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Jetty, Palm Cove
Image © David Powell, 2007
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Palm Cove Beach, from Jetty
Image © David Powell, 2007
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Day 7
A bit of a quiet day today. Slept in (well it was a holiday). Mid
morning we hit Palm Cove for a photo session ... the sun was shining,
the sky a brilliant blue and the beach full of people. In the water
too. Must be the start of the summer season or at least the stinger
season .. for the first time the stinger nets were out. Stingers are a
particular nasty variety of jellyfish. All up and down the coast,
anywhere there's a beach, no matter how remote, you'll find hollow
steel pillars, maybe a metre tall, painted red and containing (under a
screw cap) a bottle of vinegar in case of a stinger sting. Given how
many of these stinger stations there are the critters must be a real
menace come the warm half of the year. Anyway .. there were people
lazing on the beach, swimming, kayaking, floating, sailing, jet skiing
.. whatever took their fancy. Walked to the end of the jetty ... which
stretches at least 50 metres from the shore. Great views in every
compass direction: north to the rocky point, south along the beach,
west inland and the palm trees and mountains overlooking everything and
east over the Coral Sea and the offshore islands nearby. Quite a few
people fishing from the jetty, tho' not with any great success .. only
saw one fish caught, a tiddler that had to have been all of 3-4" long.
I guess it's a case of all the one's that got away. Hit the local
tourist shop for some souveniers and local T-shirts.
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Rocky headland, north end Palm Cove Beach
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Fishing off Palm Cove Jetty
Image © David Powell, 2007 | View back down jetty, Palm Cove
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
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Palm Cove beach from jetty
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Palm Cove beach
Image © David Powell, 2007 | Palm Cove beach
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
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Palm trees & beach,
Palm Cove
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Palm trees & beach, Palm Cove
Image © David Powell, 2007 | View thru' trees,
Palm Cove Beach
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
View thru' trees, Palm Cove Beach
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Then onto Cairns. Time for a bit of background on Cairns, I guess.
Founded in 1876 as a gold-rush port, the town grew over the following
century on the backs of successive booms, most notably gold, tin and
sugar. In the 1980's the town had its biggest boom as tourism took off
in the region as the world discovered the Great Barrier Reef and the
Wet Tropics rainforests, both of which are now World Heritage listed.
Cairns was named after William Wellington Cairns, the then Governor of
Queensland.
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Hides Corner, City Place, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007
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Marlin Marina, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007
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Popped into Rusty's Market's ... a real "foodies" delight. Seems many
of the restaurants in the region buy their fare there, so it can't be
half bad .. and the prices are incredibly cheap (and not just tropical
stuff!). There're local tea and coffee plantations (well in the
Daintree area), so there're stalls selling speciality teas and coffees.
Even if you're just there to have a look, its worth the time to window
shop ... and not just window shop! The sugarcane juice stall is a must.
if you've never had freshly squeezed sugarcane juice (squeezed when you
order ... it's that fresh), then you are missing a true delight. Sweet
(but not sickly sweet) and extremely refreshing, especially with a hint
of mandarin added. For city parking try the Reef Casino .. it's about
the cheapest in town and all undercover. Well Rusty's has free
undercover parking, but that's pretty much all taken up by the stall
holders before the crack of dawn. Rusty's has been a feature of Cairns
since 1975 and today has almost 200 stalls. As for the name - it was
named after Emrys "Rusty" Rees who started it all off.
Had lunch in the Boardwalk Cafe, right by the Marlin Marina. Neat views
of the Trinity Inlet and the mountains to the south of Cairns. Pretty
standard stuff in the marina for the most part .. reef cruise ships,
private charter ships (think Gilligan's Island stuff .. incidentally
Gilligan's is the name of one of the resorts in Cairns and the current
owners of Rusty's Markets), fishing boats and a smattering of yachts.
One unusual sight was a replica of an old sailing ship, complete with
six cannons. I latter found it was the Duyfken (well a replica of that
ship), a 16th century Dutch ship which was the first recorded European
ship to visit Australia. It's now a floating museum.
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Cruise ship & Replica of Duyfken,
Marlin Marina, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Reef Fleet Terminal, Marlin Marina, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 | Copper Palm trees & Shangri-La Hotel,
Marlin Marina, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
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Reef Casino, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007
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Wildlife Dome, Reef Casino, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007
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After lunch it was off to the Reef Casino. No, not for the casino but
for the wildlife sanctuary that's on the top - "The Wildlife Dome". The
Dome is a spectacular all-weather wildlife exhibit encased by a 20
metre high glass dome on the rooftop of the Reef Hotel Casino. It
opened in 2003 and strangely enuf it's not owned by the casino but a
local family-owned tourism operator. Wildlife is a bit of a misnomer -
most of the residents are rainforest birds, tho' they do have a
crocodile, koalas, snakes, fresh water alligators, turtles, swamp
wallabies, bandicoots, sugar gliders, lizards and bats. There were even
a few dragons including one that roamed "free" along the walking trails
- an Eastern Water Dragon affectionately called "Rambo". For the most
part tho' it was birds, birds and more birds. Quite similar to the bird
sanctuary at Kuranda. They have shows throughout the day in a little
amphitheater .. you can sit and watch or just wander around the
rainforest looking for the birds. Fortunately the wilder wildlife are
in enclosures. It's one thing to have Rambo wandering around the paths
with the tourists, it'd be another for the rather large Saltwater Croc
to do the same .. no doubt there'd be a few less tourists if that was
the case! For those so inclined, the Dome is one of the few places
where you can actually get to touch a koala - most parks now it's
strictly "eyes only". It was quite hot up there ... so hot that quite a
few of the birds were lying on the ground panting. Can't say I blame
them!
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King parrot,
Wildlife Dome, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Papuan frogmouth, Wildlife Dome, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 | Black cockatoo,
Wildlife Dome, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Bar shouldered dove, Wildlife Dome, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
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Saltwater crocodile, Wildlife Dome, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Saltwater crocodile, Wildlife Dome, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 | Freshwater Crocodile, Wildlife Dome, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
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Interior,
Wildlife Dome, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Sugar glider baby, Wildlife Dome, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 | Koala, Wildlife Dome,
Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Cynthia & Koala, Wildlife Dome, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
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Rambo, Eastern Water Dragon
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Yellow Oriole, Wildlife Dome, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 | Eclectus parrot, Wildlife Dome, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
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King parrot,
Wildlife Dome, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Top Knot pigeon, Wildlife Dome, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 | Kookaburra,
Wildlife Dome, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Trinity Inlet from Wildlife Dome, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
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Finished the day's sightseeing off spending an hour or two walking the
streets of downtown Cairns. A bit of shopping, a lot of window
shopping, not to mention sore feet and foto's. One thing to keep an eye
out for is coral jewellery. It's not cheap, but beautiful and certainly
unusual. I've not seen it on sale anywhere else. Every piece is
different .. not just the settings but the coral itself which is cut,
shaped, coloured and polished. Each piece is like a fingerprint ..
unique in the patterns and colours.
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Pool playground, The Esplanade, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
School of Arts-Historical Museum, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 | The Central Hotel, Cairns
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Back to Palm Cove where we had dinner at NuNu's, which apparently has a
big reputation in foodie circles around the country. Strictly bookings
only and every evening we walked past it was packed, so I guess a lot
of visitors know about it's reputation. Pretty posh despite having
alfresco dining.
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Sunset over mountains, near Palm Cove
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
Cynthia at NuNu's Restaurant, Palm Cove
Image © David Powell, 2007 | Palm Cove sign, Palm Cove
Image © David Powell, 2007 |
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