thekasumovics

Beautiful Queensland – a whole spectrum of landscapes including developed cities like Cairns, pristine beaches, the Great Barrier Reef and lush rainforest.

Travel Log (October 22 to 28, 2009)

Thursday morning we woke early to catch our flight to Cairns. It felt strange to wake before Tomas, but we did and were in the cab by 5:45am.  Tomas was very entertained as we killed time at the airport watching all the airplanes and other vehicles! We arrived in Cairns later that morning and hopped into our rental car and headed inland towards the Kuranda Spa Resort, about a 30 minute drive. The road was really windy from Cairns to Kuranda so we did our best to keep from being motion sick!

We stayed in a beautiful wooden villa in the middle of a small patch of rainforest. The villa was very modern and spacious. The beds were surprisingly comfortable which was great for Mike’s back. The resort itself was beautiful. There were 3 outdoor pools surrounded by tropical rocky gardens and they extended into the restaurant so you could eat by the water!

Every morning we’d go for a swim with Tomas who loved to splash around in the shallow part of the pool and venture out to deeper water where there were two jets that shot bubbles to the surface. Tomas couldn’t get enough of the bubbles!

Friday evening we attended Katerina and Tim’s wedding.  They are such a lovely couple. All of us (Mike, Damian, Tomas and I) enjoyed the ceremony and basking in the sun while the couple took photos. Then Mike and I took turns trying to get Tomas to sleep – he was so excited because of all the activity and would not settle. Finally, we had to take him to the villa to sleep (on quieter nights we could put him to sleep in the pram and all eat dinner together). Once he was asleep we took turns watching him in the villa -that way we could still enjoy the wedding.

While we were in Kuranda we went to the butterfly sanctuary and checked out the town. We saw beautiful gemstones and my personal favourite: opals embedded in sandstone rock -called Boulder Opals from Queensland. We spent one morning hiking to the Barron Falls in the rainforest and another afternoon hiking along the river where there we saw ducks, huge fig trees, and frogs.

Our last day in Kuranda we joined the wedding crew for a trip to the Great Barrier Reef! We took a boat out to a stationary platform situated at the Reef. It was a pretty rough ride out to the Reef and many people (including Mike) were motion sick and spent their time on the lower level of the boat looking out at the horizon. Tomas was a bit freaked out by all the people on the boat and spent the ride cuddling with mom until he finally fell asleep.

The Reef was AMAZING! We spent about 4 hours on the platform jumping in and out of the water snorkeling around the Reef. The platform had a small kiddy pool where Tomas swam and saw lots of tropical fish swimming close to the surface. The platform also had a glass viewing area on the lower level which was also great for checking out the fish.

After 4 nights in the Kuranda resort, we headed north to the Daintree Rainforest. WOW, what an amazing lush rainforest right on the coast. As we drove north we saw beautiful pristine beaches on the right and rainforest on the left. It was pretty dry along the shore however and about half way along our route we saw a bush fire that had reached the side of the road! We called emergency and reported it. Luckily someone had already reported it and help was on the way.

We spent one night at a resort in the middle of the Daintree Rainforest. It was our favourite spot by far. The resort was completely buried in dense rainforest to the point where you had to park your car under a metal canopy to avoid damage from large nuts and fruits falling from the trees. Damian spent a good part of our evening sitting still hoping to see the illusive cassowary as there had been sitings of a male attending to 2 chicks. Too bad the cassowaries did not show. BUT while we ate dinner (with Tomas asleep in the pram) we saw a musky rat kangaroo (the smallest of all kangaroos), which I like to call a “rataroo” that came up to us at the table looking for scraps I’m sure.  We did a couple hikes in the Daintree rainforest -one in a dense rainforest environment and the other in a mangrove coastal system – both were amazing.  Mike and Damian spent their time checking out all the rainforest animals (mostly bugs) while Tomas followed them around to see what they had found.

Our last night was spent in Cairns as we had an early flight back to Sydney the next morning. Before dinner we walked along the esplanade (not the beach as Cairns is just a mudflat). We couldn’t believe the number of splash pads along our route. Here we thought we’d be able to put Tomas to sleep in the pram but no such luck with all this water around. He jumped right in with his clothes on!

Finally we made it home…..it was a great adventure but it’s always nice to come home:)