My Visual Travel Experience: Cairns, Australia

I visited Cairns with my girlfriend, whom I married later that year, back in 2011 during our trip to Australia. Our main reason for going was to visit the Great Barrier Reef. We enjoyed Cairns, but the trip to the Great Barrier Reef was a bit of a let-down for me. It turned out to be stormy, wet weather. I ended up being sea-sick on the boat ride for the first and only time in my life.

At the Great Barrier Reef near Green Island, we had a diving instructor. Despite wearing diving gear, I was unable to go down into the water, because it was an activity I wasn't used to, and I would panic and come right up within seconds of going down. My girlfriend went down into the water with the instructor, and they were down there for 45 minutes. I actually got rather worried and breathed a big sigh of relief when they came back up! She had a great viewing of the corals and underwater marine life. Oh well, it was an opportunity lost for me!

Cairns is a city in the northern part of Queensland, Australia. It lies about 1,700 km north of the state’s capital and largest city, Brisbane. Cairns has a population of around 150,000 (as of 2018). It is a popular tourist spot because it acts as a gateway to the Great Barrier Reef and the Wet Tropics of Queensland. The city also has some interesting museums, a unique zoo, and other places that are worth a visit.

Cairns was formed in the year 1876. It was named after the Governor of Queensland, Sir William Wellington Cairns. The city was formed to serve miners who were working at the Hodgkinson River goldfield. In later years, Cairns developed into a port for exporting sugarcane, gold, minerals and agricultural products. It became a tourist destination after World War II.

Reef Hotel Casino opened in 1996. The hotel has 126 rooms, a popular casino, and multiple restaurants. On the top floor, below a 20 meter high glass dome, it has the Cairns Wildlife Dome, which is home to several native mammals, reptiles and birds. It's an all-weather wildlife exhibit, an indoor zoo of sorts.

Exterior, Reef Hotel Casino

Casino, Reef Hotel Casino

Kookaburra, Reef Hotel Casino

Freshwater Crocodile, Reef Hotel Casino

Estuary Crocodile, Reef Hotel Casino

Cairns Esplanade is the city's focal point for locals and visitors, and people come here for dinners, walks and pleasant views. It has a popular swimming pool with large steel sculptures of fish, standing on poles.

Cairns Esplanade

Cairns Museum has multiple galleries, which include Cairns Over Time, Old Cairns, Living In The Tropics and Changing Cairns. Its exhibits include aboriginal weapons, shark jaws, crocodile and saw-fish skeletons, large models of gold nuggets, and old fashioned clothes washing systems. 

During our Cairns Museum visit, an elderly local man at the museum became our self appointed guide. He was very friendly. He took the gold nugget model and put it on my girlfriend's hand and said I should get her one of those. We were also amused when he kept referring to things that happened a hundred years ago as ancient history. Coming from India, we are used to museum exhibits and monuments that are thousands of years old. 

My girlfriend and I couldn't help but smile when our elderly friend at Cairns Museum said in that in the olden days, there were no washing machines and he went on to show us how people used to wash clothes. Well, a lot of people in India still wash clothes the old fashioned way without washing machines! 

Cairns Museum

Hides Hotel is a heritage hotel dating back to 1928. It lies right in the heart of the city and is spread over three floors. It lies close to Cairns Museum.

Hides Hotel

Cairns Art Gallery opened in 1995. It has exhibits relating to the heritage and culture of the region. The gallery has many temporary exhibits that run for weeks or months at a time.

Gordon's Otter, Cairns Art Gallery

Tabuai's Mask, Cairns Art Gallery

Rainforestation Nature Park, Kuranda is spread over 100 acres of land. It opened in 1978. 

At the Army Duck Rainforest Tour, visitors get to go on a boat ride and learn about local plant and animal life. 

Army Duck Rainforest Tour,
Rainforestation Nature Park, Kuranda

At the Pamaggiri Aboriginal Experience, visitors can learn to throw the boomerang and play the didgeridoo. 

Aboriginal Man playing the Didgeridoo,
Rainforestation Nature Park, Kuranda

At the  Koala and Wildlife Park, visitors can see koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, crocodiles, dingoes and other Australian wildlife.

Dingo, Rainforestation Nature Park, Kuranda

Estuary Crocodile, Rainforestation Nature Park, Kuranda

Freshwater Crocodile, Rainforestation Nature Park, Kuranda

Kangaroo, Rainforestation Nature Park, Kuranda

Koala, Rainforestation Nature Park, Kuranda

Kuranda Scenic Railway is a railway line that runs a distance of 37 km from Cairns to Kuranda on the Atherton Tableland. It opened in 1891. The journey takes about one and a half hours, including stops at the waterfalls. Two popular waterfalls along the line are Stoney Creek Falls and Barron Falls. One also has the option of travelling by cable car on the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway, which also takes about one and a half hours. We took the train on our way to Kuranda, and we took the cable car on the way back.

Stoney Creek Falls

Barron Falls

Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef system. It is spread over 344,000 sq km. The reef is made of tiny organisms called coral polyps. It was named a World Heritage Site in 1981. The Great Barrier Reef supports a very large range of marine life.

Great Adventures Cruise Boat to the
Great Barrier Reef

Cairns is a small, laid-back city, which we enjoyed. Rainforestation Nature Park, Kuranda, was a wonderful experience, and it was lovely seeing all the wildlife there. The Great Barrier Reef could have been great, but for me it wasn't because of the stormy weather and because of my fear of going under water despite all the equipment available! Still, all in all, it was a lovely three days spent there.