Crazy About Cairns and Chris

Obviously I haven’t written in awhile, and I’ve done some really amazing things over the last year that I haven’t shared. But this last trip to Cairns in August is a “must blog” event; Chris and I got engaged there, after all!

The whole reason for the trip was that my Aussie friends Amanda and Jason were getting married there, so it had been in the works for quite some time. I had been to Queensland (briefly) before, on an epic family driving journey from Sydney to Cairns way back in 1998. Honestly, I didn’t remember much of Cairns from that trip -- but to be fair, it was at the end of a very long three weeks trapped in a car with my mom, dad, sister, and grandmother. All my 19 year old self cared about was checking my grades from my very first semester at the University of Wisconsin (of course this was back when you had to call on a "landline" phone and listen to the automated robot voice! And FYI, it was all As and one AB…..GPA of 3.8…..not too shabby for a girl from a small town public school).

Chris and I flew out on the Thursday and the wedding was on Friday, which was absolutely beautiful. We stayed in Palm Cove (the location of the wedding) for two nights, and then stayed the following week in downtown Cairns. We stayed at the Jack and Newell apartments; they get excellent reviews on Trip Advisor and we really enjoyed it there. We had a beautiful apartment overlooking the inlet and harbour with rainforest mountains in the background. 

View from our apartment

Palm Cove Beach

I really can’t recommend northern Queensland enough – affectionately known as FNQ (...effin Q....I find it amusing). There’s tons to do, it’s easy to get around, there’s good service despite (or due to) being a backpackers town, and there’s beautiful scenery….beaches, tropical rainforest, mountains, winding switchback roads that will make you sick, the Great Barrier Reef, tons of animals to see, waterfalls, hiking, gorges, massive strangling fig trees….it pretty much has it all. Chris and I snorkelled the GBR, did some day drives (I had to add to my Australia map of course!). We took the Skyrail over the Daintree Rainforest to Kuranda where we went to a butterfly sanctuary, a bird sanctuary, and I got to hold a koala at the animal park! We then took the train back which winds through the beautiful rainforest. We had several nice meals, and Chris golfed one day while I had a massage and facial. We also spent a day finding gorges and waterfalls, and had lunch and laid on the beach in Port Douglas (I definitely want to spend more time here next time).

And, on the last night of an already fabulous holiday, Chris proposed and I said “of course!”

Butterfly Sanctuary....they were everywhere

Lazy koala in Kuranda

It was so amazing when they handed him to me and
he crawled over, snuggled in and just hung on like I was a tree!

Waterfalls in the Daintree Rainforest

Snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef

A massive strangling fig (The Cathedral Fig), near Atherton