I decided to take a week off and head North into tropical Queensland to the town of Cairns. Cairns is one of the major jumping off points for the Great Barrier Reef as well as for excursions further North into the Daintree Rainforest. Cairns waterfront is very touristy and the beach is not very swimmable, as it is muddy. But it is a great place to head out to the Reef from. I also love anywhere that you can see wild parrots zipping about. In fact, there were quite a few interesting birds around town and on the waterfront.

I liked the botanical gardens better than the Brisbane gardens. There is a boardwalk through the wetlands (although it was quite dry during the whole trip and the stream beds were dry).

I took a couple of day trips out of Cairns and will blog about those later. There are a lot of shops and restaurants in Cairns, but for me, it worked best as a base for other activities in the area. Wifi was a little tough to come by and not many of the cafés had it available.

The weather was great while I was here, 30 degrees Celsius and sunny. A nice breeze today near the ocean as I sit drinking coffee and watching the various birds cavort about in the flowering trees.