Backpacking in Australia: Part 2 - By Hayley Hobbs

Cairns/Cape tribulation

Cairns:

Thanks to everyone for reading my last post on how I began my trip of a lifetime to Australia. To pick up from where I left off, we flew into Cairns on the Sunday a bit tired from our long and stressful journey. However, as soon as we arrived in Cairns we knew it had all been worth it. Cairns was a really nice city, very green and not at all like your average concrete jungle. It has so many quirky points! The weirdest one has got to be all the bats! We could see loads of them hanging from the trees and flying around in the sunlight, which seemed odd as UK bats are all nocturnal (as far as I know). There was also a huge pool in the middle of the city where people congregated to chat and cool down by the water. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t great, which felt like a huge disappointment as Australia is supposed to be known for its sunshine! The weather wasn’t just a bit rubbish, it was really odd. Being from the UK I am used to waking up to rain, hiding under my umbrella all day, and falling asleep to the sound of the rain on my window. But this is not how it worked in Oz! It chucked it down for 30 minutes, then 45 minutes later you wouldn’t even know it had rained! Anyway, before setting off to our next location: Cape Tribulation, we decided to spend a day trying our hands at white water rafting! We travelled south of Cairns to the Tully River and spent the day hanging onto our raft and getting soaked, it was awesome!

Cape Tribulation:

We booked ourselves onto an organised tour bus up to our next stop: Cape Tribulation. The journey was approximately 4 hours long without stopping anywhere on the way. However, our bus stopped at a few places for sightseeing, so it took us quite a while to get there. We stopped at a zoo near Port Douglas on the way and one of the highlights of the zoo has got to be getting our picture taken holding a koala. They hang on so tight! We also stopped at Mossman Gorge which was very beautiful; the river was crystal clear but icy cold! Our driver gave us some important tips on which leaves we shouldn’t touch as some were poisonous! Only in Oz could they make poisonous leaves! He also showed us some ants whose bums taste like citrus and dared us to lick them, which eventually we did, and we were amazed that they tasted like sherbet! After this we went slightly north and stopped at the Daintree River to look for crocodiles. I managed to spot one!

Cape T is a rainforest so as expected it was really hot and humid in there; however it is a very popular attraction and catered for tourists with hostels and activities. There were a fair few big spiders, which were the first ones we had seen since we had arrived in Oz. The hostel was probably the worst one we had stayed in so far; it had concrete floors and walls and tons of cobwebs around the windows. Eventually we decided we couldn’t cope with the room and asked to be moved. Our next room was still basic, but a bit more comfortable. During our 2 day stay we did jungle surfing using zip wires across the trees, which was pretty scary but really fun! I was quite nervous at the start, but quickly got into it and really enjoyed myself!

After our stay we drove back to Cairns on the same organised tour bus. We got back at 7pm but we didn’t have any time to relax because at midnight we got on an 8 hour ride on a Greyhound bus, as you can imagine we were exhausted! Luckily I slept the whole way to our next destination…

Best things about Cairns/Cape T: The best bits about the Cairns/Cape T part of our tour has got to be the Jungle surfing and white water rafting! It’s also really good that we managed to book all sightseeing and transport as one package to keep it simple and easy to keep track of our money. The all-girls hostel in Cairns was also really good – the owners of the hostel were very friendly and the hostel is in a good location for sightseeing.

Worst things about Cairns/Cape T: The worst thing has got to be PJs hostel as it was very basic, but you have to keep in mind it was in the middle of the rainforest!

Tips: If you’re planning a trip to Oz and are thinking of going to Cape T you really need to wear proper walking shoes, as you need your feet covered to protect you against standing on spiders and poisonous leaves. Also, don’t swim in any lakes or rivers unless you’re told they are safe because you don’t know what might be in there!

To be continued.....

--Hayley