I thought when we got to Cairns the early mornings would be over, but no, our bus came to collect us at 7.15am to take us on our trip to the Daintree Tropical Rainforest. We had a walk though Cape Tribulation where we saw some Peppermint Stick Insects and a couple of Sand Monitor Lizards, which are quite frightening when up close(ish). We also had a walk through the Rainforest, which included a tower climb, which took us above the canopy. It was then off to lunch, which was in a purpose built shelter, which was situated by a stream, and housed a barbeque, which was very pleasant, and surprisingly no flies! We then had a trip up the Daintree River, where we saw a couple of Green Tree Snakes and an Estuarine Crocodile commonly known as a Salty!! It was apparently a small female and it was 3.5 metres long!
It was then off to Mossman Gorge, which was a really lovely spot and would be great for swimming in though the currents were very strong, but some seemed to enjoy it, well that was all apart from the chappie who fell in that is.
Yet another early morning had us down at Marlin Jetty at 7am to catch the Catamaran Reef Experience, which was going to transfer us to the Catamaran Reef Encounter, which was to be our home for the next two days. From a non divers perspective this part of our holiday I was not looking forward to, I’m not much of a sailor, nor do I like swimming with fish that much either. Having said that the Great Barrier Reef is just an amazing place and teaming with life from different types of corals, anemones and the fish were just spectacular, right from the shoals of small colourful fish to the huge groupers, and the clams were just huge, and I’m far to much of a scaredy cat to get too close to anything. Gareth did a night dive, and while Eleanor and me were watching from a save distance i.e. on the boat, the divers were swimming with reef sharks, yes I know there harmless, but it was a shark!! The next day we moved sites and a pod of Dolphins about 6 came and swam on the bow wave of the Catamaran, to see wild Dolphins playing was just a great experience.
Eleanor enjoyed the snorkelling so much she went out on every opportunity, even when I refused to go. That was until the last day when she was having a great time, until she got stung by a jellyfish, but unperturbed she wanted to go in again, this time insisting I went in with her, which of course I did, but no sooner had we got in, we got out, there were some sea lice hanging round the boat and boy do they sting, harmless enough just painful, so at that point Eleanor had had enough so we decided to get out. Though as compensation when we were on the boat a Turtle popped his head up and really cheered us up. So all in all my experience of the Great Barrier Reef – Brilliant wouldn’t have missed it for any reason!
At last a lie in today was our last day in Cairns, so Gareth decided that the best way to finish would be to do a Bungy Jump, yes I know he’s mad I mean who in their right mind would jump from a 50 metre tall tower into a pool of water with a piece of Elastic tied to your feet!! So it was off to the A. J. Hackett Bungy site just north of Cairns. We arrived at about 11.30 and I said to Gareth “don’t hang about there’s a bus back at 12.30 and I’ve got some shopping to do”. To give him his due as soon as he could he climbed the 224 steps to the top of the tower, we then had to wait about 20mins for him to have his turn, and as soon as he reached the jump off point, he didn’t hang about he just jumped, and I must admit made quite a good job of it – something else I just couldn’t do. I made up for it after and dragged him round the shopping centres, well I’d been out on the Barrier Reef and watching him fling himself off a platform – now it was my time to have some fun!!
As a treat for our last night in Oz we went on a Dinner Cruise, it was a very pleasant evening with very good food and a gentle cruise up the coast and back, my only complaint – it was dark and couldn’t see the coast line, but that did not spoil the enjoyment of the evening.
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