Cairns
The white architecture of a tropical city
Another land-at-midnight flight took me to Cairns, in the north coast of Queensland, where I spent a week. A cab from the airport took me onto a downtown pedestrian street (another!) so lush with plantings I couldn't find the entry in a storefront. It had been difficult to book anywhere to stay in this part of Queensland, and the best I could do in Cairns was a reasonable-looking hostel, my first of this trip. This hostel renovated and reused the second and third floors of a small, older shopping mall.
It was an interesting social experiment to stay there. My minimum standard is a single room for sleeping in peace and secure storage of my things, so that was achieved. To call this room spare would be a huge understatement: a bed with sheets and a thin blanket, a small steel side table with a lamp that didn't quite work, a small, rickety clothes rack with three hangers that I was afraid would fall apart at any moment, and one small window to a hallway rather than the outdoors. There was no where to keep my bags except on the side of the bed I wasn't using. It was spotlessly clean, though, there was that. This room came with rights to seating in a shared atrium (which was a nighttime echo chamber that made earplugs a necessity), a dorm-style shared bath (reasonably clean) and a shared commercial-scale kitchen that was always a zoo. "Free breakfast" in the morning was toasted Wonder Bread and/or cereal, and tea or instant coffee - to me, this does not count. There were a few notable advantages: a free yoga class and a tour-booking service, both of which were valuable, and hostels are generally extremely-conveniently situated to connect with tours and key sites, and this one fit that description. Still, this experience convinced me that I'm smart to avoid hostels where I can.
Modern white architecture…
Late Victorian, Aussie-style
Colonial…
The next day and upcoming days of wandering the city revealed a small downtown with a robustly-developed waterfront district, complete with a huge man-made lagoon for safe swimming, a weekend-day market and a night market. A small art gallery featured an outstanding exhibition of indigenous pieces. An extensive city park included a diverse botanic garden in addition to beautiful rainforests, right there in the city.
The harbor walk included a massive play structure (left) and sheltered seating (right)…
And a tree-lined walk with welcome shade…
And a huge “lagoon” with a “beach”…
One of the most surprising things I found in Cairns was a massive superblock dedicated to...field hockey. On a Saturday, the multiple fields were active with both female and male youth teams of all ages, families by the sidelines, all day long, supported by several new-looking, large clubhouses. Clearly, this is a sport to which the Cairns community has dedicated itself.
There were a few experiences I'd targeted for my time in Cairns:
The Kuranda Railway, a historic, turn-of-the-20th-century engineering feat that connected the eastern seaport to mining and farming settlements west of the mountainous coastal rainforests. A two-hour slow climb up steep grades facilitated aerial views of Cairns, the ocean, and nearby waterfalls from atop mountainsides. Plus, this trip included a visit to a gorgeous, 120M-year-old, oldest-remaining-on-earth rainforest. Kuranda, the village, is very cute, primarily offering shopping and restaurants in the rainforest environment to entertain folks halfway through their roundtrip rides.
The true tropical rainforests of Daintree National Park and its famous Mossman Gorge, plus a stop in the tiny, remote village of Cape Tribulation ("where the rainforest meets the reef") which were the destinations of another bus day tour. These famous tropical rainforests were truly breathtaking, as was the beach. At the far point of this trip we were in a town of 119 people, so our lunch stop was at a “roadhouse”, an interesting component of Australian life. The term "roadhouse" might bring to mind a tacky Patrick Swayze movie but should not in an Aussie context. In the smaller towns and remote locations, a "roadhouse" typically combines a fueling station with a convenience store. The store may offer sandwiches, grilled offerings, and the ubiquitous Australian baked goods/pies (including savory options) plus espresso-based coffees. More elaborate versions include a diner restaurant and basic camping and automotive products - like a truck stop in Kansas. The roadhouse may evolve into a compound offering tent sites and/or cabins as well. These compounds support locals, road-trippers, and buses, both regional transport and tour.
A prehistoric canopy at Daintree
An unafraid juvenile cassowary
A member of the local Aboriginal tribe performed a “welcome to country” ceremony, then demonstrated the body painting which told the story of his place in his family, his clan, and all of the tribes for others he’d meet.
A trip out to the Great Barrier Reef was foiled, both in Cairns and the next two towns I travelled to. There was an unusual weather pattern in place for more than two weeks, with high winds, big swells and cold, rainy weather (which explains many overcast skies in pictures), such that most of the boat trips were cancelled. It could not have been anticipated; the locals said they’d never seen anything like it. I did make it out on a daysail from Airlie that included some snorkelling, but the area covered was greatly reduced as the seas were too rough (I'm still black and blue from that sail).
Heading south, my destinations were towns I’d never heard of before travelling here, and I had no idea what to expect in Townsville and Airlie Beach.
