Cairns - Holloways Beach

Cairns – Holloways Beach,

We said farewell to Port Douglas early, so that we could drive inland through the Atherton Tablelands to Cairns. We headed north for a short while and then turned west, travelling through the Rainforest before reaching the Tablelands. The rain was yet again torrential until we left the Rainforest behind and into the beautiful sunshine of the Tablelands. This region boasts over three hundred days of sunshine per year and it is necessary to irrigate the crops here. The Tablelands was primarily a tobacco-growing region, but since the decline in smoking it has diversified and now grows a variety of crops including Mangoes, Avocados, Peanuts, Coffee, Corn and Sugar Cane, which makes for a more interesting landscape when travelling. It is also known for its enormous Ant Hills.

Mareeba was the first sizable town that we encountered, which has an Ant Hill Hotel. No! It is not a hotel for ants, it is for people, but there is probably no safeguard that you wouldn’t get ants in your pants!!!!! Sorry, just “Anting”around! However, the anthills were everywhere and I mean everywhere and huge yes absolutely ENORMOUS!!!!!!

Just outside Mareeba we saw a sign for “Coffee Works” and as it was the right time of the morning we turned off for a morning brew. Expecting to find a coffee farm with a café we were astounded to find a rather large warehouse with all kinds of quirky things at the entrance. As we ventured further we found ourselves in an Emporium like no other. Yes there was a lovely café and yes we had a lovely cup of locally grown coffee, Black Mountain, accompanied by a two delicious home made pastries, that was ONE each to clarify. Not only did they have all these beautiful gifts to purchase and a separate coffee tasting area they had an AMAZING chocolaterie. (That is where they make the chocolates, but spell-check doesn’t have that word yet.) Tasting was free!!!!! Yes freeeeeee!!!!! However, you never get out of one of those free chocolate tastings without purchasing something. Wine yes, chocolate no! How could you not buy the dark chocolate covered, locally grown, coffee beans?????? Yummeeeeeeee!!!!

Unfortunately, we had to leave and with our DCCCB’s (Dark Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans, for those that don’t do acronyms) stowed safely away in a cool place.

Back on the road our next stop was the famous, very large Curtain Fig Tree. This tree is located where Ngadjon-Jii people were the stewards of the land. The Curtain Fig Tree is formed by a fig seed dropped into a host tree’s upper limbs, germinates and sends a root to the ground. The fig tree is then nourished from this root and subsequently sends out aerial roots, which encircle the host tree, eventually killing it. The host tree then falls into a neighbouring tree at an angle. Vertical roots then descend from the fig tree’s trunk creating a curtain-like appearance. The host tree then rots away leaving the freestanding fig tree. Also in the rainforest here are Tree Kangaroos who live their entire lives in the treetops, rarely venturing to the forest floor. Unfortunately we were not privy to see any.

Our next stop was Yungaburra. This quaint little town in the Tablelands has many historic buildings and is listed by the National Trust. We had hoped to go also to the green crater, lake at Mt. Hypipamee and Millaa Millaa for the spectacular waterfalls but as it was not actually en-route we had to press on to Holloways Beach, Cairns.

We arrived at our accommodation “The Billabong” only to discover that the villa we had requested was double booked with someone already ensconced therein. This was the first glitch of our trip and hopefully our last. As luck would have it they phoned a resort just a short distance away and we managed to get a beautiful one-bedroom condo, at a better price, with both an ocean and pool view. The resort “The Cairns Beach Resort” was truly an oasis. The people were friendly, helpful and went out of their way to assist us. We also had a huge flock of Black Cockatoos that resided in a tree across the road. They are quite magnificent, hard to photograph and soooooo………NOISY!!!!!

The following day, Friday, we left early for our scenic, historic train trip to Kuranda, a little village way up high in the rainforest. Built originally for the mines it now transports just tourists. We embarked at Freshwater Station and travelled through beautiful scenery, but being in the rainforest it rained and some of the distant views were obscured by low cloud. We stopped at Barron Falls Station for a photo opportunity, around ten minutes and then continued our journey to Kuranda. Kuranda is lovely, very high up in the mountains with lots of arts and crafts, both aboriginal and Australian. Lots of paintings, carvings, opals, leatherwork and Ozzie Hats of which Jim bought one made of Kangaroo Hide. You can buy anything leather from calf to crocodile and others in between. You can even buy tanned cane toads and not from them being out too long in the sun. They were $5.00. I should have bought one but they are so ugly. We left Kuranda around 2pm and descended on the Skyrail which takes you back down over the tops of the trees in the rainforest. What an amazing view. Unfortunately, as we embarked on this journey down, the rainforest treated us to its best performance, which was torrential, but what else can you expect. They did have umbrellas though at each of the viewing stations. It was a full day so we just stayed at the condo and had a ham and smoked salmon salad for dinner.

Our plan for Saturday was to drive along the coast visiting various beaches, but the morning didn’t lend itself for beaching, driving or anything else except sitting on our sheltered verandah and watch the storms roll in from the ocean. Quite spectacular. Later that afternoon we managed to escape and do an abbreviated version but it still rained, just not quite as hard. That evening we went to the Boat Club at a place called Yorky’s Knob for dinner. We had a great table right by the quay and the food was superb. Their special on a Saturday evenings, is a dozen fresh oysters for $10.00. Jim couldn’t resist. I had a lovely soup and then we both enjoyed Garlic Prawns for our Main Course. This was our last night in Cairns so it was back to the condo to pack, for an early departure to the airport the next morning and fly off to Alice Springs in the Northern Territories.