Le Soleal docked at Cairns around 7am. We had breakfast before disembarking. Breakfast was fairly good. Not masala omelette good, but it covered the basics and the orange juice was fresh. Tim and Loraine met us off the ship. Loraine is Diane’s cousin. We had all met 20 years before in Rotherham. It was lovely to see them again. They live a few minutes from the harbour and had invited us to stay for a few days.
Cairns is hot and humid. Surrounded by rainforest. Parrots and cockatoos fly around the city and the immense fruit bats swarm in the evening. Even at night the temperature is unrelenting. Tim and Lorraine live in a lovely flat near the centre of the city. They have a massive balcony with a terrific view. They also have a comfortable guest room with wonderful air conditioning. We spent most of the day chatting and catching up. In the evening, we went out for an Italian. It was my birthday. Lorraine presented me with a birthday card. This was not just the only physical card I got on this birthday but also the first one I had received for several years. Thank you Tim and Lorraine.
Next day, Diane and I went out for a walk along the sea front. Cairns is a bit of a tourist town. The esplanade is a wooden walkway on the sea edge. From the northern end of the city it runs south for about 3km. The far end is parkland and playgrounds. Further towards the city you pass numerous open-air restaurants, bars and shop. We stopped at cheerful coffee shop with a guitarist serenading customer. It was a pleasant way to spend a little time. Before long the heat was starting to get to us and we beat a retreat to the air conditioned flat.
On our last day there we all went for a drive to the south. Babinda Boulders is a natural swimming area surrounded by boulders in the dense rainforest. Several families were there complete with towels, sun cream and picnics. We took a stroll along the path leading downstream and into a steep gorge. Here the gentle river turns into a powerful torrent winding its way through deeply carved rocks. Many signs warn against trying to swim here. It is, apparently, usually fatal. We carefully avoided certain death by staying on the path. Here we could enjoy the dense, rich rain forest. A few birds were flying around. I completely failed to photograph any of these. Instead, we headed back to the town of Babinda. There, in the bakery, I had an excellent capuchino with a fresh, hot and very tasty mushroom and spinach slice.
Next stop was the sugar terminal. Sugar is the main crop in this area. We had driven through many hectares of it. At harvest time, which we had just missed, the cane is cropped by machine. In India, it was all done by hand. The whole family comes out and works long, hard hours. Here a specialised machine, similar to a combine harvester, cuts the stalks at the base, strips leaves, chops the cane into billets and loads them for transport. It ejects the waste back as fertilizer. This is all a drastic improvement of efficiency over manual methods. A narrow-gauge railway system, called the “cane train” moves the billets down to the processing plant. Each small locomotive pulls a long train of open box cars holding sugar cane. Eventually, the sugar, ready for export, arrives at the sugar terminal; a deep-water dock where large ships can be bulk loaded.
Not far from here is Etty Bay Beach. A lovely stretch of sand with a safe swimming area. Large floats support heavy chain netting which reaches right down to the seafloor. At this time of year this is mostly to keep stinging jelly fish away. A lifeguard sat at a desk under a gazebo keeps a watchful eye on things. We had a potter along the beach. Tim, Lorraine and Diane risked paddling in the shallows. As we got back to the car we spotted a cassowary. A flightless bird similar to an emu but smaller. Cassowaries are very wary of humans, but if provoked, they are capable of inflicting serious, even fatal, injuries. They are known to attack both dogs and people. The cassowary has often been labelled “the world’s most dangerous bird” although the statistics do not bear this out. This cassowary was busy raiding some sandwiches that had been left on a table. I grabbed a photograph while it was distracted.
That was it for Cairns. Lovely place and we were well looked after but way too hot and humid for me. Tim and Lorraine took us to the airport in the morning. We said our goodbyes and promised to not leave it another 20 years before we met again. A couple of hours later we were flying south to Brisbane.