Today marked the final day of our week in Far North Queensland. We started the day in Port Douglas at the Ramada Resort where we tidied up the room and packed our luggage for the journey back home.
We narrowed down the foodstuffs remaining to items we could bring back with us, and managed fairly decent economy (very minimal food left over).
Jake woke late, so there was no opportunity to hang around and give him a morning sleep. Therefore we checked out at around 11am and were on the road back to Cairns.
We retraced many of the beaches and vantage points that we had visited on Sunday, so nothing new to report, aside from the terrible wind which was falling upon the normally placid bays and coves dotting the headland.
Approaching Smithfield, we stopped for fuel and continued south, bearing south east through Redlynch and out into the hills to an area called the ‘Crystal Cascades’. This really lovely part of Cairns gave us 2.4kms of paved track to stroll at our leisure, taking in the many rapids and swimming locations framed with an amazing looking rainforest setting.
Honestly, I think the photos to a better job at illustrating how nice this area was. There were a few people swimming in the various spots and the water looked great.
After we returned to the car and gave Jake a nappy change, we took off for the centre of Cairns; predominantly to check out the Cairns museum.
When we got into town, we parked ($1.20/hr.. not bad) and found a place to eat a quick lunch. Well, quick was a poor choice of words. It took over 20 minutes to get two chicken Caesar plates and a bottle of water. We were essentially the only customers too. Very poor service.
This robbed us of about 15-20 minutes we would have preferred to have been using to explore the city centre.
Heading back into Cairns
We decided to skip the museum due to time constraints, and instead walked along to the Esplanade which is a really awesome area of the foreshore which amounts to a massive free public swimming pool.
We lingered until about 3pm, then returned to the car and headed off for the airport. We stopped once more to make sure the car was fully fuelled, then made our way back to the airport, where we returned the car and checked in. We didn’t have much of a wait, and before long we were buckled in and ready to go.
After take-off, and bidding farewell to Cairns, we were informed that due to traffic congestion at Brisbane airport, the flight would be delayed half an hour from landing. This almost caused us to miss our connecting flight to Canberra. Luckily, and with great assistance from the Virgin Blue staff who were awesome, we made the gate before boarding had even commenced.
A very quick turnaround saw us taking off yet again, about 25 minutes after we landed. The return flight was nothing special, made good time and landed with no fuss.
Jake was awake for most of the flight which made it difficult for us to relax. We were met at the baggage collection area by my Dad who came to pick us up (thanks Dad).
Thus endeth another trip. I’ll post some follow-up articles with additional photos and reflections on what we achieved in the coming weeks.
The excellent Cairns Esplanade