At this point, I couldn’t believe that we had only 3 days left in our 17-day trip to Australia. Our flight to Cairns {pronounced CANS} from Uluru via Qantas was smooth sailing and even included dinner! I’m so glad we didn’t miss the flight!

Upon arrival, we stepped out of the airport and were instantly hit by the humidity! The dessert heat was such a contrast from that of the coast. We got in line for a cab ride and each got our first bite by an Australian mozzie! That would be mosquito. Aussies even know how to make a pest sound cutesy.

Looking back on my trip planning, I wished I’d do a few things differently for this part of it.

1. I wish I would have incorporated more time to visit and spend time with Mum & Dad in Queensland.
2. I wish I would have known which tours we planned to take before I booked accommodation.

Cairns is a home base for many Great Barrier Reef tours, which is why I chose it. But how to choose a tour?! The number is overwhelming. With much help from Aussie friends, we decided on Silversonic. However, the specific recommended tour departed from Port Douglas – about an hour away.

Mum and Dad also recommended the Daintree Rainforest Tour by Billy Tea Safaris.Visit a rainforest? Hell yeah!! When would I ever get to do that again?! Again, this tour departed from Port Douglas.

So maybe it would have made more sense to stay in Port Douglas? Both tours did offer a shuttle from our accommodations to and from the departure sites for an extra fee. It was very convenient and maybe even cheaper than if we had to get transportation ourselves to Port Douglas and stay there. And it twas a lovely drive each way. The first day, we spotted a whole field of wallabies! It looked like there were over 100 of them. The next day, we made sure to keep our eye out for the same field and we got to see them again. Is this real life?

So what did we do, then, in Cairns?

Due to the tours, we were only there in the evenings.

 

So… We slept. We shopped. We ate.

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Sleeping

This was my first experience utilizing airbnb. We booked an apartment at Il Palazzo on the Esplanade. The location was perfect. Our only complaint was that it was a bit stuffy upon arrival. {Not like when you go to a hotel and they have the air conditioning already running for you.} Also, Rob really wanted to watch some footy now that Tony‘s team was playing and he had taught him more about it! The TV channels didn’t come in all that great. But our host responded to all of our questions promptly. And the front desk was helpful, too.

You can get a $25 airbnb credit by clicking here.

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Shopping

The Esplanade is a bustling place! Since Cairns is a hub for Great Barrier Reef tours, you’ll find people from all over the world. It’s a wonderful place to sit and people watch. Rob and I even saw some Flying Foxes in the trees! But the Flying Fox is not a fox at all. {Go figure.} It is actually the world’s largest bat. We saw a whole colony in trees like this:

Now to the shopping… There are lots of cheesy souvenir shops, which I can sometimes appreciate. A package of clip-on koalas made for great gifts for my niece and nephews, as well as fun prizes for poker night!

Then there are the Night Markets, where you can find a food court and stalls and stalls of crafts and inexpensive trinkets and goods.

Speaking of that, I knew that we had to provide our own towels for the Great Barrier Reef snorkeling tour. There was no way I was going to carry a bulky one all over Australia just for that one day. Instead, we bought a couple at the Night Markets which worked perfectly and we brought home as souvenirs.

Now I’ve mentioned before that one of my favorite things to do when traveling to a foreign country is to  step into a grocery store. In fact, I like to do it even when traveling in the U.S. There are so many regional food differences! It was at the grocery store in Yulara that I picked up some local foodstuffs.

Normally, I like to peruse the local produce. But this time, I was all about the packaging. There were a few interesting things that caught our eyes!

Throughout the trip, we picked up a few bars here and there to have as breakfasts or snacks.

In Cairns, I found these:

Of course, they had me at the name! And I particularly liked that no wallabies were harmed in the making of this product! 😉

 

But there were some other items that we found funny.

Like Danish salami…

And coffee and milk tubes that are “perfect for camping!”

Then we get to the drinks and juices. Pine-lime anyone? I wonder how that tastes. It makes me think of floor cleaner.

They seem to like the pine… I’m now aware that by pine, they mean pineapple!

I find Candy Teeth ironic… So we brought some home for the kids. Yes, these are the kind of souvenirs we buy for people!

And did you know you could get Red AND Green frogs? Ha ha.

But I think they are doing it wrong on the next one..

I don’t think Chocolate Babies would fly in the U.S.!

But this flavor of ice cream intrigued me… So we bought it. I ate two bowls while we were in Cairns and left the rest in the freezer for the next occupants.

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Dining

There isn’t a shortage of places to dine in Cairns. It’s a bustling touristy city. But finding a place with good food we found quite challenging. We had some really, really, horribly bad pizza the first night. It was expensive. We had to wait forever. What’s worse is that they give you the impression that it’s good stuff because you can watch the guy rolling out the dough as you walk by…

Another night, though, I decided to try some local seafood. I usually don’t eat seafood in foreign countries because I get grossed out by legs and eyes and because I never know how to eat it. But I broke this rule in Cairns.

I asked our server how hard they were to eat. He said that they were easy and that he’d show me. Bugs are a shellfish similar to lobster. The meat is found in the tail. Mine were prepared with a sweet chili sauce.

Just two more posts on Australia. Two of the best days – the rainforest and the reef!

Is there something you normally won’t eat when traveling that you eat at home?

Other posts about our trip to Australia:

• The One Thing I Didn’t Need to Bring to Australia
• The Wattle and Bush Tucker
• Scenes from Sydney
• A Morning at Bond-Eye
• The Blue Mountains
• Sydney Eats
• Sydney Dinners: His & Hers Picks
• An Afternoon in Melbourne
• Meet our Aussie Mum & Dad
• Is This Real Life {Penguin Parade}
• Permagrin, Australia {Or That Time We Fed the ‘Roos}
• Australia Has More Things to Kill You than Anywhere Else
• It’s Not a Bear. And That’s Not a Bat.
• Thirsty Thursday in Melbourne
• Along the Great Ocean Road
• There’s More to Travel Than What You See
• A Little Italian in Melbourne
• Visiting Uluru & the Vicinity
• Kata Tjuta – Walpa Gorge
• Uluru at Sunset
• Uluru at Sunrise
• Budgeting Australia – {Tips for Budgeting Your Own Dream Trip}
• Free Things to Do in Yulara/at Uluru
• Aussie Cider

Cheers~
Carrie