This is a great little spot that can really only be accessed by the water and has a fantastic golden sand beach and clear blue waters, hopefully the video below does it justice.

This isn't the only great beach we've had a chance to visit this week either. We've also spent a good amount of time at Kewarra. Another golden sandy beach fringed with palm trees that, like a lot of the places we've been to, has been very quiet.

Saturday was Rach's birthday and so it was time to indulge in one of her passions, animals. The destination was the Tropical Zoo and it was a great day out. Rach got to hold a koala, which I think was a bit of a trip highlight, we got to feed kangaroos, watch crocs from a safe distance and really get close to the other animals including another of Rach's favourites, the red panda.

So to the final R, the roasting hot temperatures. In the last couple of days the humidity has really picked up and we're now getting into the 30s easily, usually by mid-morning. It's not the heat that's the real problem, although in fairness we are both melting, it's the UV rating. In the UK there's panic when it reaches 6 or 7 and everyone thinks they're going to end up crispier than a bit of nicely cooked bacon, here the rating is currently at 15. According to the weather guys that's in the extremely extreme range. It means that you only have to think about going out into the sun to start burning so we're getting into the slip, slop, slap routine, which is actually a real pain but the alternative is not really worth thinking about. I know at this point there will be a lot of small violins being played for us but we've got to try for sympathy! We're heading south from here next week which should mean cooler temperatures at this time of year but they're having some crazy weather there and it's nearly 40° in Melbourne so camping will be a bit toastier than we've been used to.

All in all it's been a very good week but we're now ready to head off out into the countryside again and start exploring some other parts of this huge country. Zoe and Mark have looked after us really well, but it's time to leave them to some peace and quiet now.