Cairns - Day 1

The beach at Yorkeys Knob

We arrive to warm weather in Cairns! Just to put it in perspective – their winter is our summer. We get in our rental car and barely make it out of the parking lot before we come across the first roundabout – that Jeff has to navigate backwards (to what we’re used to). He seemed to pick it up the whole driving opposite thing pretty quickly and I didn’t have to step on my imaginary passenger-side brake too often….although turning corners is tricky…as is parking. We stopped for breakfast at a little German café called…..wait for it…..’ Beethovens’ and ate on the patio. We toured around the city stopping at a huge market for some fruit and also stopping at the information booth to book our tour on the Great Barrier Reef. We found our way to Yorkeys Knob, seriously, that is the name of the little town we’re staying in. It’s about a 10 minute drive north of Cairns. Apparently the resort’s office closes at noon on Saturdays so the lady left our room key in an envelope taped to the office door. This is very nice since we haven’t even paid for the place yet and the office doesn’t open again till Monday. The kids find the path to the beach straightaway and we’re off to visit the ocean. Again we wish we had winters like this in Canada. Although, to be fair, the summers here are VERY hot (Cairns is the Australian Florida).

Pool at the resort

We head out to Smithfield which is another larger town about 5 minutes away….which has a 24 hour McDonalds –we note this for future reference. We stop at a small mall, which ends up being a lot bigger than it looks. We notice a lot of people walking around in the mall carrying cases of pop (Coke to be more specific). We deduce that it must be on sale somewhere and sure enough we find it at Kmart for the low, low price of $15. Considering we have been paying up to $3 for a can of Coke this is a real deal. We also find kangaroo meat (sausages and steaks) at the grocery store – but we decide to pass …although we’ve been told its low in fat and tastes like beef. So, as our day began at 4:30am this morning we are ready to end it at 8pm. We have another early morning tomorrow as we have to be at the wharf by 7:30am for our reef adventure.