About Cairns
Cairns was established in 1876 as a service port for the inland goldfields. As mining faded, the town reinvented itself through sugar, agriculture and eventually tourism, helped by its position between the rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef.
Today Cairns is the main jumping-off point for reef adventures in northern Queensland. The city has a relaxed tropical feel, with a lively marina, palm-lined esplanade and a famous public lagoon overlooking the sea. It’s less about beaches and more about access to some of Australia’s most spectacular natural scenery
Crystalbrook Riley *****
After an easy drive we arrived in Cairns for a bit of luxury for 3 nights, the five star Crystalbrook Riley where we had splashed out on a King Room with Sea view and balcony … lovely. We decided to park the car in their underground car park and were warned to turn right on entry as it was a bit flooded due to the recent rains, perhaps part of the storm we had seen in Port Douglas the night before. Our room was fabulous, their swimming pool very inviting, and we headed there as soon as we had unpacked for a couple of hours.
If you are ever lucky enough to visit Cairns, we highly recommend this stylish hotel.
Lazy sods
Early evening, we strolled down the road to our only booked excursion, a night tour of the Cairns Aquarium (click to see that experience).
On ending the tour, we had planned to walk over to Cairns Esplanade and get some grub, but surprise (not) it was raining cats & dogs, so much so we ended up staying there for dinner in their restaurant Squires Loft to let the clouds clear before wandering back to the hotel bar for a couple of nightcaps.
Whilst enjoying an Amaretto (Steve) and a gin and lemonade (Nikki), a security guard wandered over to us to let us know that there was only one lift working in the hotel, as the car park had flooded again. Nikki queried whether we needed to be worried about our car parked in there, he thought it would probably be ok !!
Unfortunately, and by the time we had finished our second night cap (one for the road) no lifts were working, and worse, the hotel doesn’t have any stairs, other than the emergency exits. Counting our blessings that we were only on the 4th floor, a hotel employee escorted us up the emergency fire exit to our floor, leaving Steve and I to cross our fingers that all would be well come the morning, including our car, which as we write this, we still haven’t checked …….
We always planned that our second day, Sunday, would be a pool day. Fortunately the previous nights rain had completely cleared away, and we were able to complete our plan, reading books in the warm sunshine, and cooling down every ten minutes in the amazing pools. There are actually about 3 or 4 pools, all linked, but the most interesting one actually has a sandy beach strip, with loungers and umbrellas. Thinking that must create a difficult mess to manage, we discovered that section of pool actually has sand as it’s floor – very innovative and surpringly pleasing under foot.
For the evening we had booked, months ago, a restaurant called Salt House right next to the Cairns pier and marina. Neither of us can remember why we picked the place, but it was certainly worth the visit. It is a massive, sprawling venue with countless seating and dining areas. Steve was particularly impressed by the cusom made BBQ grill in the theatre kitchen and the 2-storey round, glass wine cellar with central spiral staircase. Our meal was lovely (though expensive) and Marco, our Argentinian server, was interested to hear that Steve was a Spurs fan as we have had quite a relationship with Argentinian players over the years. Steve managed to slide into the conversation that he played schoolboy football with Glenn Hoddle for around 5 years. Always impresses Spurs fans.
On Monday, we persuaded ourselves to forsake the lovely pool and head for a walk around Cairns.
There is a lovely esplanade that takes you all the way around to the marina, and this passes a most magnificent public lido (lagoon). We suppose that because the sea is so dangerous in these parts, it’s incumbent on the local council to provide this sort of facility out of care for its residents if nothing else.
We also saw something we have never seen before but we are now seeing everywhere. That is the public barbecue. Phenomenal idea! You just pitch up with your steaks, turn on the gas, cook away and clear up after yourself. All absolutely free! It seems they used to charge A$1 but they had more trouble with people breaking into the cash boxes and stealing the money, so it wasn’t worth the hassle. We could see a couple of these on the greens in Henham!
We had to get back late afternoon to start our now ritual re-packing ready for departure. Nikki had a genius idea before we left UK when we both ordered packing cubes which certainly keep your case tidy, and make regular packing a lot more straight-forward.
In the evening we decided on a last trip to the marina, and a start with cocktails back at Salt House, just as a DJ was beginning a set of perfect sunset vibes.
After Salt House we found a lovely restaurant called The Backyard, part of the Shangri-La hotel, which overlooked the bobbing boats in the marina. The food is Thai based and served by a lovely girl called Marie from Galway. She was working in Cairns as, apparently, a working visa cannot just be used in Sydney, which she loved and could not wait to get back to, and you have to spend some time in the regions if you want to extend. She had chosen Cairns. Nikki was delighted that because we left the EU, this does not apply to UK citizens! One up for BoJo and Nige.
Hamish says ...
It was lovely to move from the quaintness of Port Douglas to the more sophisticated environs of Cairns.
The Riley and the Salt House were 2 stand-out venues and we fell in love with both and definitely found a soft spot for Cairns.
We really enjoyed Cairns and Steve felt another couple of nights there would have been great as it felt like we only scratched the surface.
What's next
We set off on one of our longest drives as we set off on the 351km journey further south to Townsville. We hope to take in some sights on the way, but expect point to point to take 6 or 7 hours.
This place really is chuffing big – we could get to Scotland easily in that time.
2 Responses
Of course you would have to meet an irish person😍
You lot are everywhere!