We spent the day in Cairns today. Cairns is on the east coast of Australia, just inshore from the Great Barrier Reef. Cairns has a population of about 150,000 and appears to be somewhat of a resort city. The city was founded in 1876 as a harbor for the export of minerals from the interior. It's located some 1700 miles north of Sydney and is well within the Tropic of Capricorn. The climate is tropical, with average highs in the low 90's in the summer. It was a major staging point for military operations in the Pacific during WWII, and is located directly on the Coral Sea.
The town is really pretty and charming. The area we're in is right along the beach, where there is a boardwalk and bike/pedestrian trail the leads all around the beachfront. There isn't really a beach as such, at least not right here, but rather there are mud flats when the tide's out. Here's a picture of the beach area looking north. The last tall building on the right is where we are staying:
Here are a couple other shots of the beach area:
There is a public water park right at the shore that was really pretty. It had a huge wading pool that went from about an inch deep at one end to 3 feet or so at the other end. Very nice and very busy.
Here are some boats offshore with a freighter in the far background:
Pat's Paragraph.... This place reminds me of Honolulu with the mountains behind the town, covered in green and there is always clouds around them. The homes are built on stilts with parking underneath because of the rains and storms. The town has a lot of parks, even plants, flowers and trees dividing the streets. If you look back at the picture above, of the harbor, you can see a couple of the yachts we're trying to decide if we want to buy one. NOT!! It's very expensive here with an average home near Sydney, without hardly any yard and about 1600 sq feet, costs around $600,000. Apples are a dollar each. Roger got a large coffee, what we would call a medium, $7.00. Gas at King's Canyon, even more remote than Ayers Rock or Alice Springs, was almost $10.00 a gallon, but you are a captured audience because there is no where else to go. I bought a blistex lip balm today, just like at home, ready?? $4.00!!! Ouch! Some general facts we've learned... you get a learner's permit here at 17. It takes you 3 years to get your driver's license and you have to have a special sticker on your car for the 1st yr (L), red P for the 2nd yr and a green P for the 3rd year. IF you have a problem with alcohol (DUI) during your learner's permit time, you have to wait 1 year and start over getting your license. Just to renew your license for 5 years costs $320.00. If you have a clean record. I have no idea how much it costs if your record has a few marks on it. You can drink here at 18. And when I asked how much does it cost to license a car here, I was told "You don't want to know". To mail a post card to the USA costs $2.25. Home is starting to sound good, eh?
We have a full day tomorrow. We're going to the small town of Kuranda, about 15 miles inland from Cairns. Kuranda is in the rain forest, and we'll be taking a ride up the mountain to the rain forest in a cable car, touring the rain forest and a koala refuge, taking a DUKW tour down a river in the rain forest, and then taking a train back down the mountain. Should be a LOT of fun!
BTW...I was finally able to upload pictures from the areas where we didn't have good wifi reception, so if you want to see them and read some added notes, start with the blog for November 8th.
More tomorrow!
