Chasing Summer –

November 7-9th

The last time I was in Cairns was in 2000, 25 years ago, and half a lifetime. It’s exciting to revisit places that are such a distant memory; it’s like it’s brand new. Think of all the advances that have happened over the past 25 years in both technology but also environmental issues, and you can imagine that the city that is the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef hasn’t remained unchanged.

After this port, our ship is heading to the South Pacific Islands, and goods will become more scarce, so my first objective is to replace my water-damaged phone, and I really need a new swimsuit as several of mine are stretched out of shape. So day one is a shopping and exploring day.

A new phone became even more critical as the evening before we arrived in Cairns, it decided it would no longer charge. We arrived at 8, and by 8:30, we were being let off the boat. Colour me surprised, but the stores weren’t open yet. That’s OK, it gave us a chance to explore.

Paul and I headed off to see what we could see, walking up and down the streets of the town. Paul wanted to check out the bus station to see if there was a schedule of when some of the buses would be going up and down the coast to other towns and coves. All the local buses here charge a 50-cent flat rate to ride. After walking around up and down several streets the wrong way, we found the bus stations (there are two) and looked at their schedules.

This took us to 9:00 am, when the mall and other shops would be open. We made our way into the largest mall and found basically the only real electronic store where I could buy a new phone and an underwater camera. My dilemma began when I realized I needed to transfer the information from my old phone to my new phone, but my old phone was at zero percent and not charging.

We quickly made our way back to the ship, where we found someone who had a wireless charger that I could borrow in order to try and jump-start the phone since it seemed to be the charging port that was the problem. In about 20 minutes, I had transferred over enough that I could use my new phone as a camera, and that was its basic function for my time in Cairns.

Off we went again, stopping for lunch of a taster platter that had local salmon, which I didn’t eat, smoked crocodile, peppered kangaroo, and emu wonton. It was tasty but not very filling, so off we walked to the cheaper section of the harbor front. The platter cost about $32 Australian dollars.

We walked along until we ran into Becky and Jeff, who were just leaving the Koala Experience Centre. In that building you can view koala bears for $20 Australian to get in, but if you want a picture holding the koala bear, it is an additional 26 Australian dollars, and they only do it at certain times of the day. I have held koalas before, and we will be back again in Australia later on, so I decided to not spend money on this since I had already spent a fortune on electronics today.

Beside the Koala Experience, there was a restaurant/bar called Howling Jay’s, and it looked crazy, so we decided to go in. It is a beach shack that looks like you would go there to get drunk. It is crazily designed with a myriad of 80s and 90s teen pop poster pages ripped out of Australian magazines and put on the walls, bright lights, and gaudiness. We were convinced that the owner had to be an expat from the States, but much to our surprise, it was a local born and raised, and his father actually owns the burger joint called Jimmy’s Burgers downtown.

I ordered some chicken wings and tried a couple of their local beers. The chicken wings were breaded, huge, and very tasty. I’m glad I only got medium ’cause it was spicy. It cost me $50 Australian for lunch.

After our very filling lunch, we headed off to the lagoon, which is a local wading pool that is open to the public for free every day of the week. Because it was the weekend, lots of families were there enjoying themselves. It was lifeguard-monitored, and there are no crocodiles there. This is important because most of the areas surrounding cairns are crocodile-infested. As a matter of fact, some signs proclaim that there had been a crocodile sighting within the past seven days in those specific areas. Another one of our residents took a video of two shark fins circling around and playing 50 to 100 feet out from the shoreline, so sharks are also an issue in this area. Having a safe wading pool for kids and others to play in is a bonus.

After a quick dip in the lagoon to cool off, we headed towards Rusty’s fruit and vegetable market. Before we could get there, Paul stopped at an ice cream shop and tried a rainforest Berry ice cream with homemade honeycomb, and I had one little taste. It was delicious, but I don’t know where he put it.

At Rusty’s Market, we picked up a block sapote fruit. I have never had one of these fruits before, but I’ve heard of them. When you cut into it, the insides look like chocolate pudding and have the texture of chocolate pudding. It kind of messes with your mind, and you were convinced you’re eating chocolate pudding, but it doesn’t have a strong chocolate pudding flavor; it’s very mild. Even though I was stuffed to my limit, I had to eat some. One lady we passed by saw what we were eating and suggested some whipped cream and rum be added, and she said it was amazing. I don’t doubt it.

After being stuffed to our gills, we decided it was time to go visit Hemingway’s Brewery, which is beside the boat. At Hemingway’s, a lot of our residents were just finishing up a line dancing event that they held there. I got a sampler of four of their beverages, and they were disappointing.

