Girls Weekend in Tropical North Queensland!

After returning from our awesome New Zealand trip, Jill, Erik's mom, arrived for the start of her Australian adventure. It was at that point, in late January, where all but two members of Erik's immediately family were with us in Melbourne. After a quick Great Ocean Road trip and some exploring around Melbourne, Jill, Carlie, and I hopped back on a plane and flew to Cairns, the city most known for its access to the Great Barrier Reef.

We arrive in Cairns early Thursday morning after a 6am flight from Melbourne. While checking into our hostel, Dreamtime Traveler's Rest, the staff helped us to plan out our days in the area. January is rainy season in Cairns, and the area was recovering from a recent tropical cyclone, so diving boats had not gone out a few days prior to our arrival and there was a good chance it might be a few days before they would go out again. The staff advised us to push diving to the end of our trip to hope for better conditions, so they kindly called our car rental company and switched the days of our car hire to allow us to dive on a different day...talk about great customer service! We spent the rest of Thursday checking out our surroundings and walking around Cairns, which has a path that goes right along the waterfront. This is not your typical waterfront though, as there are signs along the path warning walkers about the saltwater crocodiles that inhabit the water!

On Friday morning, we picked up our rental car and headed north towards Cape Tribulation. The scenery on the drive was gorgeous, as everything was incredibly green, especially since we had just left a very dry Melbourne. The beaches around Cape Trib were stunning. Unfortunately, it was stinger season, meaning that we could not get in the water due to box jellyfish in the water. In addition, every beach in the area had the same warning sign above regarding crocs. We did see a few people in the water at various times, but they were just wading in the water to cool off, not actually swimming.

View looking north...

...and facing south.

The water looks so inviting...

until you remember the sign you saw before reaching the beach.

We saw a bit of wildlife during our trip, including a snake that startled the heck out of us, lots of tropical birds, a jellyfish (not the box jellyfish, as we learned they are so small that you cannot see them), and a bunch of cool sand crabs. We had hoped to see a cassowary, and there we road signs everywhere telling us to slow down so we did not hit them, but we never spotted one.

The staff at our hostel advised us to get as far north as we wanted to go early in the day to beat all of the guided tours, then stop at other places on our way back to Cairns. We stopped at a few overlooks that provided sweet coastal views.

Our next stop was at Mossman Gorge, an aboriginal site within the Daintree Rainforest where we did some hiking and then cooled off in the fresh water (no crocs in there, of course!). Following that stop, we headed to Port Douglas to check out "Four Mile Beach". Part of the beach is netted to allow for safe swimming, but it was such a small area that I can imagine it gets super crowded during peak swimming times.

Our last stop of the day was at Palm Cove, a quaint beach town with gorgeous views from the jetty.

On Saturday we took the car out again, this time to head to the Atherton Tablelands to see some waterfalls. The roads around Cairns are full of twists and turns and lots of hills, so it was challenging driving, however, we were often rewarded with beautiful views.

We made a quick stop at Barron Falls, where the water was raging since it had been so rainy in the previous days.

Next up was a visit to Granite Gorge to feed some rock wallabies. This ended up being one of the highlights of our trip and it is one of the coolest things I've experienced since we moved to Australia. I'm even a little hesitant to write about it because I don't want everyone finding out about this gem of a place! We drove down a dirt road to what looked like a remote campsite where we met this lovely older woman who gave us bags of "wallaby food" in exchange for $5. We then freely roamed around the area, just the 3 of us, where we were soon inundated with many rock wallabies wanting snacks!

Baby on board!

This one was holding Carlie's hand while feeding. Do you see the newborn baby? No fur yet! Once we figured out who the moms were, we tried to feed them the most! :)

"I'll take that, thanks!"

We spent over an hour with the fun marsupials before heading onto our next stop. Along the way, Jill wanted to get her picture taken next to the giant termite mounds!

Driving south, we made a few stops along the way, one at Lake Eacham, a volcanic crater lake where TONS of people were swimming. It was Australia Day weekend (like the 4th of July in the States), so people were out in full force. Jill went for a swim while Carlie and I did some people watching. Our last major destination for the day was Millaa Millaa Falls, where we enjoyed the view of the falls and then went for a quick swim!

Sunday was the most anticipated day, our dive day! Jill headed out with a different company for diving since she was not certified (though she has since received her certification while in Fiji!), and Carlie and I went with Tusa Dive. We planned to dive 3 times during the course of the day and we were put in a group of 6 total divers with one guide, Larissa. The ride out to the reef was rough. Carlie and I both took motion sickness tablets but both ended up getting sick on the boat. There were lots of people getting sick and we were told that it happens all of the time, but it was still a bit humiliating! Once we got in the water though, we were fine. Unfortunately, due to the rough conditions, the visibility was not awesome. We did get to see some amazing colored sea slugs, a variety of cool fish, and some awesomely structured coral. We also saw a sea turtle on the surface, and almost ran into a squid while we were surfacing on one dive. I have GoPro video from each dive, but they didn't turn out very well, likely due to the lighting conditions.

We had a good experience diving the Great Barrier Reef, but like many people had mentioned to me before our trip, it may be a bit overrated. Granted, we did not have great conditions, so I would definitely like to give it another go, perhaps at a different location. I asked Larissa her favorite place to dive in Australia and she said that the wreck in Townsville (a few hours south of Queensland) is amazing, so perhaps that might be my next dive adventure, since Erik and I have a friend that lives near Townsville.

The Great Barrier Reef from above!

On Monday morning we headed to the airport separately, asI was heading back to Melbourne to start my new job, and Carlie and Jill were headed to Sydney for a few days. The Hanson ladies had an awesome long weekend exploring Cairns and the surrounding area. Not sure when and where our next girls weekend will be, but I am already looking forward to it! :)