Cairns

Cairns:
"where the rainforest meets the reef"

September-October, 2007

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Text and photographs
© David Powell,
except where indicated.

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Day 1:
Arrival

Day 2:
Kuranda

Day 3:
Paronella

Day 4:
Pt Douglas

Day 5:
Daintree

Day 6:
Kuranda

Day 7:
Cairns

Day 8:
Reef Trip

Day 9:
Departure

Flying out of Sydney
Image © David Powell, 2007

Day 1
Didn't get much sleep last night .. no surprise I guess. Up before 6am to get dressed, final packing (not much) and stuff like that. The airport shuttle bus was due at 7am .. it arrived 6:45am. Better early than late. The guy had to pick up two other groups and then onto the airport. Check in took almost an hour .. getting from the end to the head of the queue, that is. Thru' and then to the security gate ... hurrrrmph .. I had to take off my shoes!!! Then to the boarding gate .. to find the flight was delayed an hour. We couldn't make sense of the announcements, just read the delay on the board, but after boarding we heard it was cuz strong winds had closed all but one of the runways (and it is the busiest airport in the country) ... so flights in and out were all being delayed. I guess an hours delay was going good under those circumstances. The take off was a bit rough .. put that down to the strong winds I suppose. The flight uneventful .. the landing was very rough .. the plane touched down at a distinct angle .. for a moment I thought the wing might even touch the ground .. then the plane rocked left and right several times as it went down the runway ... quite rough, as I said. Oh, and no wind there so the rough take off may have just been the pilot. :(

Over Palm Cove & Ellis Beach
Image © David Powell, 2007

Off Ellis Beach
Image © David Powell, 2007

Mangroves & water treatment plant
Image © David Powell, 2007

Cleared the plane, collected the luggage and went to pick up the hire car ... it wasn't ready. They thought we were coming in on a later flight!!! They apologised and gave us a free voucher for lunch at an airport cafe .. there was only one. Well there were more, but they were the other side of the departure gates .. a bit hard to access with lots of luggage!

Courtyard, Sea Temple Resort,
Palm Cove
Image © David Powell, 2007

Picked up the car .. smallish but with quite good air conditioning (a must up in Cairns, which goes without saying!) and then the 1/2 hour drive north to Palm Cove where we staying. Serviced apartments, 5 star I'm told. Two bedrooms, each with en suite bathrooms (and spa baths), a kitchen, laundry, lounge/dining room and a patio. Cable TV and internet access. A lot of people living in the city (any city) would have smaller homes!!! All nicely air conditioned, of course! A must up here. It's the tropics, after all.

Thanks to the delay with the flight and the stuff up with the rental car, we got to Palm Cove over 2 hours after we'd hoped .. too late to do what we'd planned .. a visit to a nearby crocodile farm. Instead we settled in at the apartment, took a surprised delivery of a complimentary bottle of champagne and then headed into town ... well into the village. The apartments are on the edge. When I say apartments, I really mean a resort with shops, restaurant, cafe, tropical landscaped swimming pools, private beach access & so forth. The village is really just a main street along the beach (which runs the length of the cove in Palm Cove) with shops, restaurants and the like and a few streets behind with residences and the "lower class" accommodation. :) There's even a caravan park .. at the opposite end of town from the resort end ... there's a bunch of resorts at this end.

Anyway ... walked along the esplanade, window shopped a bit, took a lot of foto's of the beach and the like ... and end up in a jewellery store ("Cgems" since there's a lot of shell and coral jewellery .. "sea gems" .. geddit?) where I ended up buying two earring-ring-pendant sets for Cynthia ... one of Malachite and pearl and the other of red coral. Quite beautiful.

After spending a small fortune it was back to the apartment to cool down, change and then head off for dinner. The esplanade is full of cafes, burger joints and restaurants ranging from one cheap and nasty to one that's, well, considered by serious foodies to be one of the best in the country .. and probably charges accordingly. We ended up at a Greek restaurant, "El Greko". Quite a wait to get the food, but it was packed. The place had a great atmosphere and the staff were quite friendly .. even if the place charges like a wounded bull! Well like how a wounded bull would like to charge I s'pose. Still, the food was delicious. I strongly recommend their lamb .. then again, Greeks are known for their fondness of lamb. Even picked up a bottle of Santorini wine ... a place Cynthia visited a few years ago and fell in love with. We'll finish the bottle off another night I guess.