We decided on a short stop back at the boat to rinse off before we headed out again to go to a farewell for a friend at the Crocodile Bar. Crocodile Bar was right outside the Mall and offered the Great Northern beer that we liked, so we had one of those.

After a bit, we decided to go and check out the Night Market, which opens from 5 to 11, located back towards the Espanade. It was slightly disappointing as it was mostly souvenirs and massage shops.

Morning two had me heading out to the Great Barrier Reef for a snorkeling half-day trip. Most of the boat rides that take you out are going to cost anywhere from about 150 to $300 Australian for a half day. I went with a fairly new company called Reef Experiences.

Because we are at the start of the rainy season, it is also the stinger season here in the reef area. Two types of jellyfish are highly toxic and migrate this way during the rainy season. One is the foxfish jellyfish, which is quite large, it has tentacles that can reach quite far, and the other is a teeny tiny jellyfish that is almost impossible to see and has no antidote. This means that most of the struggling and diving companies here will offer the use of Stinger suits for people to wear as they are snorkeling or diving. These suits look like a wet suit but are not quite as thick, but help guard against any stray tentacles and literally cover you from your ankles to the tops of your heads and the tips of your fingers.

The boat that took us out there holds about 40 to 50 people, and we had about 20 of us heading out for the morning at 8:00 AM. It took about one hour to reach the section of the reef that we would be snorkeling at, and then we would be in the water for another hour and a half before making our way back to Cairns. Sadly, several people had never snorkeled before and kept crashing into others and swimming over top of them.

It was a lot of fun and definitely worth the trip out there, even if there were fewer fish than were concentrated in our last snorkeling location. There were plenty of Nemo fish and even a Stingray and a turtle could be spotted. Because I was not willing to bring my phone into the water, and the underwater camera that I bought was having issues with the memory card, I didn’t have anything to take pictures underwater. Luckily, the tour gals were taking pictures that they generously shared with everyone on the boat.

After coming back to shore, I went for lunch at a restaurant and had a wood-fired pizza with kangaroo salami, caramelized onions, basil relish, and a white cream sauce. I asked for pineapple to be added, and much to their disgust, they did so. It was delicious.

That afternoon, I went back towards the mall in order to look at bathing suits and picked up a top and bottom set at Kmart for 15 Australian each. Then back on the boat, not to emerge until the next day.

For my last day, I had signed up for a rainforest river tubing adventure. This was in Little Malgrave National Park, and there is a series of calm, cool tubing with some small rapids and shoots that you go down on your tube. There are no crocodiles in this water, so that was not a concern. The water, however, was fairly low, and my biggest challenge was not getting caught on the rocks and trying to make myself as light as possible to bounce over some of the more shallow, rapid sections. Sometimes I was more successful than others, and one time they had to come and haul me out with the paddle.

It was a lot of fun. I highly recommend it, and I absolutely would do it again. This adventure was about 80 Australian dollars.

Back in town, I met Becky and Jeff for lunch at Jimmy’s Burgers. The food was delicious, but again super expensive. For my mass of bacon, cheddar, jalapeno burger, and onion rings with a drink, it was 67 Australian Dollars. Granted my drink was the size of my head.

At this point, I thought I was done with my Cannes adventure, and I went back to the boat in order to submit receipts for the GST refund. In Australia, if you spend over $300 at a store, then you can claim and get the GST back after you have been checked out of the system. My phone and camera definitely put me over that limit and were worth waiting in line to get the GST rebate of about 270 Australian dollars.

Even though they had given us a start time of between 230 and 430 to do this, when I arrived back at 2:30, they were not ready and suggested I come back at three. So I decided to just quickly go back to Hemingway’s since it was right next door and try the stout. I didn’t have high hopes based on the beers I had tried previously, but I was pleasantly surprised that this stout was actually a good beer.

By the time I got back on board, Paul had texted me that he had found another brewery that we needed to go see, so I had a quick shower and went out to meet him at Coral Sea Brewery. This one was down a narrow alleyway that somehow we had missed going back and forth on these streets. There was a bunch of murals on all of the backs of the buildings surrounding this area, and this quirky little brewery was offering six of their own local brews on tap. I tried 4 of them for $22. I definitely recommend this little spot, and the session was the best one that I tried.

We will be back in Carnes in February, and I have a couple of other ideas on what to do with my time then. Our ship also gained 40 new passengers, but several others left, so our numbers are at 326.