When we left Melbourne the real traveling would begin! Sydney and Melbourne were lovely, but we also had a lot of comfort that city life brings with it.
We flew to Cairns and first thing we noticed was the change in temperature, the weather in Cairns is much more tropical compared to Melbourne’s. Secondly, the touristy vibe; Cairns is the Australian equivalent of Lorette de Mar. Everywhere you walk you see tourists, tourist shops and tour booking offices. We had a quick breakfast, searched for an apartment and informed ourselves with information about all the tours in Cairns. It was rather difficult since a lot of tour operators are located in Cairns. However, luckily TripAdvisor helped us out all the time! The next day we had our first trip: snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef. The tour was well arranged, but honestly I expected more to see in the famous Reef. I snorkeled together with my dad at a lot of places during my life, but I had the feeling that I saw more at that time compared to this time in the Great Barrier Reef. But luckily the day was really nice overall and we had a nice trip on the water.
The next day we picked up our Wicked Campervan! We decided that renting a campervan is a nice and fun way to explore the East Coast. We managed to rent a really cool one; all black name Stan the Man Van! Inside the campervan, you see all quotes of people who have driven with Stan the Man Van. As soon as we got our van, we drove to our next destination: The Daintree Forest, which was a two hour drive up from Cairns. On our way, we saw a very strange animal; a cassowary. This animal is a prehistoric one and really big (2 meters). The Daintree forest is really beautiful, it has a big river and a small little village. The river is very famous by its crocodiles. Ofcourse we did a croctour at the river, which was really nice. We saw several big crocodiles and also some little ones.
The first night in Stan the Man Van was really an adventure. We slept at a really nice camping named ‘Friends and Feathers’. It is hosted by an old man who is really sweet and built all the facilities by himself. We slept at a large campground full of fruittrees and were allowed to have a taste of the so many different fruits; they were delicious! When we were done with tasting the fruits and talking to the host, it was already dark. However, we still had to cook! We couldn’t see a thing and we heard all kind of animal voices in the distance haha, sadly we didn’t have much sleep that night…
On our way to Airlie Beach (a really nice village with markets, cute shops and lots of restaurants), we stopped at Mission Beach, a really nice place with a wonderful beach and perfect weather. We chose a camping with more facilities compared to our first one. That night we luckily slept much better and we were fresh to go for our next 3-day tour: exploring Whitsundays.
The Whitsundays are one of Australia’s greatest natural attractions with very coral blue waters and pure white beaches. It really is a tropical paradise. We had booked a trip on a boat with Prima Sailing together with a small group of 12 people including crew and a private hut. As soon as we got on the boat, we started sailing to ‘Hook Island’, where we did some snorkeling and had dinner with an amazing sunset view at the beach. The second day we visited the famous Whitsunday Island, which was really stunning. We spent a lot of time snorkeling in the water and relaxing at the deck of the boat. Snorkeling was absolutely amazing, it was again a part of the Great Barrier Reef, but at a different location. The coral was really colorful and we were lucky enough to see turtles, reef sharks and plenty of fish. There were also very dangerous jellyfish, which could kill you and therefore we had to wear special stingersuits as you can see on one of the pictures!
Currently we are heading to Fraser Island, I’ll tell you more about this in my next blog!
Love,
Rieke