Palm Cove Beach (view north), Double
& Haycock Islands, Palm Cove
Image © David Powell, 2007

Haycock Island thru' palm trees,
Palm Cove Beach
Image © David Powell, 2007

Palm Cove Beach (view south)
& Taylor Point, Palm Cove
Image © David Powell, 2007

View along Williams Esplanade, Palm Cove
Image © David Powell, 2007

There was a bit of cloud about when we arrived .. flew thru' quite a bit as we came down over the mountains (the Great Dividing Range is close to the coast at Cairns). Arriving it was 29C or so and the humidity was, well, noticeable. But not as bad as I'd feared. At least today. While we were having esplanade walk at Palm Cove it clouded over and some pretty dark cloud could be seen over the mountains .. which were quite close by. No rain tho', just lots of threatening cloud. As much as I like rain, tomorrow is officially the start of the wet season and when the wet season actually arrives it usually means an inch or more of rain EVERY day. It's called the "wet season" for a very good reason. Back out for dinner it was dark, so no idea about the cloud ... but there was a very strong wind blowing off the ocean. Dunno if that's normal. By the time the meal was over and we were heading back home it'd stopped and it was dead still ... still in the mid 20's I guess. Naturally enuf, with the wind, while most were walking around with shorts & T-shirts ... Cynthia had a parka on. Go figure ... in the tropics, one day from the start of the wet season (ie: summer) and she's wearing a parka. For the "cold".

So what, where and why is Palm Cove? Palm Cove is the furthest north of the villages that comprise Cairns' "Northern Beaches", wedged between the highway and the Coral Sea. The village is on the shores of a long beach of white sand, lined with palm trees and 500-year-old melaleuca trees. About 1/2 hours drive north of Cairns airport. The European connection with Palm Cove dates back to 1770 when Captain Cook landed there, searching for fresh water. He noted the impressive Melaleuca trees near the shore, the offshore islands and Sweet Creek - where his crew found the water they were looking for. There is then a 148 year hiatus until

the next European intrusion into what would become Palm Cove. The area was bought by the Veivers family as a holiday getaway for the sizable family. Originally the area was known as Palm Beach - self descriptive really. 'Palm Beach' remained the private fiefdom of the Veivers family until 1939 when they began to sell off lots to other local families. By the early 1980's the village contained a sizable number of weekenders, a kiosk (dating from the 1940's) and little else. In the early 1980's it was discovered by a resort consortium who built the shopping strip and first few resorts. More followed and today there're only three beachfront weekenders remaining - and two of them are earmarked for a new resort in the near future. In less than 20 years a sleepy hamlet of weekenders was converted into a vibrant luxury resort village. One which is still expanding today with more resorts being built. Oh, and Palm Cove ... the Geographical Names Commission rejected the name Palm Beach, so I guess Palm Cove was a compromise. Today Palm Cove is home to more than a few resorts, a shopping strip (along the beachfront), B&B's and apartments, a slew of restaurants (but be warned, even the burger joints are expensive) and of course all sorts of beach activities. It's also quite convenient to lots of attractions in the region - Cairns zoo is actually in Palm Cove and within 30 minutes travel from Cairns & Port Douglas. Not to mention all the other attractions in the region. And if you want to go on a reef or rainforest tour, most of them do pickups at Palm Cove (and besides, there's a very efficient local bus company). And as for the beach ... apparently it's rated one of the top 10 in Australia (but PR companies will say anything).

Some web sites of relevance (valid as of November 2007, more on other pages)General
Tourism Tropical North Queensland: http://www.tropicalaustralia.com.au
Wet Tropics World Heritage Area: http://www.wettropics.gov.au

Cairns
Cairns Connect: http://www.cairnsconnect.com/
Cairns Museum: http://www.cairnsmuseum.org.au
Cairns Wildlife Dome: http://www.cairnsdome.com.au
Cairns: http://www.cairns.qld.gov.au
PJ O'Brien's Irish Pub: http://www.pjobriens.com.au/pj_main.htm
Rusty's Markets: http://www.rustysmarkets.com.au
The Duyfken: http://www.duyfken.com
The Gateway Discovery Centre: http://www.tropicalaustralia.com.au
Welcome to Cairns: http://www.reflections.com.au/Cairns/index.html
Wikitravel - Cairns: http://wikitravel.org/en/Cairns

Palm Cove
Nu Nu Restaurant: http://www.nunu.com.au
Palm Cove Travel Guide: http://www.palmcoveaustralia.com/index.html
Palm Cove Village: http://www.palmcove.net/about.htm
Sea Temple Resort: http://seatemple.com.au/
The Outback Opal Mine: http://outbackopalmine.com.au