Tripping Over: Emerald to Cairns-including the Great Barrier Reef

After enjoying not driving for a couple of days we headed off from Emerald and decided to aim for Cairns, we knew wouldn't make it in one day but found a great place to stop for a night to break up the trip.

Not unusual to get stuck behind oversize loads out here!

We headed out on the Gregory development road, and for the first 250 kms the road was pretty good, after that the road gets pretty bad, lot's of pot holes and small lanes, the floods apparently did a lot of damage out here.

Stopping for a lunch break

Arriving in Charters Towers, our stop for the night, a nice old town that reminds me a bit of Ballarat. During the gold rush it was the 2nd biggest town in Queensland, now I think it's considered a small town.

Main street in Charters Towers.

We stopped at the visitors centre and got some information about the road conditions and Cairns, they were very helpful here. We didn't actually stay in Charters Towers, 36 kms north of town there is a very popular, free, overnight rest stop called Fletcher Creek, it's huge and there are showers and toilets.

Unlike most of the rest stops which are maximum 24hrs stay, at Fletcher Creek the maximum stay is one month. The man in the visitor centre told us that there is one man that has been here for seven years though and just moves his van every few months. It looks like lots of people have been here a lot longer than a month, it's slowly turning into a small powerless town.

It was stinking hot but showered for a few minutes which was a nice relief.

A nice stop after 530 kms of driving.

Brenton whipping up some fried rice, very tasty!!

It's not a very quiet rest stop as road trains are constantly going past so we were up early and on the road by 7 am.

The road after Charters Towers is the worst! The scariest road we have been on so far, it goes into one lane and you pretty much have to give way to anything bigger than yourself, luckily we have a caravan so most of the cars had to pull aside for us but there were plenty of road trains roaring down the road doing 100 km/h that we had to swerve off the road for. Very scary!!!

After far too long on the scary one lane dusty road the scenery started to get nice and green but the roads started to get steep and winding. Is a flat, straight bitumen road too much to ask, really?

The wind farm we stopped at for lunch, left over fried rice.

Getting stuck behind slower vehicles than us, yes there are some!

The scenery here is amazing!

Getting closer to Cairns.

Woohoo!

The first thing you notice driving into Cairns is all the sugar cane fields, it's so different from all the scenery we have become so used to seeing, nice and refreshing!

We stopped at the first caravan park we spotted and after another 540 kms on the road we were ready for bed by about 8pm.

The coconut holiday resort is about 15 kms from the centre of town, we didn't know when we first checked in but it has been voted Australia's number one caravan park!

It has two massive pools:

Pool number one.

Pool number two.

The sites are large with palms surrounding each for privacy.

A massive water park for the kids, or adults who are young at heart!

Every Thursday morning for guests there is a free pancake breakfast!! You just have to take your own plates and cutlery.

Massive pancakes!

There is also mini-golf!

Brenton did brag about how good he was and in the end he won, but only by 2 shots and then he refused to have a re-match!

After spending a day exploring our caravan park it was time to check to out Cairns.

Walking along the main beach front in Cairns.

The beach is not really inviting, very swampy and home to crocs!

The mud flats/beach.

Seeing as it's always hot here and you can't swim in the beach they have created the Cairns town beach, a massive swimming pool on the esplanade that even has sand, it's pretty cold and fills up quickly on a hot day, mainly with sun bakers not swimmers!

At first we thought this giant bird was a statue, but as Brent got closer he got further away!

Almost the same height.

Some of the art work near the beach.

Back to the caravan park, on the first ever jumping pillow in Australia (Apparently)

We used Cairns as a base to check out the surrounding areas, first stop Palm Cove, 32 kms from Cairns:

Palm Cove is lovely, again there is a beach that they recommend you don't swim in due to crocs and stingers but they do have flags and a small netted area with lifeguards you can swim in, if you dare!

The pier is a popular fishing spot.

A swamp area near the beach, home to plenty of crocs no doubt!

Nearly fell in!

Kookaburra sits in the old palm tree......

After Palm Cove we headed off to Port Douglas:

Port Douglas is a real tourist hot spot, lots of shops and hotels and besides the beach you can't swim at, there is not a lot to do, except relax by the hotel pool of course.

Our biggest adventure in Cairns was heading out to the Great Barrier Reef, we departed Cairns at 8:30am, a bit chilly but not a cloud in the sky!

Floating away from Cairns

The company we booked the tour with was 'Great Adventures Reef and Green Island Cruises' and after about 45 minutes aboard we were pulling into to our first stop, Green island:

Pulling in at Green Island.

Nice, clear water.

We had two hours to spend on Green Island, so our first aim was to do a lap around the Island, not that's it's very big so we just took our time. There is a resort you here you can stay at but I'm sure the prices would not be cheap.

The beach surrounding Green Island definitely out does Cairns beach!

Maybe just a little excited to be here, can you tell?

These little birds are all over the island, even in the swimming pool!

We had about 45 minutes left after exploring the island and seeing as tour included free snorkelling equipment we decided to make the most of it and had a snorkel at Green Island, it is towards the end of stinger season and they do stress a lot to be aware of it and you can also hire stinger suits that are basically like wet suits, we had our rash vests and apparently they can't sting through them so that did us.

The water at Green isalnd was shallow due to low tide so we did have to swim a fair way of shore to be able to snorkel properly, there were so many fish, just like an aquarium!

After our 2 hours were up and we were finished exploring and snorkelling on Green Island it was back on the boat and off to a pontoon that sits over a part of the great barrier reef. Here we had lunch and spent most of the time until 4pm snorkelling.

It was much deeper here and a lot more fun, we thought there were lots of fish at green island but this place was unbelievable! They didn't even seem too worried that we were there.

We were the first ones to jump in and I didn't look when I jumped off the platform and nearly landed on this fish:

I think he scared me more than I scared him though!!

He was huge!

It is really hard to describe how amazing this under water world is, and of course the pictures don't do it justice.

So many fish!

Scuba Steve..

Purple Coral

So bright!

After snorkelling for an hour or so it was time to get out for a buffet lunch, something that made me get out a little quicker than expected was a visit from this little fella:

A white tipped reef shark.

Apparently they are the 'puppy dog' of the shark family and not really harmful but after seeing them in a feeding frenzy at Coral bay I had no plans to stick around and find out how friendly he was, I chucked the camera at Brenton and hot tailed it out of there!! He got up pretty close and got these shots.

We did jump back in after lunch but I was very alert this time!

Shark Bait

Towards the end we started to see a lot of jelly fish and spent most of the time dodging them so decided to get out and do the semi-submersible coral reef viewing tour that takes you a bit further out than you can swim.

The semi-sub

2350 km from Melbourne

We had such an amazing day! We had perfect weather although it did get a bit chilly in the afternoon just before we were due to leave, it didn't bother us as too much as we had nice cozy window seats inside for the boat trip home which went via Green Island again, just over an hour to get home.