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| Many rows of Sugarcane along the highway near Cairns!! |
| Glenn's Journal 02-09-03 & 02-10-03 Queensland Sunday morning and it's a drive day. We are leaving Sapphire with a new found fortune ( a bunch of small sapphires that were not worth much). We were packed and loaded and heading out of town just after 8:00 am. We would pass through Emerald before most of the town became active for a Sunday. We stopped in Clermont for gas before making our way to Mackay. MacKay is our first town that we would reach back along the coast. We stopped in MacKay long enough to enjoy lunch and take a break from the driving. We had driven four hours today and were finished with lunch by 1:30 pm so we decided to continue as far as possible towards Cairns. Cairns is still over 800 kilometers away so we will not make it all the way today but we did not expect to get that far anyway. The afternoon drive was completed by Erin as we made it all the way to Townsville and found a caravan park on the outskirts of town. We settled into a cabin around 5:30 pm and relaxed for an hour before returning to the store up front for dinner. We each had chicken dinners with chips and a drink for a total of $9 AUS ($5.4 US). We were living it up!!! After dinner we spent the evening watching a movie on television before calling it a night. We would finish the drive to Cairns tomorrow and had driven far enough today that it should only take a half day to get there. 02-10-03 Queensland We were up early again today (Erin is learning to get up around 7:00 am with me. Yeah!!!) After breakfast we were on our way. The drive to Cairns was uneventful as we arrived just after 1:00 pm where our first stop was the Information center. We spent quite a long time getting information from Nicole about local accommodation. Cairns is filled with plenty of accommodation and everyone is offering "standby rates" or last minute rates. Some are even willing to barter with you for the best rates. This is the "low" season for North Queensland as summer this far north is extremely warm with days in the 30's and sometimes 40's. After working out many choices for accommodations in Cairns we headed over to the mall, and more specifically the food court, as Erin was hungry. When Erin gets too hungry she can get a little grumpy so it is best to feed her as soon as possible. While having lunch we discussed our basic plans for the next week. We had planned to spend time in Cape Tribulation, which is 2 hours north of Cairns, and supposedly has the best diving on the Great Barrier Reef. It is considered the least disturbed diving as a much more limited amount of tourists actually get that far north to see the reef. Cairns is probably one of the most popular places to see the Great Barrier Reef and damage to the reef is much more extensive along this part of the coast. We talked about whether to stay in Cairns early in the week or go to Cape Tribulation first and then return to Cairns at the end of the week. After lunch we checked out a few of the accommodation choices provided to us by Nicole and were mostly disappointed by the offers. Our final stop was at The Lakes which were offering one bedroom condominiums for $99 AUS per night. The other places we had checked out were running between $56 and 70 AUS per night for a basic room with no kitchen. We quickly decided that we would splurge for the Valentine's weekend and stay at The Lakes on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. We returned to information where we placed our request for The Lakes for the weekend. We could not actually book it now as they would only book the special rate within 48 hours of the day. It was now 4:00 pm and we had decided to complete the drive to Cape Tribulation and spend the next few days there. Cape Tribulation is a little over 100 kilometers and along the highway you could drive that in a little over an hour but these would be very winding roadst to reach the Cape. About an hour into the drive we reached the ferry required to cross over to Cape Tribulation. The remainder of the drive was slow but very beautiful as we drove right along the coast with spectacular views of the ocean and coast. We reached the Cape Trib Beach House just after 6:00 pm. After checking in, we went to our double room with ceiling fan and shared bathroom and kitchen. We had the 3 bedroom place to ourselves tonight so we couldn't complain. Erin was willing to try a room without air conditioning for the first night but if she was too hot tonight we we would relocate to an air con room. The beach house has a pool and bistro plus there are plenty of activities to be found around Cape Tribulation. The area is known as where the Great Barrier Reef meets the Rain Forest (Daintree National Park). Tonight we had dinner at the bistro which included fish and chips for Erin while I had pasta. After dinner we returned to the room after a long day of driving to read and relax. We also showered as the rainforest (which we are staying in) during the middle of summer provides for a natural and constant warming effect with mosquitos and you always feel wet from the sweat. It reminds me of my Florida days. The plan for tomorrow was to just relax around the pool. |
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| A beautiful ocean and beach view from along the highway near Cairns!! |