Somewhere beyond the sea

Travel tales

I consider myself lucky that I got an offsite opportunity for three months in Sydney, Australia. These three months gave me a chance to explore all the beauty and fun that Australia has to offer. Out of all the travels, my trip to Cairns, Queensland was the most memorable one.

As the plane approached Cairns for landing, we could  see beautiful cotton-like clouds and through that the vast green land and ocean.  That itself prepared us for the many more awesome sights that awaited us.

Cairns has a lot to offer to all kinds of travellers. There is ample scenic beauty for older travellers looking for a peaceful and calm holiday and a lot of adventure activities for young spirited people. We mainly went to Cairns for diving at the Great Barrier Reef, but felt that the five days that we had there were just not enough to cover all the things the place has to offer.

Although the best time to visit is from April to November, we visited in February and found the weather to be pleasant enough, with light spells of rain. Our trip was a mix of leisure and adventure activities and we started our first day with a city tour, with the first point being a hillside lookout offering a bird’s eye view of the entire city. Then we visited Flecker Botanical Gardens and walked through the Barron Gorge National Park, finally getting dropped off at the Esplanade swimming pool. It is a big public swimming pool located between the beach and the Esplanade and is free to use for all. The pool has many good restaurants nearby and after a delicious Thai meal, we headed back to our rooms to rest for our Great Barrier Reef adventure the next day.

It is suggested that you do not fly at least 24 to 48 hours after your ocean dive, so we decided to do this on our second day itself. We were taken out in a speedboat to the diving platform in the middle of the ocean. It was thrilling and a bit scary as well to be there, right in the middle of the ocean. Our trip organisers were very meticulous in all their arrangements and took care to see that everything was in place.

We were provided with the  snorkeling and diving gear and our instructor warned us that once we are underwater, we are likely to get excited and squeal. Despite being fairly warned, we all did exactly that of course. It was breathtaking  to see the marine life upclose and the corals which shimmered in the water when light fell on them. We were all silent on our trip back home as it was a different feeling to be so close to nature and its beauty.

We had an early start on the third day with a hot-air balloon trip at 5 am. The balloon flew us over the mainland and post landing, we were served champagne and an English breakfast. Later in the day, we took a scenic ride in the Kuranda Railway.

The ride took about one-and-a-half hours one way and the destination was Kuranda village where we had lunch and the experience of holding a koala. For the return trip, we took the skyrail, which flies above the tropical forests.

On the fourth day, we took a trip to Cape Tribulation and Daintree. We walked through a 135 million-year-old rainforest, fed kangaroos on the way and took a boat cruise on the Daintree river, the domain of the estuarine crocodile as well as tree snakes, pythons, water birds and butterflies.

We were all feeling a little sad as our wonderful trip was coming to an end; however, our last adventure of ATV bikes awaited us still. We were given a quick session on handling the ATV and geared up in helmets and mud boots and went to the so-called track. I found handling the ATV a little difficult so the instructor had to ride with me but it was fun and challenging. We also discovered that there were more things like bungee jumping and river rafting that we could have done if we had time.

Promising ourselves another visit to this land of beauty and adventure, we flew back contented to Sydney.

How to get there

There are no direct flights from Bengaluru. One can take a stopover in Singapore and fly directly to Cairns, probably by Air Asia or Tigerair. If you plan to visit from any of the Australian cities, there are many cheap flight options by Jetstar or Virgin Blue. The round trip flight cost per person from Sydney to Cairns was around Rs 10,000.

Places to stay

* The tariff at Best Western Central Plaza Cairns was around Rs 8,000 per room per night on twin-sharing basis.
* The five-day adventure package cost us around Rs 35,000 per person.

(The author can be contacted at [e-mail])