Cairns 22nd - 24th June 2010

Tuesday 22nd June
Into Cairns and Grafton Street to the Canopy Art Gallery. www.canopyarts.com
1000 sq mts of space that's dedicated to showcasing Queensland's indigenous artists. We had a great chat there with someone who explained some of the stories depicted in the prints and etchings which brought then to life and gave us a whole new appreciation of the art.
Wednesday 23rd June
It rained most of the day so we decided to stay at home reading and a brief walk in between the rain showers. However it was still a warm day.
Thursday 24th June
The weather was much better today with no rain forecasted so set off to Atherton in the tablelands heading for Mareeba where we stopped off for a coffee at the Coffee Works.

                        Beatrice having a taste of the coffee berries from the bush
On through Atherton to Herberton an historical village which we seemed to have missed when we were here last year. Not  many people around so we were able to take our time and wander around the place at our leisure.

Herberton Historical Village     www.herbertonhistoricalvillage.com.au      

Having  had a full day and quite a long drive back to our home base and with the rain clouds gathering we started  the drive down to Cairns which was at least an hour away .

                                                          

Cairns 19th -21st June

Today we ventured up the coast about 60 kms to visit Port Douglas. which is a great scenic drive along the coast and the northern beaches.
Port Douglas was until the 1960's just  a sleepy fishing village when in the 1970's tourism started to develop and ever since then it has gone from strength to strength with it now being the life blood of the place.

We walked around the village and over to the marina, stopping off for a great inexpensive lunch and beer at the wharf.

                                                        St Mary's by the Sea - Church

                                                 View from the restaurant up to the marina

                                                            The Restaurant at the wharf

                                                                  The Lady Douglas

15th June -18th June Cairns

CAIRNS 15th - 18th June
The weather has been perfect for the last days. However it did rain quite hard  on Wednesday evening.

Since last posting we have visited the Flecker Botanic Gardens where we also had a lesson in playing the steel drums and then joined in on a couple of numbers.

           Swimming hole at the Cascades

Visited;-
The Crystal Cascades where we did the scenic walk along side the cascades. Here we had to watch out for the stinging tree.

Also the Tanks Art Centre near the Botanical Gardens.( Read the history as to how they made use of these huge tanks that once held oil to service the war requirements during WW11). It is now an Arts Centre
We also decided to go up to  Kuranda on the scenic railway, something we haven't done for 20 odd years and then return on the Sky rail which  hadn't been built at that time.
Kuranda, aptly named the village in the rainforest which has been listed as World Heritage  www.kuranda.org.

All this has kept us quite busy and we still have lots to do whilst we enjoy this lovely warm climate.
We have also been into Cairns a few times,on one occasion enjoying a $10 lunch deal at the Irish Pub located in one of the original buildings.

CAIRNS 12-14th June

Saturday Cairns

Cairns 12^th June

Drove into downtown Cairns and walked along the esplanade and checked out the night markets. Having so many places to chose to eat we finally settled on the Pizza place.

After a supreme pizza which we down  washed with a glass

of  red we walked down towards the marina.

 I had been looking forward on one of our days here on having a swim at the Esplanade Lagoon but once again it appears as though I will miss out, as I did in Townsville. Wire fences and blue tarps enclosed the whole area as they appeared to be renovating the pool. It didn’t look as though it would be finished any time soon.

Sunday we drove up to Copperlode Dam a drive of 15kms away. We walked to the spillway and to the viewing platforms for some fantastic views .

Friday 11th June

We pulled out of the Caravan Park at 8.30 with Tom Tom set for Cairns about 5 hours away with some stops, that should get us there at about 2 pm.
Stopping at Cardwell for our morning coffee we could see Hinchinbrook Island National Park just across the water. Maybe on our way back down again we might stop off here and explore it all a bit more.

One of the numerous cane fields we passed  on our drive  north, along with the banana plantations that started around Innisfail

There is so much to see and do you could spend years travelling around Australia and still not see it all.
With a slightly overcast sky,  a nice 23 deg and a just a few rain drops it made it quite pleasant to drive.
We drove on up the Bruce Highway through Tully and on to Innisfail and then into Cairns at about 2.30pm.
We chose our camp site and set up for a stay of probably a couple of weeks.

Townsville 10th June

Townsville

We decided to stay another day so we could walk along 
The Strand and have a swim in the Rock Pool which we saw the other day.

Despite the helicopters and the trains we had a good nights sleep and awoke
 to another beautiful day with a temp forecast of 27 deg.
As we drove into the car park by the pool to my dismay
 I could see that it was empty.
 Of all things we had chosen the one day that they were doing the pool maintenance.(We have since found out that it's closed every Thursday for cleaning). What a disappointment. However as we had our lunch and bathers we walked along The Strand and went on down to the patrolled part of the beach and set our selves up under the shade of a palm tree. How could we complain about that! Lunch, a swim and reading our books kept us busy for a couple of hours until we felt we needed some more exercise. Walking down the Strand which goes along the beach front into the city we were impressed with the way the local council had made it so appealing. Great activities for the kids with climbing ropes, water play areas,swimming pools and at least three ice outlets one of which we couldn't resist.

Picking up a few grocery items on our way back to the car we continued our walk along The Strand enjoying the views and the exercise.
Tonight we'll start to pack up a few things ready for our departure tomorrow morning for Cairns

Magnetic Island Queensland

27 deg forecasted with clear blue skies.

So what could be better than taking the ferry out to Magnetic Island, 8 kms off the coast and only 20 minutes away by the ferry cat.

On arrival we caught the local bus and purchased an all day ticket which allowed us to hop on and off as often as we wanted. So to start with we headed off to Horseshoe Bay.

We walked up and down the length of the beach with the warm water just lapping our bare feet in the clean soft sand.

Horseshoe Bay

Here we had our lunch overlooking the bay.

We hopped back on the bus and continued on to Picnic Bay walking out on the original pier and where the boats use to come into from the mainland before the main ferry terminal was built .

Needless to say we had a great day and by the time we arrived back at the mainland and driven back to our little home we were quite exhausted.  If you have the chance make sure you visit this majestic island. The activities that you can do here is almost endless with bush walking, scuba diving, cycling, fishing , sailing, it goes on and on, no wonder it's such a popular holiday destination for Australian families and of course the back packers.