View from hotel in Cairns
The next day we said goodbye to Sydney and boarded a QANTAS flight to Cairns, in "Far North Queensland". Our hotel was the Tradewinds Esplanade, which at first we thought disappointing, but it grew on us and proved to be quite pleasant. The climate in Cairns is typically hot and humid, though when we were there, it was not bad at all - temperatures in the 80s and fairly dry. The city of Cairns itself, at least the downtown beach section where we were, is fairly tacky and touristy, but then, tourism is a significant industry there. Here's a shot from our hotel room - click on it to see a large panoramic version (those of you on dialup modems may want to skip this!)
View from hotel in Cairns
This morning we boarded the "Big Cat" catamaran for our excursion to Green Island, part of the Great Barrier Reef. The trip itself (a couple of hours) was not very interesting, but the color of the water in patches was a brilliant azure that I had thought existed only in ads for tropical islands (and wasn't real). A later picture attempts to capture this.
Green Island is the largest of the reef islands, and was formed as part of the reef itself, with sand trapped in coral building up until plants started growing and stabilizing it. It contains a national park, as well as Marineland Melanesia, where we got to see crocodiles close up. Australia has two kinds of crocodiles, saltwater ("salties") and freshwater ("freshies"). The freshies pretty much leave humans alone, but the salties can be very nasty. While we were in the area, a young tourist from Germany was killed by a saltie while she and some friends were taking a midnight swim in a billabong (water hole) in the Northern Territories. It is generally accepted in Australia that you have to be really, truly stupid to get killed by a croc. There were numerous "no swimming - crocodiles!" signs posted at the billabong and the group was accompanied by a tour guide who should have known better, but was in swimming with the rest of them.
A saltie under the leaves
A view you probably don't want to see in the wild
© 2002 Steve Lionel - - Home